You’re welcome Private cant-think-straight. As I stated discretionary spending is dependant on who is spending the money. Just as some people don’t buy cars until theirs are dead/dying, they won’t buy an appliance for the same reason; depends on the consumer’s wants/needs. Private cant-think-straight might want to look into what also happens during kitchen remodels if he thinks appliances are not seen as sexy cool or fun.

"There are thousands of people living in New York City that don’t own cars yet have refrigerators."

Thank you, Captain Obvious, but those "thousands" of people in New York don't determine discretionary spending for the entire nation. Appliances will never be sexy or cool or fun (the "want" part of your equation). The average person won't buy a new appliance until their old one dies.

Hey Hannah,

Just curious, about what % has your dealership gotten reimbursed thru the fed. govt or whomever the 3500 to 4500 voucher and is that going to hurt dealerships by not having enough money to float until 2-3 months from now probably when the dealerships finally get paid? I can see the vouchers taking 2-3 months for dealerships to get paid which is a long time. Nothing the govt. does is done quickly, but they sure deposit your income tax checks if you happen to pay into the govt. instead of getting a refund which takes forever to get back thru the mail with the feds.

“Appliance purchases are far less discretionary than cars.”
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Where did you learn this? Both cars and appliances are discretionary based on a consumers want, demand, or where the live. There are thousands of people living in New York City that don’t own cars yet have refrigerators.

oooohhhh and by the way the system crashed again all weekend and the goverment responce was "TOO BAD" they extended till noon Tuesday to submit but from there you are on your own

Guys you people sometime really amaze me. Yes was the program a partial succes yes it was. I say only in part because the "goverment" completely screwed the pooch on the administration of said program. Requirements hard to satisfy and a computor system from the stone age to administer a program of such magnitude and now turns its poor performance back at the dealer. What a joke. More finger pointing from such a lack luster administration. Yet you folks want to debate who bought what. I got news for you American car dealers did not have the inventory to continue. Hence the order out provision. The whole program could have been a nice touch but ended up a debacle because of very poor planning by the administration.

"wish the one of mine would break so i can get another that matches!!"

That brings up an interesting point. Appliance purchases are far less discretionary than cars. The appliance rebates are expected to be $50 to $200. I wonder how many people are going to jump if they don't really need an appliance right now.

Hey Hannah, who cares about your refrigerator needs? Your serial posting, misspellings and typos are getting old. So are the rude and insensitive comments you made this past weekend.

The appliance must be Energy Star certified to qualify for the rebate, and you won't have to trade in an old one.

No, tinkle-down economics favors tax breaks for the rich, hoping their goodness of heart will trickle down to everyone else. C4C actually stimulates sales, helps middle class folks (who spend the most money), and anyone else in the supply chain, including all those workers now getting overtime or being called back to work.

The biggest drivers of economic growth in this country are housing and auto manufacturing. The last tax cuts/rebates by Bush/Obama haven't done much to stimulate the economy, and create just as big a problem (lower revenues) down the road if spending isn't brought under control. Supply-side economics doesn't work in a recession.

Zoom; That $3 billion STIMULUS pulled forward 3-5 TIMES that amount in sales, which helps everyone in the supply chain and increases local tax revenues. That's a good result for a relatively small cost. I know this program didn't conform to conservative, tinkle-down economic principles, but it worked.
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Dont look now but your making the case for trickle down economics - this is the exact same thing except it only helped industry directly related to auto industry & those that chose to buy the cars. Tax Breaks help EVERYONE.

Yep steralership and insurance companies all are bad and only the government is good...hard to talk logically when you think this.

RAF, nobody dropped $3 billion in a pile, did they. That $3 billion STIMULUS pulled forward 3-5 TIMES that amount in sales, which helps everyone in the supply chain and increases local tax revenues. That's a good result for a relatively small cost. I know this program didn't conform to conservative, tinkle-down economic principles, but it worked.

Comparing C4C to health care reform is another straw man argument by the anti-reformers. Considering how insurance companies continue to screw us, it's time for a different solution.

Did anyone else notice that the cars being turned in as "clunkers" are American made and the cars being purchased are foreign cars? What does this say about the auto companies and the workers who made them? Ouch!

Zoom where did I or anyone object to short term loans? Nice try at deflecting. Any free money is going to be popular, that is a given, and was never doubted.

The ironic issue is you claiming this was going to keep dealerships out of bankruptcy and more dealerships are in trouble now than before the program started. So much so that the government backed GM is floating loans to dealerships while they wait for their money from the C4C program; vehicles sold and gone that dealers have not been fully paid for. Hundreds of dealers across the nation stopped participating because they have not been paid!

You call that a success? On what measure, because people went for free government money? News-flash that happens everyday in this country. If you dropped 3 billion dollars in a pile in any city or state millions of people would fight for it.

This debacle was with just 3 billion. Health care is said to be anywhere from 6-13% of national GDP (depending on which numbers you believe). You seriously want the same people to manage 1000 times the size of C4C program and expect it too work?

RAF, now you're objecting to short term LOANS to dealers? Keep stretching. Admit it. This GOVERNMENT program was wildly popular, even beyond the expectations of the dealers. The first $1 billion was expected to last until NOVEMBER by Republicans.

C4C is a stimulus program that was successful. You can argue the benefits of government stimuli (even though that is the mechanism that historically has pulled our economy out of recessions), but to argue that THIS stimulus was unsuccessful because of short term problems resulting from it's populariity are silly.

I find it sad that some dealers (well, hannah, anyway) are now complaining about selling TOO MANY cars. Hannah, there is a reason people call the type of place you work a stealership. Do you seriously think you would have sold more cars over the long run without this program? How do you figure you will be "behind", since you admitted your stealership didn't start with many cars to begin with? Maybe your boss just didn't plan well.

Zoom, what is truly funny, you said this program was to keep dealerships from going bankrupt. Now GM is floating loans to dealers waiting to get paid by the government so they don't go bankrupt; government owned GM loaning our taxpayer money to dealers waiting on C4C tax payer money from an ill run program?

Your blinders don't allow you to see how ironic the whole situation is.

Next thing you know the elitists will tell us we won WWII and got out of the Great Depression with borrowed money. Oh wait we did.

Good riddens CARS!

That sums it up!

Now lets wait for the layoffs and salesmen to get laid off at dealerships because they have no cars to sell and will be bored out of their mind once again, at least for awhile.

I put together some good resources, if you’re interested in the Cash for Clunkers program.

http://www.autostimulusplan.org/

I gathered a list of Pros and Cons for the individual (4-Pro, 6-Con), and Pros and Cons for the Collective Soul (6-Pro, 12-Con).

After the results are in, I’d like to post the statistics to show benefits vs. consequences.

This program was a success at giving away more borrowed money to prop up the auto industry. It isn't always this easy to give away money, but sometimes you get lucky and people will take it. Anyone with government health care is living in a parallel health care universe and cannot possibly be expected to understand what it is like to pay for health care.

No, RAF retired from GOVERNMENT employment. Too funny.

Leave it to stealerships to complain about selling TOO MANY cars.

This is what you call a high-class problem folks.

"But many dealers are nervous they won't be repaid. As of Thursday, only about 7 percent of rebates had been repaid.

There's fear that the government's Web system for processing dealer paperwork will be overwhelmed. That happened when the program looked likely to end earlier this month."

And these are the folks we're going to turn over our health care to, good luck.

The reason this is "messed up" as you call it, is because it was way more popular than anyone imagined. Plus, dealers were not forced to use this program, and they understood the delays involved after seeing the first wave of buyers.

Nope, not in the insurance industry.

Yeah, health care is running just fine in this country. What insurance company do you work for, RAF ???????

And so many people want government to "fix" health care...look how messed up this has become, think what our economy would be like with them controlling almost 16% of GDP; Yikes!