How About ‘Cash for My Crap Mortgage’?
Forget about replicating the success of the surge in Iraq: Whoever came up with "cash for clunkers" should be put in charge of everything. The clunkers program ended Monday -- under budget -- after moving almost 700,000 new fuel-efficient cars through an auto industry in the grip of rigor mortis. To put things in perspective, the whole program cost less than 2 percent of AIG's bailout.
Forget about replicating the success of the surge in Iraq: Whoever came up with “cash for clunkers” should be put in charge of everything. The clunkers program ended Monday — under budget — after moving almost 700,000 new fuel-efficient cars through an auto industry in the grip of rigor mortis. To put things in perspective, the whole program cost less than 2 percent of AIG’s bailout.
Handouts to those who surrendered their gas guzzlers in buying new cars totaled $3 billion — chump change by Washington standards. Multiply that figure by 1,000 and consider the impact that the money spent on the financial bailout, including guarantees, could have had. — PS
WAIT, BEFORE YOU GO…Los Angeles Times:
Dealers submitted 690,114 applications for rebates totaling nearly $2.9 billion through Tuesday’s deadline, the department said. The program, which offered rebates of $3,500 and $4,500 to motorists trading in a gas guzzler for a more fuel-efficient new car, proved wildly popular. It burned through its initial $1-billion allotment in about a week when it began late last month, causing Congress to quickly authorize an additional $2 billion.
Obama administration officials had hoped the money would keep the program running through Labor Day. But concerns that it would go over its budget led LaHood to announce last week that it was ending on Monday. Dealers could not have been reimbursed for rebates once the program reached its $3-billion limit.
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Lessons learned from the 2008 financial crisis show that taxpayer-funded blank checks to institutions do nothing to help those struggling
If the president wants the federal government to be able to borrow cheaply, there are far better options than negative interest rates.
"I can think of no matter of 'intense public interest' about which 'the American people deserve the details' than the issue of what precisely happened to the criminal referrals that followed the 2008 crash."
Great Britain’s decision to leave the European Union presages perhaps another global financial meltdown. Banks will again demand massive bailouts. We will be forced to again swallow austerity measures, and there will be a continued decline in living standards.
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