White House LIES: CFC
Courtesy of Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker
This is ridiculous and anyone who believes it deserves to eat The White House Dog’s used food:
The administration’s blog post argued that Clunkers helped to lower auto prices on the rest of the vehicle market as well, a fact the administration said Edmunds ignored.
What a total load of crap.
First, I personally walked into dealerships during the "CFC" program time, and every single one of those dealers was literally screwing everyone who walked into the door.
Normally, you can buy an American car for $100 or so over invoice price. I have, in fact, not purchased one vehicle for more since I started buying cars! My last "new" American vehicle, a 2002 Suburban, was bought during the 0% "craze" following 9/11 and even with the 0% financing I bought it for $1,000 UNDER factory invoice. I saw no dealer willing to sell at anything approaching that number this time – they were all selling at full sticker, and two had their own "supplemental rip-off stickers" on the windows that they refused to negotiate on yet were full of junk (the usual "undercoating" and "fabric protection" for $250 garbage.) People literally got robbed to the tune of $2,000, $3,000 and sometimes more than the rebate was worth on these so-called "deals."
Second, this "program" destroyed the low end resale market. It literally took all those cars and crushed them! If you were in the market for such a clunker as the only car you could afford they all disappeared for the duration of that program. This did severe damage to sections of the used-car market and the consumers dependent on it.
This program was nothing other than a royal screwing of the American Consumer and a sop to the UAW, and that’s a fact. Edmunds got this exactly right and the White House is pissed off that they got called on their incessant lies by a very influential auto industry publication.
Well, boo-freaking-hoo Barry.
