WTF? Seriously.
Dealers who participate in the cash for clunkers program are required to “embalm” engines on the trade in cars and ship them off to be crushed. This requires, draining all the oil, pouring in a silicate solution that hardens with temperature, then redlining the engine until it permanently seizes up.
Examples:
I first thought this was just a few kids getting off on destroying stuff. But, this is required stuff. You trade in your vehicle, even if it runs just fine in order to take advantage of the program and this is the fate your vehicle will see.
Shelving my car loving sentimental feelings for a bit, this is just wasteful. “Eliminate government waste”. Here is a perfect example of spending MY (our) tax payer money to replace a vehicle that still runs in most cases. Look at that Volvo in the video above, its like a new car! If someone wants to sell their car and get a new one, that is fine. But, then someone else buys the old one and continues to get use from the asset. “Return on capital” is what it is called.
This is something fitting from the Glenn Beck show:
You want to talk about a disposable society? Here it is. Let me ask you, are you someone or do you know someone in this economy that could use a working car? Do you know somebody who’s fallen on hard times that can get their car repaired? Do you know somebody who’s driving something unsafe because they can’t afford something else? Do you know someone looking for a used car? Who will now find that prices are artificially higher because the government is inexplicably shredding a quarter of a million used cars that could be used on the market? Are you somebody who’s going into college that wants to buy a used car? Good luck. We have seen this destruction before. FDR did it. In May 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as part of the New Deal, he started the Agriculture Adjustment Administration. Business for farmers, not real good. Kind of like the car business. He wanted to artificially alter the farmers market. Sound familiar? Cotton prices he deemed too low. What to do, what to do. He created a nonexistent shortage. He destroyed 10 million acres of cotton.
Makes me want to go whisper sweet nothings at my Jeep.
Sickening!