Reason Morning Links: Cashless Clunkers, Merciless Taxmen, and Shameless Tourists

Jesse Walker | July 31, 2009

• Cash-for-clunkers runs out of cash.

• Tax-fed firms keep paying big bonuses.

• Another wave of protests breaks out in Iran.

• Signs of a Republican recovery?

• Rhode Island threatens to close more than 1,200 businesses for failing to pay sales taxes.

• Army medical centers score poorly on timely access to routine treatments.

• According to a new CDC report, 11 percent of out-of-pocket medical spending in America goes to alternative remedies.

• Some towns have unique reasons for installing surveillance cameras.

Comments

tarran|7.31.09 @ 8:42AM|#

Jesse, That Cleveland Leader article has a link to a really wacked story:
Two Ohio Police Chiefs Arrested in Plot to Break-in SJP's Surrogate's Home

Seriously! Two police chiefs were arrested for attempting to steal stuff that they could then sell to tabloids.

|7.31.09 @ 8:48AM|#

Isnt it amazing how they have endless funds for Iraq, Afghanistan and other places we dont belong? Endless funds to bail out banks and corporations, but when it comes to a program that is clearly HELPING Main Street America they cry broke!

RT
www.anon-web-tools.tk

nobody|7.31.09 @ 8:59AM|#

Oh Anonymity-Bot! You're at a libertarian forum, you little bot, you. You must have had your response set to Liberal by mistake. It's okay. We still love you.

Joe M|7.31.09 @ 9:00AM|#

I can't believe reason hasn't picked up John Conyers' latest nonsense. He doesn't think he should have to put the effort into reading the health care bill because that would just be too much work:

What good is reading the bill?

|7.31.09 @ 9:02AM|#

This is a story from the local rag about another innocent person dead as a result of the war on drugs.

Sorry for the threadjack, but I thought it is important and this is a multi subject kinda thread.

|7.31.09 @ 9:04AM|#

|7.31.09 @ 9:05AM|#

http://www2.dothaneagle.com/dea/news/crime_courts/article/ozark_stands_by_officers_involved_in_deadly_police_chase/85702/

hmm|7.31.09 @ 9:06AM|#

• Some towns have unique reasons for installing surveillance cameras.

Am I the only one that sees the potential for income here? How about make more of the fucking signs and sell them. (omg pun)

|7.31.09 @ 9:06AM|#

I'm a sugerfree channeling sob today;)

Fist of Etiquette|7.31.09 @ 9:07AM|#

Cash for Clunkers runs out of money? A Federal program runs out of money??? This. Cannot. Be.

...

Or, is this actually the Obama Administration's opening shot in the War on Big Landfill.

|7.31.09 @ 9:10AM|#

here

hmm|7.31.09 @ 9:14AM|#

Jesse, That Cleveland Leader article has a link to a really wacked story:
Two Ohio Police Chiefs Arrested in Plot to Break-in SJP's Surrogate's Home

I don't know about all of Ohio, but the area I grew up in had some of the most crooked police around. Now some of the people I grew up with work as cops and guess what. Ya, they are just as crooked. Plus that's Cleveland. It's like a mini Detroit.

WWJGD|7.31.09 @ 9:14AM|#

I was really looking forward to dumping my car and getting a nice new 100% import to slap that "LOL@Obama Voters & Thanks for the Car" bumper sticker on. Damn you, totally unforeseen financial inevitability!!

|7.31.09 @ 9:18AM|#

The cash for clunkers continues the war on poor people. Rather than buying them and putting them in a junkyard. No, the government is buying the cars and crushing them and rendering all of their parts usless. That is going to destroy the used and reconditioned parts market, which will significantly raise the cost of fixing a car. Not only is the government trying to destroy affordable cars, they are trying to make it impossible to fix the ones it can't destroy.

Why do liberals hate poor people so much?

hmm|7.31.09 @ 9:21AM|#

Cash for clunkers was never about poor people. It was about rewarding the middle class that put him in office.

|7.31.09 @ 9:22AM|#

hmm,

Those police chiefs were from Bridgeport and Martins Ferry, which are about as far from Cleveland as you can get. Basically, those are West Virginia.

|7.31.09 @ 9:23AM|#

John, I saw an article the other day(don't remember where) that had junkyard owners saying they weren't able to take these cars. They said that they were required to crush the engines and transmissions. They were explaining that the resale of major parts from scrapped cars is where their profits are and they would be losing money by having to scrap the whole car.

hmm|7.31.09 @ 9:25AM|#

Doh I wasn't sure where they were. I just made an assumption based on the paper.

I fail.

|7.31.09 @ 9:26AM|#

Has the Governemnt really mandated that the clunkers not be salvaged for parts before crushing? Junkyards kinda have to take'em apart, what with all the fluids and all. I know some may not worry about specifics in enviromental laws, but they prolly don't want all that sludge in thier crushers. Oil would be OK, but a lot of the other stuff would not.

Stupid program regardless. I thought 'cash for clunkers' was bringing a trade in to the car dealer.....

|7.31.09 @ 9:26AM|#

I really appreciated the bottom sign in the "unique reasons" story. I think they were giving advice. Now my German is a little weak but doesn't it translate as "Please, Not so fast"?!?!

hmm|7.31.09 @ 9:28AM|#

The refurbish business for auto parts has been booming. LKQX and firms like it have been climbing for months. Not allowing these cars to enter the market will at least more than likely keep their profits up.

Spoonman|7.31.09 @ 9:28AM|#

Bob, I'm not sure, all I thought was "Those are some Aryan fucking kids."

|7.31.09 @ 9:30AM|#

aix42, the article said they still have to do all the environmental dismantling, but then the engines and trannies had to be crushed as well. Something about destroying the inefficient engines.

hmm|7.31.09 @ 9:31AM|#

Scrap yards have to follow procedures in most states to recapture oils, freon, gas, and antifreeze. They also have to account for the batteries.

kilroy|7.31.09 @ 9:31AM|#

Joe M,

Thanks for fucking up my whole day with that link.

|7.31.09 @ 9:35AM|#

My contribution to the link-fest:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/30/american-chemical-society-members-revolting-against-their-editor-for-pro-agw-views/

An outpouring of skeptical scientists who are members of the American Chemical Society (ACS) are revolting against the group's editor-in-chief - with some demanding he be removed - after an editorial appeared claiming "the science of anthropogenic climate change is becoming increasingly well established."

The editorial claimed the "consensus" view was growing "increasingly difficult to challenge, despite the efforts of diehard climate-change deniers." The editor now admits he is "startled" by the negative reaction from the group's scientific members. The American Chemical Society bills itself as the "world's largest scientific society."...

hmm|7.31.09 @ 9:36AM|#

The scary thing about Conyers is, as an attorney and the head of the judiciary committee, he apparently can't read documents written in legalese.

Rhywun|7.31.09 @ 9:37AM|#

Cash for clunkers was never about poor people. It was about rewarding the middle class that put him in office.

I thought it was about propping up Detroit. Oh, I guess there's a overlap there.

doesn't it translate as "Please, Not so fast"?!?!

Ja.

|7.31.09 @ 9:37AM|#

But but but the Fair Tax would be so unobtrusive!

Yeah, right.

|7.31.09 @ 9:44AM|#

The reason the program ran out of cash was because, as usual, Obama got it ass-backwards. Don't buy the cars, repossess them!

<strike>Strike through</strike|7.31.09 @ 9:47AM|#

re the Cash For Clunkers funding, from the article:

U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Susan Collins of Maine said any extension of the incentive must require greater fuel efficiency and higher reductions of auto emissions.

Lovely. One from each coast. Makes me feel like a shit sandwich.

|7.31.09 @ 9:48AM|#

The "Cash for Clunkers" program mandates that the cars be rendered unusable as soon as their traded in. They can be stripped for parts though, everything except the engine and drive train. Anything not taken for parts is sold as scrap.

It's funny that the one almost universally popular program has run out of money and might be shut down. Even if most of it's goals are just mirages. The only real benefit it does is get people who buy used cars (2-3 years old) to buy new cars and to destroy older used cars to prop up the value of used cars in general. Other than that it's just shifting purchases from next year or other months of this year. And the environmental impact will probably be negligible. Besides the impact of building all of those new cars, the modest fuel economy improvement will probably offset by people driving more because it's cheaper per mile.

Atanarjuat|7.31.09 @ 9:53AM|#

"Those are some Aryan fucking kids."

Literally.

hmm|7.31.09 @ 9:55AM|#

I'd bet most of the people buying used cars are purchasing cars that don't qualify. The ridiculously low 18 mpg and the new measures of combine mpg pretty much ensures only trucks, suv's and vans qualify. Of those three I'd bet there are far more suv's than the other two. Who bought suv's in the last 15 years and has the income to purchase a new vehicle now?

|7.31.09 @ 9:56AM|#

Commenter Michael Tomlinson on the blue dogs in the Republican Recovery article:

Despite all the ink and verbiage spewed about their fiscal and social conservatism they are good liberal lap dogs and will roll over and vote for what their masters tell them to vote for and when it comes to earmarks in our bloated budget they are pack leaders in begging. Of course, no one holds a candle to earmark King Ron Paul.

So I guess now Ron Paul is a blue dog spending machine?

<strike>Strike through</strike|7.31.09 @ 10:01AM|#

Other catchy alliterative names they considered:

Lucre For Lemons
Dough For Dipsticks
Checks For Chariots
Pesos For Pimpmobiles

Mad Max|7.31.09 @ 10:01AM|#

'trannies had to be crushed as well.'

It seems Obama isn't as friendly to the LBGTQ community as we thought.

|7.31.09 @ 10:02AM|#

Earmark king?

Naturally the GOP is recovering, because they're now the not-in-power party. Generally that's the popular party after a few years, especially when the people running the show in the other party are particularly inartful and/or inept.

Ska|7.31.09 @ 10:02AM|#

Hondos for hoopties
'Scarole for shitboxes (NJ only)
Duckets for Buckets

Citizen Nothing|7.31.09 @ 10:26AM|#

Simoleons for non-roll-ians.

Urkobold@trade;|7.31.09 @ 10:30AM|#

JIZZ FOR JUNKERS.

Urkobold™|7.31.09 @ 10:31AM|#

DAMN YOUR CLUMSY TYPING HANDS, VIKING MINION! CAN YOU NOT EVEN TAKE DICTATION CORRECTLY?

|7.31.09 @ 10:35AM|#

"Naturally the GOP is recovering, because they're now the not-in-power party. Generally that's the popular party after a few years, especially when the people running the show in the other party are particularly inartful and/or inept."

That is the problem with the Dems being so insane. It allows the GOP to indulge in its worst instincts. It would be nice to be able to send the GOP into the wilderness for a decade or so for their fiscal sins in the 00s. The problem is that the Democrats managed to equal and exceed those sins in a matter of six months. Now we are left with the unpleasent choice of either letting the Democrats drive us to ruin or hope that the GOP learned its lesson in a mere two years.

|7.31.09 @ 10:36AM|#

Fiat for your Fiat?

Art-P.O.G.|7.31.09 @ 10:42AM|#

I didn't watch the video, but I'm guessing Conyers didn't follow up with, "and if we don't read the bills, then what's the point of even having congresspeople?"

Joe M|7.31.09 @ 10:44AM|#

He also wants a constitutional amendment saying people have a right to health care.

|7.31.09 @ 10:49AM|#

The mother of my son has a similar issue here in California to those poor chaps in RI. She purchased a small childrens' clothing consignment business last year, and the state has now decided they want to levy sales tax on the sale price of the store (she wasn't yet licensed as a wholesaler, because she didn't have a business yet). So now they want to collect something like $1,200 from a poor girl that's already falling farther and farther in debt.

|7.31.09 @ 10:50AM|#

The clunkers program requires the dealer to drain the oil out of the engine, add an abrasive compound and then run the engine "until it fails." Blow that sucker up.

As I understand it, you can still strip all the other parts off the vehicle, just not, as others have said, the engine and trans.

|7.31.09 @ 10:55AM|#

"The clunkers program requires the dealer to drain the oil out of the engine, add an abrasive compound and then run the engine "until it fails." Blow that sucker up."

Maybe it is the Midwestern Protestant in me, but I find it sickening to take a perfectly good engine and tear it up.

|7.31.09 @ 10:58AM|#

As I understand it, you can still strip all the other parts off the vehicle, just not, as others have said, the engine and trans.

So they let you keep the bits of minimal value, and destroy the bits that make salvaging economically viable.

Got it.

Maybe it is the Midwestern Protestant in me, but I find it sickening to take a perfectly good engine and tear it up.

John, John, John. Its not a "perfectly good engine", its a perfectly evil engine, spewing toxic carbon dioxide that makes baby seals cry.

|7.31.09 @ 11:03AM|#

Down here, those used engines and transmissions are a Godsend for poor folks that can't afford thousands for a rebuild.

|7.31.09 @ 11:05AM|#

Little Rhody has 10% unemployment. Closing businesses that have failed to pay sales taxes is brilliant. Just brilliant.

dv|7.31.09 @ 11:07AM|#

The clunkers program requires the dealer to drain the oil out of the engine, add an abrasive compound and then run the engine "until it fails." Blow that sucker up.

That just pisses me off. Willful destruction of useful machines is just...I don't know how to express it well enough. There is something fundamentally wrong with this kind of destruction without gain. Kind of like Dagny Taggart's distaste for a rare machine left to corrode, out of use and abandoned.

db|7.31.09 @ 11:10AM|#

"dv" = "db" misspelled. can't even get my own initials right.

|7.31.09 @ 11:12AM|#

"Down here, those used engines and transmissions are a Godsend for poor folks that can't afford thousands for a rebuild."

If those people can't afford a Prius they should just walk or ride the bus is the typical answer you get from the geniuses who came up with the monstrosity of a program.

|7.31.09 @ 11:13AM|#

I agree DV. There is a certain dignity to a working machine. And there is something, for lack of a better word, sinful about just willfully destroying it. Luddite bastards.

Doug Stevens|7.31.09 @ 11:24AM|#

I think you are all missing the point with the Cash for Clunkers program. I'm going to bet it's the real model for health care reform. People get $4,500 for turning in your old, worn down models that subsequently get parted out. It's a win-win for everyone involved. "C'mon Dad, let's get going. I really need the money."

|7.31.09 @ 11:47AM|#

Re: Cash for Clunkers

Because so many people quickly jumped at the chance to suck $3500 - $4500 from the public teat, the program will be judged as a success and renewed.

The price of older used cars goes up as a result of removing these vehicles from the market. Who buys older used cars? The poor and the young. Who just got a taxpayer subsidy to buy a new one? Middle aged, middle class citizens.

<strike>Strike through</strike|7.31.09 @ 11:47AM|#

brotherben | July 31, 2009, 11:03am | #

Down here, those used engines and transmissions are a Godsend for poor folks

This isn't about the po' folk. It's about wealthy Democrats trying to feel better about their own sleazy, sanctimonious selves. Social engineering gives them wet dreams.

|7.31.09 @ 11:51AM|#

The British government has told communications companies to keep track of all Internet contacts anyone makes-emails, visits to social network sites, websites visited-and organize them in case law enforcement needs the information. The government says people should not worry because the databases will merely record contacts, not the content of those communications.

What if they capture contacts and data from foreigners who have no recourse with the UK government?

|7.31.09 @ 11:51AM|#

Am I fucking prescient or what?

alan|7.31.09 @ 11:56AM|#

Why do liberals hate poor people so much?

Not as tasty as the rich.

|7.31.09 @ 11:57AM|#

Who the hell is SJP?

|7.31.09 @ 11:57AM|#

This is a story from the local rag about another innocent person dead as a result of the war on drugs.

Fuck, fuck and fucking fuck! Five goddam pounds of fucking reefer. Not exactly going after the kingpins here, are they?

Thanks for screwing up my morn', BB.

|7.31.09 @ 12:03PM|#

J sub, sorry bout that. The first article stated that he was transporting a "large quantity of narcotics."

They knew him by name and address. They knew where he worked. He was a local. They pulled him over. He hauled ass north in the southbound lanes of a 4 lane highway that has a grassy median. It was dark and the road was wet from rain. They pursued him in excess of 100mph. God Damn the WOD.

alan|7.31.09 @ 12:05PM|#

Who the hell is SJP?

Only the most beautiful woman on the face of the Earth. I mean after I have had more than a few, and I have returned home from the pub. and I'm flipping through the channels and Sex in the City reruns happen to be on, and I say, 'yeah, in that mirror shot, with that lighting obscuring her left side, she is kind of hot.'

|7.31.09 @ 12:05PM|#

J sub, oh yeah I forgot to ask. Who is Prescient, and how the hell do am I supposed to know their sexual proclivities?

alan|7.31.09 @ 12:07PM|#

Of course, it doesn't end there but Sugarfree has a copyright on the rest of that story, and likely a patent on the methodology of its telling.

|7.31.09 @ 12:08PM|#

I can't believe reason hasn't picked up John Conyers' latest nonsense. He doesn't think he should have to put the effort into reading the health care bill because that would just be too much work:

C'mon. Where is your compassion? The octogenarian has domestic issues to deal with.

Conyers quiet on missing office equipment

Just days before Detroit City Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers announced her resignation after pleading guilty to a bribery charge, she apparently had two new computers delivered to her office.
Advertisement

And now, city officials say those computers and dozens of other items are missing, and they want them back.

As of Thursday, the laptops and more than $20,000 in additional office equipment - including desktop computers, video cameras and software - remain unaccounted for, according to city officials.
...
Conyers, wife of U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat from Detroit, pleaded guilty last month to a federal bribery charge. She has not yet been sentenced by U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn.

Never a dull moment here in Motown.

|7.31.09 @ 12:28PM|#

alan,

I freely you grant permission to write about your session of masturbation, but, nevertheless, I beg you not to.

alan|7.31.09 @ 12:40PM|#

I freely you grant permission to write about your session of masturbation, but, nevertheless, I beg you not to.

Alas, I'm not feeling very self depraved today, that sort of ennui that would help SJP pass for desirable given my high standard of guttersnipe meth head chicks and d-list strip club tail.

|7.31.09 @ 12:56PM|#

J sub, oh yeah I forgot to ask. Who is Prescient, and how the hell do am I supposed to know their sexual proclivities?

It's a fucking adjective as well as a verb.

Ska|7.31.09 @ 1:50PM|#

I doubt anyone will read this, but the WSJ is reporting that the cash for clunkers program is getting an extra 2 billion.

jtuf|7.31.09 @ 2:16PM|#

Regarding the Republican rebound, the NJ gubernatorial race looks interesting. The Democratic candidate just picked a running mate who co-sponsored a medical marijuana bill.

jtuf|7.31.09 @ 2:19PM|#

On the minus side, said Democrat running mate is also a bane for homeschoolers. Fortunately, the LP of NJ is running a great candidate this year.

jtuf|7.31.09 @ 2:37PM|#

The protest in Iran are interesting. There were worldwide demonstrations on July 25th to support the first round of election protestors. United4Iran organized them. The New York city events lastest several days. On the Friday rally in front of the UN, the Untited4Iran & Strike4Iran participants called for the release of prisoners who were captured during the election protests. They also demanded that Achmedinijad step down and that Iran grant human and civil rights for the election protestors. A group of Iranian expatriates across the street went even further. They called for replacing the Iranian theocracy with a democracy. One of them wore a t-shirt advocating The Natioal Referendum for Iran.

|7.31.09 @ 3:06PM|#

I doubt anyone will read this, but the WSJ is reporting that the cash for clunkers program is getting an extra 2 billion.
Day late and a dollar short there. ;-)