Cash for Clunkers plan pulled from stimulus

Topic: Cash for Clunkers plan pulled from stimulus (Read 12076 times) previous topic - next topic

Cash for Clunkers plan pulled from stimulus

Reply #15 – March 01, 2009, 04:34:46 PM

Scott, I agree with most of what you said, but there are a few points that don't sit well with me:

The ban on international foods, for one. That's OK if you live in a warm climate, but here in eastern Canada a ban on international foods would mean no more oranges, mangoes, peaches, etc. In fact for six months of the year it'd mean we were stuck eating nothing but fish, whale blubber, and seal meat. I think a better solution would be banning foods made in a country whose safety, labour, environmental and inspection standards don't match ours.

The other sticky point would be the "family values" bit. My values may not match your values, and I would not have your values forced on my family any more than you'd have mine forced on yours. My neighbour's values may not match either of ours, and I would not force my values upon him any more than I'd accept his values being forced upon me. I grew up in a very conservative household and when I look back at some of the "values" my father used to try to impress on us I am disgusted and ashamed (and yet proud that I was able to look beyond those "teachings"). My father was anti gay, anti woman (as in a woman should be kept barefoot and pregnant), anti immigration (even though being of European descent any Micmac indian would call him an immigrant), anti catholic, anti semitic, and very racist. He tried his best to drive those "values" into us. I can actually still quite vividly remember the moment it dawned on me that "old fashioned values" did not necessarily mean "good values". It was on my Grade Six trip, mid 80's, and my assigned seat on the school bus was right next to Mr. Williams, the janitor. I was upset at this arrangement, not because Mr. Williams was "the establishment", but because he was black. I could not believe I was stuck sitting next to this ni**er for the whole week. For the first few hours I stewed, giving him stinkeye whenever he so much as glanced at me.

Then for no reason at all I was struck with a thought: Why was I sitting there hating this man? He was perfectly nice, he played Santa Claus at school every Christmas (yes, in a community school as white as the driven snow, we had a black Santa), he loved interacting with the kids (he was always out playing baseball, basketball, etc with kids on break and after school) and you could just see goodness in his eyes. That moment I realized that my father was not teaching us, but retarding us, and I made it a point to never judge a person for reasons with no merit again. It is one of the few facets about me that could be considered "liberal", and one of the traits of my personality that will get me into heated discussions quite often (and more than one fistfight, to be true), as I will not tolerate bigots at all.

And since then my father has opened his own eyes as well, thanks largely in part to my sister giving birth to a mullatto daughter who has become my father's secret favourite grand daughter. He simply could not bring himself to hate her based merely on the colour of her skin, and saw that what his father taught him was not always right.

...All of which is a long way of saying that one's "proper and genuine standards" is not necessarily another's "proper and genuine standards".

But as I said, I largely agree with the rest of what you've stated...

Cash for Clunkers plan pulled from stimulus

Reply #16 – March 01, 2009, 04:55:22 PM

Quote from: Thunder Chicken;259037

...and a point for Zonda. I absolutely hated Bush, but a point's a point :D

Nope, no point at all.

Bush earned all those nicknames. The bigots are attacking our new President from Day 1. It's vile and disgusting and I'm already sick of it.

Cash for Clunkers plan pulled from stimulus

Reply #17 – March 01, 2009, 05:34:26 PM

Quote from: Cougar5.0;259089

Nope, no point at all.

Bush earned all those nicknames. The bigots are attacking our new President from Day 1. It's vile and disgusting and I'm already sick of it.

Alrighty then. I dont wanna get in fights with you man, so Im gonna do the smart thing and just leave well enough alone. Hopefully others will follow suit we don't need to be getting pissed at each other we're s'posed to be car buddies n stuph.

Cash for Clunkers plan pulled from stimulus

Reply #18 – March 01, 2009, 05:37:50 PM

Quote from: Cougar5.0;259089

Nope, no point at all.

Bush earned all those nicknames. The bigots are attacking our new President from Day 1. It's vile and disgusting and I'm already sick of it.

Yes and no. It's VERY true some people are using unwarranted names. Others fear his political history and are using that as a mile marker...At least that's what they say.

Meh.

Lobbyists suck no matter what side they're on.

Cash for Clunkers plan pulled from stimulus

Reply #19 – March 01, 2009, 05:46:01 PM

Quote from: V8Demon;259102

Yes and no. It's VERY true some people are using unwarranted names. Others fear his political history and are using that as a mile marker...

Meh.

I waited 3+ years for Bush to earn his FAIL stripes. He wore his big "F" with pride. If you ever see me hoping that a President I don't even know yet fails and causes our country to fail with all that would entail, then you can hang a "T" for Traitor banner around my neck. I hope and pray that he succeeds, because we really need to undo the destruction that Bush has brought to this great nation.

Cash for Clunkers plan pulled from stimulus

Reply #20 – March 01, 2009, 05:50:21 PM

Quote

I waited 3+ years for Bush to earn his FAIL stripes.

That's about when he lost his mind....:hick:

Quote

because we really need to undo the destruction that Bush has brought to this great nation.

IMHO, he had help.

No child left behind means no student can get ahead.

Back on topic

Cash for Clunkers plan pulled from stimulus

Reply #21 – March 01, 2009, 05:53:10 PM

back on topic - sorry for the distraction folks...

Cash for Clunkers plan pulled from stimulus

Reply #22 – March 01, 2009, 08:54:01 PM

see if we could do this every day, then we could talk about politics.

Cash for Clunkers plan pulled from stimulus

Reply #23 – March 01, 2009, 09:03:36 PM

irony alert!

Cash for Clunkers plan pulled from stimulus

Reply #24 – March 01, 2009, 11:42:50 PM

thunderchicken
Foods of that nature of course would be available as would the needs of your neighbors if Canada so decided there were excess stores to trade. My recent grocery shopping and close examination of the fish section made me think long and hard. No Talopia (sp) available from any other country but china.

I am not sure what the purpose was about race in your text and how it applied to what I said and provoked a response in disagreement. My parents adopted all three of us when they were in thier late 40's. I was adopted in 74' at the age of 5. You can imagine my rearing was simiair to yours in most respects. I remember as a kid wonder why color was a problem. I am anti-(alot of things) but color is not one.

Gender plays no negative roll either my standards although it seems its playing out its own roll throughout the various industries and as it has along with race in the recent stimulus package. There is money for jobs that are traditionally held by women and money for jobs specified that white males should not be the majority benefactor.

as for crushing cars,, i could give a . Crush em or keep em, just dont sell that s to china. Lets tool up and make stoves, fridges, toasters, bikes, engines , microvaves, dryers and washers. Time heals all ,,,,,,,

Good Day > paul harvey RIP.

Cash for Clunkers plan pulled from stimulus

Reply #25 – March 02, 2009, 07:36:57 AM

Quote from: 86XR7project;259041

Wow, theres a strong point. Didn't hear anyone try to defend George W did we?

A person couldn't defend that guy if they tried. There was no defence, just global offence.

Cash for Clunkers plan pulled from stimulus

Reply #26 – March 02, 2009, 08:43:33 AM

I know what you mean, Scott, about some food products. Try to find a can of mushrooms that wasn't made in China. Can't be done around here.

If your upbringing was similar to mine, and you couldn't see why race was an issue, then you understand exactly what I mean by saying that "old fashioned values" are not necessarily good values. I was not suggesting that you're racist, just that there is no set standard for family values. A catholic family will want to raise their child with a different set of values than a protestant family, who will want to raise their child differently from a jewish family, etc. In other words, common sense should prevail. Morals should not be legislated because morals are too ambiguous to be legislated.

A good example of this would be polygamy. Most people think that polygamy is a bad thing, and indeed, it is a legislated moral. This law is based entirely on religious beliefs. There are several religions that permit polygamy, including certain southwest-central US-based religions (and also including several international-based religions). The constitution guarantees freedom from religious persecution, yet a person will be thrown in jail for polygamy, something allowed by his religion but disallowed by the "mainstream" religion. This is the type of hypocritical, contradicting law that comes from legislating morality.

Back on topic: You're too late about not sending crushed cars to China, BTW. That's where most of them go. I read in an article about shredding cars that most of the iron and steel (magnetic stuff) is separated here in North America because it's easy to do (simply use magnets) and then sent to China, but that non-ferrous materials are loaded onto a container ship and sent to China (or anywhere else in southeast Asia) to be separated by hand. They do this because it's a very labour intensive job that is too expensive to do with domestic labour. Once the materials are separated some of them are sent back to North America for manufacturing, but I'd bet most of it stays in southeast Asia...

Cash for Clunkers plan pulled from stimulus

Reply #27 – June 19, 2009, 06:05:22 PM

Yesterday the local 'news' had a story regarding the cash for clunker bill.

Two things - first, the 'old' cars they showed were '84(?) Fords, a Mustang and T-bird! Ironic considering a TC will meet or beat most new American cars in the gas mileage dept.

Second, I'm wondering which cars are going to qualify. According to the talking head, the old car has to get worse gas mileage than the new car. Since most new cars don't get really good mileage ....

Cash for Clunkers plan pulled from stimulus

Reply #28 – June 25, 2009, 09:59:48 AM

i was just checking business on CNN and it looks like the t-birds will qualify. If you go to Cars.gov and check the EPA estimates, these cars get 15-24MPG based on model. if your car is a serious hooptie and you can afford new car payments it would be a good deal. Thing is, once you trade it in, where does it go? Does the govt claim it or do the dealers got to suck it up? $3500-4500 is some good money for a t-bird after you've stripped it of good parts!

Cash for Clunkers plan pulled from stimulus

Reply #29 – June 25, 2009, 12:58:23 PM

I was reading some of the provisions as well, and it looks like a big FAIL to me. Not because I fear it'll send our beloved 'Birds and Cougs to the crusher en masse (high s prices last year did that), but because it really won't do much. The incentive is only good for new cars, and applies instead of a trade-in value, not on top of. In other words, if your car is worth more than the "clunker" value it's not worth it to send it to the s pile. Most people buying brand new cars trade in cars that are worth more than the clunker allowance, and most of the vehicles this bill is designed to take off the road are large, expensive SUV's. Nobody with a 2003 Suburban is gonna trade it in for a $4500 clunker cheque when they can get $10k+ for it by selling it. Few people with 20+ year old cars are going for a brand new one (most people driving old cars are doing so because they can only afford old cars). Who, exactly, is this bill supposed to target?

Oh, and in a surprising amount of foresight, the government added a provision to the bill that states that the vehicle being traded in has to have been licensed and insured to the person trading it in for at least a year. This is to prevent people from buying a $500 truck and getting a $4500 voucher for it.

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