To put today’s auto numbers, which we talked about here, in perspective, I’m going to use this chart from Calculated Risk Blog’s write-up of today’s auto numbers:
Remember the Car Allowance Rebate System, or what was known as “Cash for Clunkers”? Here’s a White House report discussing its impact on GDP, summarizing the program as follows: “The program provided $3,500 or $4,500 bonuses to buyers who traded in light motor vehicles with mileage ratings of 18 miles per gallon or less, who purchased a new car or truck with an improved mileage rating, and whose trade-ins and new purchases met certain other criteria. In order to get the maximum amount of $4,500, the mileage had to improve by 10 mpg for new cars and 5 mpg for new light trucks.”
The program ended up selling a number of cars, 14.2 million, that we haven’t seen since. Until this month’s 15.1 million. The economy appears to be capable of sustaining auto sales at Cash for Clunkers level, provided no sudden changes are made to aggregate demand.
Rortybomb 
It’s depressing that in the year 2012 we’ve reduced politics to concerning about the level of car sales in the country. Can you imagine if someone in 1960 was told – guess what, more than fifty years from now, when you might imagine we’d be on Mars and have cured cancer, instead we’re passing bills like Cash for Clunkers and measuring economic growth by the number of cars sold, the bulk of which are not made in America.
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Looking more and more like 2008 all the time…
Heard today that the auto companies were shoveling bad loans out the door again. Why not? We’re all standing by with bail outs. Bail outs are so successful. Everyone knows.
I have a 2002 acura with a bad transmittion and the dealer what’s 4500.to fix it what kind of info can you alfer me about cash for clunkers.
How can the auto dealers sale cat they know are defective I owe? over forty five hundered dollars on my 02 acura and the cars and manufactures know they had bad transitions sense 1998 but they keep on building them and risking the lives and familys on the highways, and the dealers are not honring the customers,they have had many complaint for years.