The White House and auto industry analyst Edmunds are in war of words over ‘clunkers’. Edmunds claims that not only was the Cash for Clunkers program more expensive per car than the government claims ($24,000 vs. $4,000 to be precise), but that it had pretty much no impact on the auto market at all.
It’s hard to make sense of this, since almost everybody seems to agree that the program was a full ’success’ – whatever your definition of success may be.
That the program was was an all around bad idea goes without saying – economically or environmentally, or both, pick your poison - but to say that it was ineffective beggars belief: given the continued strain on the US economy, it’s just not plausible to assume the auto market recovered this dramatically all by itself. Of course, the GDP numbers look good now – but to quote Gust Avrakotos: we’ll see.
Just remember that GDP numbers are calculated on the basis of 
– a formula that still fails to elicit the laughter it so badly deserves.
