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Forums - General Discussion - After Cash for Clunkers... Cash for Refrigerators!

skip on 26 August 2009

I like the way my local electric utility does it.

  1. You call them they pick up your old appliance....... they pay you money........they recycle the inefficient appliance..........If there happens to be a promotional contest you are entered (example contest: whoever trades in the oldest working appliance that month gets $500).
  2. If you buy an appliance that is energy star you get a rebate. If you buy energy star home electronics you get a rebate. If you buy and install energy star windows and/or doors you get a rebate.
  3. Free energy efficiency assesments. If you improve your homes score by a set amount in between assesments you will get a cash bonus.
  4. Free home kits including light bulbs, window insulation, hot water tank insulation, faucet aerators, showerheads, pipe wrap, etc.


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JEDE3 on 26 August 2009
TheRealMafoo said:
Orca_Azure said:
I don't know how to feel about this just yet. I need therealmafoo's opinion so i can pick the opposite of it.

lol.

Ever heard the joke where you first ask a woman "would you sleep with me for 10 million dollars?", and when she says yes, you then say "so we now know your a whore, we just need to negotiate on price".

Let's say we were to give people a million each to buy a home. Would that be a bad idea? I think everyone would say yes.

Now that we know giving money to people is bad, we are just negotiating price at this point.

Taking peoples money, so you can give other people money to buy things, is a bad idea. Regardless of the price.


The way you describe it kinda sounds like communism to me... unless I have a completely screwed up idea of what communism is...

Kasz216 on 26 August 2009
MontanaHatchet said:
Wow, really? Only 2-3 billion dollars? The government practically wipes its ass with a couple billion dollars these days.

Government debt... up to 1.6 trillion.

 

For this year alone.



SnesTea on 26 August 2009
Sqrl said:
RCTjunkie said:
More ideas:
Cash for TV's
Cash for Beds
Cash for pools
Cash for Ovens
Cash for houses
YAYZ! >_<

Why stop there?

Cash for Babies!

You bring in your kid and the government will give you $4500 for the little tike.  Don't worry, he'll become a government slave used to pay down the enormous debt!  Really its a win-win - you get money and the national debt goes down!

I can't believe I am the first to think of this, but:

Cash for Sex

 

Government sanctioned prostitutes.



famousringo on 26 August 2009

Well, it could be worse. At least this should drive down energy demand.

My government is subsidizing home renovations with no requirement that they improve insulation or anything. Some call it the "granite countertop subsidy."

But what these clowns should be investing in is researching and building the smart, dynamic energy grid that we'll need to really shed dependance on non-renewable energy.



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*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.

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Rath on 26 August 2009
TheRealMafoo said:
Rath said:
@TheRealMafoo.

Would you shoot somebody to save the planet? If you say yes, then you're a killer - we just need to negotiate the stakes.

Thats the problem with the fallacy of extension. You're extending the idea past what it actually is and then attacking your idea, not the actual one. Its a straw man argument.

Of course I am a killer, provided the circumstances lead me to kill (in a war, stopping an armed robbery, whatever).

The argument holds true. The only place it doesn't, is I would have a hard time killing someone to save the planet, if that person had done nothing wrong.

The cash for clunkers program, when all said and done, will cost of 2-3 billion dollars. Will we every see a return on that money, and if not, why was it a good thing?

Better yet, let's wait 6 months and see what it did to the auto industry, and I will ask you again. The next 6 months will not be pretty.

You said that giving people a million each for a house was bad therefore giving people money to buy whiteware was bad. Its a fallacy of extension, a strawman, you were attacking a different thing than the subject matter.

The cash for clunkers program should with any luck have implications for the US auto industry, the wider economy and the environment. If its succesful then it will have been well worth the money spent.

 

But yes, a super-grid will probably be needed in the USA. You could easily build large renewable stations (that take up a lot of land area) in the Mid-West where nobody actually lives, the problem is getting it out of there.



Orca_Azure on 26 August 2009

After reading therealmafoo's opinion, i believe i understand what i want to say.

These programs undeniably get more sales than the company would ever have gotten normally- but this probably takes away income from future months and is only a temporary solution. We're at the point where we do not need 10 different car companies in the United States; cars are abundant as is. Same with whatever electrical appliance giveaway comes next- manufacturing can literally be done by a dozen people and their machines.

what the government seems to be doing is protecting those jobs for as long as possible, but eventually everything will have to fail. it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation right now. If the government stops bailouts, hundreds of thousands if not millions of people would lose their jobs instantly. If the government continues on with these programs, their spending is deemed wasteful.

The only real way to solve this problem is to decrease the surplus population.

Cash for killing anyone?



Kasz216 on 26 August 2009
Rath said:
TheRealMafoo said:
Rath said:
@TheRealMafoo.

Would you shoot somebody to save the planet? If you say yes, then you're a killer - we just need to negotiate the stakes.

Thats the problem with the fallacy of extension. You're extending the idea past what it actually is and then attacking your idea, not the actual one. Its a straw man argument.

Of course I am a killer, provided the circumstances lead me to kill (in a war, stopping an armed robbery, whatever).

The argument holds true. The only place it doesn't, is I would have a hard time killing someone to save the planet, if that person had done nothing wrong.

The cash for clunkers program, when all said and done, will cost of 2-3 billion dollars. Will we every see a return on that money, and if not, why was it a good thing?

Better yet, let's wait 6 months and see what it did to the auto industry, and I will ask you again. The next 6 months will not be pretty.

You said that giving people a million each for a house was bad therefore giving people money to buy whiteware was bad. Its a fallacy of extension, a strawman, you were attacking a different thing than the subject matter.

The cash for clunkers program should with any luck have implications for the US auto industry, the wider economy and the environment. If its succesful then it will have been well worth the money spent.

 

But yes, a super-grid will probably be needed in the USA. You could easily build large renewable stations (that take up a lot of land area) in the Mid-West where nobody actually lives, the problem is getting it out of there.

It should have the effect of frontloading sales.

I wouldn't be surprised if car sales started rapidly dropping off as sales were just pushed foward.

The new credit wasn't enough to stop people from buying used in my opinion.  So all it really did was motivate the base that was already going to buy new.

What they should of did with Cash for Clunkers is

A) Limit it to American car companies.

B) Limit it to hyrbids and other electric vehicles.

 

It does the same things but it decreases oil use while increasing electricity production.  A lot of cash for clunkers money went to SUVs.

For this appliance once... I don't know what you could do to make it a good idea.



NJ5 on 26 August 2009
Kasz216 said:

 

What they should of did with Cash for Clunkers is

A) Limit it to American car companies.

B) Limit it to hyrbids and other electric vehicles.

 

Since 2 out of the 3 big American car companies are now owned by the government, that would be seen as a conflict of interest (besides being protectionist).

Besides, there's this which I read some time ago:

http://voices.kansascity.com/node/5047

The most American vehicle is actually a Toyota... (as in the one which is "made in USA" the most).

 



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Kasz216 on 26 August 2009
NJ5 said:
Kasz216 said:

 

What they should of did with Cash for Clunkers is

A) Limit it to American car companies.

B) Limit it to hyrbids and other electric vehicles.

 

Since 2 out of the 3 big American car companies are now owned by the government, that would be seen as a conflict of interest (besides being protectionist).

Besides, there's this which I read some time ago:

http://voices.kansascity.com/node/5047

The most American vehicle is actually a Toyota... (as in the one which is "made in USA" the most).

 

Who cares if it's protectionist?  Of the major economic powers the US is by far the least protectionist.