Four Corners

Paul Krugman wrote the other day that having grown our deficit was a good thing to thwart a depression. His view, as I understand it, is that we should be running even deeper deficits to dig our economy out of the chasm.

If so, then we should be glad to see that the clunker program put 690,114 new car owners (at 3.14 people per family that's 2.17 million Americans) in debt with new car payments. Sure, some paid cash for their new rigs, but come on, most everyone buys on time in our America. We should be glad that a few million more Americans are even more leveraged, even more indebted, because deficit spending is what's saving our ass from deficit spending.

An engineer upstairs where I work bought a new truck last weekend, aided by clunkering his old truck. What was of interest to me is that he rarely drove that old thing "'cause the 4.6 liter engine ate too much gas." Now here was a truck that was used lightly, to haul wood pellets home twice a winter, buying fence boards, hauling the lawnmower to the repair shop, etc. It sat in decent shape and consumed little gas. But now we've destroyed it for the sake of Saving The World, its remaining parts sent to the four corners for minimal salvage value, and in its stead sits a more efficient truck that's now gonna be driven more because it's more efficient.

I read that a telephone interview revealed the remorse that some buyers have, now that they've got car payments through 2015. You already know my response to them: fuck 'em. What I would really be interested in knowing, via telephone interviewing next year, is how many more miles these people are driving because they have new, more efficient cars.

Don't tell me that they're going to be driving less. What's the first thing that every new car buyer does? They drive it to Suzy's, to show her up. They drive it to the in-laws to reinforce the idea that their marriage wasn't a complete sham. They take it out for that Saturday afternoon drive to the small town outside their suburb to escape. They buy steering wheel covers and dash board covers and little chrome caps for the tire tube stems and wash it thrice weekly.

And if the demographics are correct, about one third of these new cars are driven home to a gargage that's also not paid for and also underwater. These Americans stare at their garage door and ponder what the next program will be that will save them from having to pay back their underwater mortgage, while not having any problem whatsoever that their new car is valued thousands less than it was just sitting in the car lot.