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WHITE HOUSE TRASHES BLUE BOOK PUBLISHERS FOR CLUNKER FIGURES
Christian Science Monitor - Edmunds.com CEO Jeremy Anwyl is defending his company's claim that the Cash for Clunkers program was basically a lemon, saying a recent report simply reiterated what's well known in the car industry: Incentive programs are "eyewateringly expensive."
After taking on Fox News and the US Chamber of Commerce as part of a new media strategy aimed at perceived political opponents, the White House turned its blog on Edmunds' critical report of the $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program.
In a post titled "Busy covering car sales on Mars, Edmunds.com gets it wrong (again) on Cash for Clunkers," the White House charged the firm with "trying to grab headlines and get on cable TV" while the analysis doesn't withstand "basic scrutiny."
Founded in 1966, Edmunds.com is the Santa Monica, Calif.-based publisher of the Blue Book series. Basically a consumer company supplying industry analysis to subscribers, Edmunds.com also offers the "True Market Value" tool.
So what did Edmunds do to warrant a snarl from the White House? For one thing, its report did grab headlines, including a well-read Monitor report.
According to Edmunds, only 125,000 of the 690,000 cars sold during the taxpayer-funded promotion were sales inspired by the program as opposed to those that would have happened anyway. Edmunds then divided that number by the total price tag and voilà: Each car purchased cost the American taxpayer $24,000.
Besides the no-nonsense price tag (an Edmunds' specialty) there's nothing new about the premise of the report, Anwyl contends. (The White House used dealer reports to highlight the program's success while Edmunds used comparative historical sales figures to get its numbers.)
"We got real math behind this for the first time," says Mr. Anwyl in a phone interview, before landing a friendly jab referencing this summer's "Beer Summit" at the White House. "We need to send an invitation to the President to come out, we'll have a beer and a photo opportunity, and walk him through the data. He might find it eye-opening."
More seriously, Anwyl says: "It's shocking and somewhat troubling that this is something the White House would pick up. This administration more than any other administration is invested heavily in the auto industry, so you would hope that they would had done a little more homework than their response suggests."
After taking on Fox News and the US Chamber of Commerce as part of a new media strategy aimed at perceived political opponents, the White House turned its blog on Edmunds' critical report of the $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program.
In a post titled "Busy covering car sales on Mars, Edmunds.com gets it wrong (again) on Cash for Clunkers," the White House charged the firm with "trying to grab headlines and get on cable TV" while the analysis doesn't withstand "basic scrutiny."
Founded in 1966, Edmunds.com is the Santa Monica, Calif.-based publisher of the Blue Book series. Basically a consumer company supplying industry analysis to subscribers, Edmunds.com also offers the "True Market Value" tool.
So what did Edmunds do to warrant a snarl from the White House? For one thing, its report did grab headlines, including a well-read Monitor report.
According to Edmunds, only 125,000 of the 690,000 cars sold during the taxpayer-funded promotion were sales inspired by the program as opposed to those that would have happened anyway. Edmunds then divided that number by the total price tag and voilà: Each car purchased cost the American taxpayer $24,000.
Besides the no-nonsense price tag (an Edmunds' specialty) there's nothing new about the premise of the report, Anwyl contends. (The White House used dealer reports to highlight the program's success while Edmunds used comparative historical sales figures to get its numbers.)
"We got real math behind this for the first time," says Mr. Anwyl in a phone interview, before landing a friendly jab referencing this summer's "Beer Summit" at the White House. "We need to send an invitation to the President to come out, we'll have a beer and a photo opportunity, and walk him through the data. He might find it eye-opening."
More seriously, Anwyl says: "It's shocking and somewhat troubling that this is something the White House would pick up. This administration more than any other administration is invested heavily in the auto industry, so you would hope that they would had done a little more homework than their response suggests."
6 Comments:
I thought Obama said he was inspired by Reagan, not Nixon.
My wife and I got rid of our clunkers years ago. We both drive hybrids. These cost more but get very good mileage. So let me get this straight: we were punished for having "heard the message" and got rid of our gas guzzlers a few years ago when gas hit $3.00 a gallon. Those who ignored the message get incentives to get rid of their clunkers. Hmmm. What's the rule here? Maybe "From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs." This won't work any better here than it did in the Soviet Union, by the way.
What's the message? Simple: Wait until the gov't bribes you before you do the right thing.
No, the message is for the government to stop bribing anybody. It grossly distorts the economic system. My wife and I were convinced that at $3.00 a gallon, it made sense to get very efficient automobiles. Note: no bribing needed. But now my taxes are going to subsidize others in the clunker program. The dollars used to finance this government boondoggle are forcibly extracted from my wallet under penalty of prison or expropriation. Very nice.
I don't appreciate some smarmy goofball giving me instruction on the appropriateness of "doing the right thing." I've been doing the right thing for years and so have a lot of others. That's why any of us have anything worth having here in the US. It would just be nice to have the lumpenproletariat do the right thing too, once in a while. But of course, they won't. That's why they are the lumpenproletariat.
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