Government Rebates for Superbowl Tickets
Vermont Tiger raises a great point about the Volt: (ht Maggies Farm)
The Volt comes with a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $40,280 and a rebate from Uncle Sam of $7500. GM only plans to make 10,000 Volts this year; and there aren't enough of them to go around. So, naturally, dealers are marking them up – some by much more than the retail amount. One Florida dealer is asking $65,590 (see Motor Trend for details). You might be able to get one on eBay for around $48,000 – after rebate that gets you right back to list price. Hmmm….
No car dealer or manufacturer would offer a rebate on a product that is in backorder status for the foreseeable future. But that's exactly what your government is doing. Even if you believe that there is a compelling reason for the government to want us all to shift to partially electric cars, it's clear that no incentive is required to sell all 10,000 cars available this year since people are buying them at markups which counteract the incentive. In this case the rebate dollars go to dealer margin. Note deficit cutting opportunity.
$75,000,000 down the drain to subsidize upper-middle-class people who want to make a statement about themselves. Yet another public investment in the self-esteem of the wealthy and our rulers. In ancient Rome they built coliseums. In the middle ages they built cathedrals. In communist countries they built giant statues of their leaders and tractor plants. Today we subsidize quasi-electric cars and windmills. None of it makes much sense as way to spend the average person's money, but it makes the elite feel really, really good about themselves. One wonders what the cumulative historic bill has been for ego maintenance of our rulers.
