Two Things

First off , I want to talk about the "Cash for Clunkers" program as run by the US Gov. This is probably the most mis-understood thing out there since that woman in Miami thought that after Obama became president she wouldn't have to worry about putting gas in her car or making a mortgage payment.
Most people I've talked to outside the industry are under the assumption that if you have an old car, any old car, you can just trade it in and get a govt handout to help you buy a new one. Wrong. You need to go to the CARS website and run your vehicle thru qualification page. I have two very old vehicles and neither qualify by the way. 18mpg or less as rated by the EPA is the threshold and not many cars get less than that unless they are complete pigs.
Then there's the program itself. Over 100 pages of paperwork, a Govt website that constantly crashes to file it (one clerk claimed 5hrs to process one car) and dealers so worried they might not see the money that some force buyers to sign an agreement that they are responsible for the voucher if the Govt. doesn't fork over the money. Meanwhile the turned in car must be destroyed (seizing of the engine) within two days of filing.
In most cases, people drive clunkers because they can't afford a payment or can't get financed. Perfectly good vehicles, we had a Land Rover the other day, are being destroyed because folks that could afford to purchase a new car are taking advantage of the extra govt bucks to buy a new one. The people driving real clunkers won't be able to pay that loan and are looking at possible re-possesion in 6months or so.
Here's a twist: By taking the clunkers off the market, people that can't afford anything but a clunker will have less to choose from and be denied inexpensive transport. How's that for helping the poor?

The following was forwarded to me in an e-mail. In an age when we care more about Pop Stars passing than heroes, I post this:

Ed Freeman

You're a 19-year-old kid. You're critically wounded and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley , 11-14-1965, LZ X-ray, Vietnam . Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8-1 and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the MediVac helicopters to stop coming in. You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you're not getting out. Your family is half way around the world, 12,000 miles away and you'll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day. Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter and you look up to see an unarmed Huey, but it doesn't seem real because no Medi-Vac markings are on it. Ed Freeman is coming for you. He's not Medi-Vac, so it's not his job, but he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come. He's coming anyway. And he drops it in and sits there in the machine gun fire as they load 2 or 3 of you on board. Then he flies you up and out, through the gunfire to the doctors and nurses. And he kept coming back, 13 more times, and took about 30 of you and your buddies out, who would never have gotten out.. Medal of Honor Recipient Ed Freeman died on Wednesday, June 25th, 2009, at the age of 80, in Boise , ID. May God rest his soul.
Medal of Honor Winner Ed Freeman! Since the media didn't give him the coverage he deserves, send this to every red-blooded American you know.
THANKS AGAIN, ED, FOR WHAT YOU DID FOR OUR COUNTRY. RIP