GorT and family bought a new car this weekend. We looked to cash in on some of everyone else’s hard earned money by trading in a 2000 model year minivan. Unfortunately, it did not qualify by a 1 MPG efficiency margin. The government “standard” for qualification is 18 MPG combined fuel efficiency. Regardless, the new purchase (of a semi-used dealer car) was well worth it and we’re looking forward to actually picking it up after the dealer cleans it up and adds a few things.

The cash for clunkers program is over, and here is what the website says:

The CARS program ended sales on the Monday night with nearly 700,000 clunkers taken off the roads, replaced by far more fuel efficient vehicles. Rebate applications worth $2.877 billion were submitted by the 8 p.m. deadline, under the $3 billion provided by Congress to run the program.

Issue #1: I’m not sure that the phrase, “replaced by far more fuel efficient vehicles” is accurate. Our vehicle was 1 MPG off from meeting the requirement. The replacement is an SUV which probably isn’t much different in “combined MPG” based on what the sticker reports. Maybe there was a restriction on what vehicles you could buy but I didn’t see any as I researched it. I would caution the government from using the adjective phrase, “far more”.

Issue #2: There goes $3 billion of taxpayers money to a subset of the nation. Only those who had older cars that likely in the past couldn’t afford a new car or could and didn’t want to shell out the cash. To all those who did qualify – you’re welcome for my donation to your car purchase. If the government is smart, they’ll offer a tax break to those who DIDN’T use the cash for clunkers program to offset this wealth redistribution program.

Issue #3: The dealership was in no shortage of activity – so much for all the bailouts needed, in my opinion. A little thinning of the crowds (or dealers) would have been welcome.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.