Cash for Clunkers, which Congress passed in June, is set to end on Nov. 1 or whenever its $1 billion budget has been depleted.

An early version of the Clunkers proposal in Congress called for appropriating $4 billion.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/3…..2009073105

This program is only a week old and it has done everything it was suppose to do by November. Right now we have a very effective program that works very fast and thanks to the Republicans instead of being 4 billion dollars it was only 1 billion.
In other words 3 more weeks of the sweet life for car dealers. Never mind that to fund this program Obama, Harry and Nancy should keep Congress in session over the entire break if they have too.
Why because make a stand here and Michigan and Ohio are ours.

Blessed are the cracked, chipped and dented (Col. Reese) for they will let in some light.

Since the Blue Dogs don’t need the industry contributions to finance their campaigns, what are they going to do with the money? Build taller gates around their gated communities?

Blue Cross Democrats is more descriptive.

Make a stand here and all those car dealers who used to be Republican will flip after all the
Republicans just cost them 3 more weeks of sales. How many more weeks of sales do we need to get GM in good shape? Instead of the 4 billion we actually planned to spend we should put down 8 billion.
Why ” sell sell your dogs and let your winners run” its a theory on which stocks to sell. Right now we got a winner so yes. Throw some More Money at the Winner.

Isn’t that what happened in South America after the Chicago school guys fixed the economies of those countries?

Sorry car dealers – out a money – congress has to go on vacation now.

We’re the new Banana Republic, without the bananas.

Does anyone know how much getting a program designed to be done in November done in one week will jump start the Stimulus? Now then what if we gave them more money lots more 10 billion? Which at 1 billion a week means 10 more weeks of high car sales.
Now then if we just tighten up the milage requirement a bit will we sell enough better MPG cars to lower America’s oil consumption?

Bananas are the most eaten fruit in the U.S.

I have to write, that perhaps we need to get to the phones and let our critters know that it is not appreciated that they are going on recess when the country is in the crapper. Of all times to stand up for our country, this is it. Dems would be smart to start a movement today, I Work For Our Citizens, and announce they are staying, in mass, to work on the needs facing our country (health care). After all, many employees and employers across the country have taken hits to help keep companies afloat. Lots of people have take furloughs. Many have lost jobs. All of this calls out for both a symbolic sacrifice and actual effort by our paid and elected public servants. Staying in DC and working would do that.

Let the Republicans and Blue Dogs go. Have progressives stay behind and WORK. Boy that would be interesting. Progressives could draw a line in the sand just by staying and working. It would be a sign of solidarity to voters during times when citizens have taken great sacrifice and or loss.

Response to #10 -
But we’re totally dependent on others to grow them for us.

Mornin’, BT, pups

We’re a little slow here in FL keeping up with the latest in the Village. The political editor of the SP Times is Adam “Mr St Pete Neocon” Smith. Today he’s bemoaning the fact that there are no community leaders in St Pete, just panhandlers in a downtown that died years ago. What he fails to mention is that the old leaders were tossed when the city and Pinellas County kissed the asses of the likes of Honeywell, who came to town, took the tax incentives, hired the locals to sweep the floors, created a toxic waste site, then split for brighter horizons. Tampa is now considering, a la St Pete, an ordinance outlawing the selling of newspapers along city streets, citing safety issues, because the vendors are too stupid to get out of the way of stopped or slow moving vehicles.

The local Chrysler dealer was adding $4500 to the Junk deal. . .

Bananas grow quite well in FL or so the county extension folks tell me.

I think a lot of our politicians have gone bananas

Several years ago (don’t know whether it still exists) there was a NYT article about a dormatory at Yale, appropriately name Berkeley, that went to meals of all local, in-season, foods. IIRC, they made 2 exceptions: coffee (of course), and bananas. The food was so popular that students from other dorms cheated by eating there. However, the downside was that it cost a full 50% more than meals in other dorms.

Only if the Blue Dogs win but our success in the auto Stimulus gives us Cred we can use to pass Health Care if we just use it. I am thinking we keep Congress in session over the break to pass 10 billion dollars for Cash for Clunkers.
The (rolls over can’t breath laughing) *fiscally responsible * Blue Dogs and Republicans will never approve of 10 billion dollars of new spending unless its war spending or to bailout a bank.
The thing is we got every car dealer willing to scream on our behalf on this one. We got every person who thought they had until November to trade in a car Pissed!
We got Michigan, Ohio and how many other states calling their GOPers and Blue Dogs every day?
And every day Congress is in session we argue more Healthcare in the morning so we get news coverage all day and we argue more Cash for Clunkers at night.

We’ve got medication for those folks who really go bananas but there’s little we can do for stupid.

Wasn’t aware of that. Cultivation is labor intensive so Florida probably found it hard to compete before. But that might be changing.

Ain’t gonna find no white folks pickin’ bananas here. Beneath their dignity an’ all, dontcha know.

On edit: I wonder if we could grow bananas without the giant venomous spiders that live in the bunches.

Explain Chrysler was adding more cash to the Stimulus? Are all the Chryslers doing that? Are any other car makers doing something like that? Because acts like that suggest we got the car dealers in our corner on this one.
Car dealers kind of have a reputation for being Republican.
When your at 20% every subtraction counts the GOP needs to approve this program and try and then try to steal credit for it.
But what do you want to bet they make a fight over funding it?

Besides it won’t be long before FL is underwater.

Hard to see that Yale could have an issue with a coughing up a litte pocket change to support the local growers and keep the students happy.

And it’s a given that Yalies are dependent on Colombia and Costa Rica to make it to the 8 am lecture.

Is the Government tracking the milage of the cars traded vs the milage of the new cars sold? How many cars do we have to sell to lower America’s oil consumption 1% assuming oil demand stays constant and the Cash for Clunkers plan gets more funding?
If its possible I would like Cash for Clunkers to get funding to drop our oil use 1%. That or more would be a great goal.
After all drop oil consumption you drop oil price and higher oil prices do slow down our economy. Lower oil prices are a Stimulus Package all by themselves.

For me, the 50% figure means that the go-local food movement is doomed to failure, at least in a macroeconomic sense. I fully support it because I can afford it, but it is out of reach for ordinary U.S.ians. And I talked to the local farmers and visited one organic farm. There’s not much possibility of economies of scale, so even if the movement spreads more, the unit costs are not likely to decline.

Wayne “Coach” Sink, 73, of Northridge, Calif., was unable to convince his wife to buy a new car until a call from a dealer at Galpin Motors in Southern California Thursday morning. “They told her it looked like the money was running out of cash-for-clunkers,” said Mr. Sink, a retired football and baseball coach.

Using the program, he said he was able to turn in his 1997 Cadillac DeVille sedan with 92,000 miles for a new Ford Escape hybrid. The Sinks saved the full $4,500 through the government clunkers program, paying about $27,000 after the rebate, he said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/…..95011.html

Everyone making projections on how this plan would work assumed that a caddy driver would trade in the Clunker for a new one, but if enough Caddy Drivers pick up hybrids and if we tweek the milage requirement an extra grand for a hybrid when we refund Cash for Clunkers that may do it.
Then our oil consumption should drop more and that helps the economy.

A throwback to hippie days, and to what Michelle O. did in the spring is to have folks start growing their own. Instead of wasting time and money tending lawns, folks could replace them with gardens to grow fresh veggies and flowers. I did it. It’s a win-win-win proposition.

Also hybrids are more complex to make so that means more factory workers working to make each car that provides its own targeted stimulus.

And with all the unemployment people have the time.

I’m single. There’s no way I’m gonna put all that work into a vegetable garden for just me. Besides when your own garden is ready to eat, the locals have all the same stuff.

I did, however, acquire a beehive about a month and a half ago. Will cost several hundred dollars per unit of honey, if I’ve done the math accurately. My little contribution to the earth.

Inner-city Philadelphia, with its obscenely high minority unemployment rate, has an number of community gardens which have thrived for decades.

I remember you once saying that you didn’t know your neighbors very well. Here’s an opportunity to change that.

Yes, but someone has to grow the flowers to keep the bees happy!

Consider lettuces, if nothing else. Easy as pie to grow, and the taste when really fresh picked is incredible. As soon as it cools off some here I’m re-planting for a fall/winter crop.

Which foods really drove the price up meat I would assume and anything else? I wonder how much public schools would save if they all went meat free? I wonder what the protein requirements for growing kids are and how we could meet them with veggies.
Moms who want thin daughters will support us the Dad’s need to be sold on their son’s protein intake we will need a media campaign of bulked up pro athletes who are not on roids but veggies.

Several of my neighbors have vegetable gardens and I’ve indicated that they can get to know me better if they have any surplus. *g*

Bees also keep the house safe lots of folks are scared of bees so that should lower your odds of being robbed. I’m not sure what the price of that is worth or the odds.

Flowering trees, of which there are many on my property (the gigantic weeping willows I have are the best because they flower early when the bees need to get started after winter), are what really feeds the bees. I also have fields full of wildflowers. A flower garden wouldn’t keep a hive in business for very long. I’d love a flower garden but have no place to put it aesthetically.

I eat very little lettuce. Salad a couple of times/week and sandwiches a couple of times/week doesn’t use up much lettuce. If I buy a decent size head, I end up throwing half into the compost.

Seconded. I’m a litte farther north, so I’ve had a steady supply of lettuce all summer long. I’m too far north for a winter crop thohgh.

We keep hearing about the obesity problem in this country but no one talks about the hormones and other chemistries that are fed to cattle etc. It defies logic to not consider this when addressing the problem.

Local organic free range meat (meaning grass fed for cattle) is about 2x or mor per pound vs industrial meat ops. I haven’t done a comparison on fruits & vegies to give you numbers, but I know that are also a LOT more expensive. I’ll keep track over the next several weeks and try to remember to let you know, but my own experience makes me think the Yale figure might be too low.

Wild flowers work best, if you’ve got them. They’re mostly annuals, but many will reseed themselves so they’re very low maintenance. I too have a giant willow but didn’t notice bee activity in the spring. Will look for it next year.

The radishes and tomatoes are ready here. Leeks too. Corn is waist high. Squash has lots of nice yellow flowers.
There’s only 2 dollars in my bank account, but luckily there’s meat in the freezer. I’ll live.

Beehive is far enough away from the house that it won’t be a scare factor. My hypothesis of what keeps my house robbery-free (30 years, knock on wood) is that it is highly visible from the road, and robber wannabes might be afraid of being spotted, but I have no idea.

I have to say my experience with buying local this summer has been a real bust. There’s a farm stand that I’ve been going to for a number of years and for the last couple years I’ve noticed the quality of fruit and produce going down while the prices are going through the roof. And then this year nothing has been ripe, it’s all been picked way too early.

The local supermarket had peaches from a peach co-op grown in the same town as the supermarket, and these peaches had at least another month to go before they were ripe.

Earlier in the season when the strawberries came into season they were in some cases 25% more then the out of state strawberries, and again not very good.

Also I’ve noticed that the prices for all local fruit and vegetables is the same not matter what farm stand or market I go to. I guess the Jersey fresh branding program set the price.

Finally, there’s a local tomato cannery that has the best canned tomatoes I’ve ever tried. Now that they have become the Jersey Fresh brand, the price has risen .70 a can.

I’ve lived in this area my whole life, and it’s a shame to see how the quality of local produce in the summer has taken a real hit over the years.

Given the possibility of colony collapse disorder continuing if you don’t move your bees around from field to field, keep them away from chemicals hopefully your neighbors don’t use to many and let your bees have enough honey to make it through the winter.
Well as more bees die I wonder what you could get selling your bees? I assume a bee keeper can help you grab a queen bee and set up a new hive in exchange for some profit.

Got tons of wildflowers, nature’s own. Do nothing to create them except mow the fields once/year, after the second brood of field nesting birds have fledged.

True that and all the stuff they give cows to increase milk production can’t be good. Also I want corn syrup banned from schools.

Several counties in NYS have been declared agricultural disaster areas, owning to the superabundance of rain. Also an airborn tomato mold is devasting the organic crops. Brought up on seedlings from the south by big box stores like Lowes, according to local newspaper. Those factors might account for some of the price and quality issues you’re experiencing.

Colony collapse disorder (I’ve read the book) does not happen to organic beehives. I have a commercial orchard a mile and a half away. I’ve asked my beekeeper whether that’s a problem and he sez no. I didn’t ask why (so many Qs, so little time when he comes), but suspect there is so much stuff for them between here and there, that they aren’t likely to venture that far.

Danger beehive signs around the property will work too people scared of bees don’t care how far away the hive is.

Why how does the Jersey plan mess things up?

Oh, raising queens is a specialized profession. The only way to get more hives (according to what I’ve read so far) is to catch a swarm. And beekeepers go out of their way to avoid swarms by adding more boxes to an existing hive.

I’ve loved this discussion, but must move on. Be well everyone.

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

We did have a very wet spring so I could see how that could influence the earlier crops, but after the end of May we’ve had a very good summer for growing. I think it’s the idiots in Trenton. First the Chief Idiot Corzine was going to get rid of the Agriculture Dept in what’s know as The Garden State, but it did survive and the Agriculture Dpe administers the Jersey Fresh program so I’ll leave the math for anyone to do.

I really would love to continue supporting the local people but the quality has to be there.

Remember the aesthetics.

This is suppose to be an El Nino year I wonder how that will effect crops this year? Norther California Just past Oregon looks like a dust bowl. Farmers have signs Congress created Dust bowl in front or dry barren fields. I hope they get rain.

I damn near had to threaten physical violence on the lady across the alley who wanted to call pest control to kill the wild bees in my tree. That was a couple years ago. Every once in a while when I see her I ask her if she’s been stung yet. She’s not a very nice person so I only feel a little guilty.

I haven’t done much research to be honest but as I said in 59 it administered by the state, and NJ has so many layers of corruption and dead wood that who knows what goes on Trenton. Also that Corzine was going to cut the Department of Agriculture completly due to budget cuts.

It just seems that over the years the more organized this program has become, the less the quality has been there. It could be just me and the nature of farming though.

True still some people are allergic isn’t fencing and signs a requirement in some towns? But if not and the local kids don’t travel through the property then no worries.

See for some people bees are a big protection does this not so nice lady come over much? :)

My mother was alergic to bee stings. A bee sting not treated immediately would have killed her.

It does seem to warrant more investigation if its just bad weather oh well. But a poorly administered program hurts us it wastes tax payers money and in this case results in bad food.

Looks to me like you are probably a great public voice for your little community: Come On Down…