Cash for Cars

I heard today that the cash part of the cash for clunkers program may be taxable. (man, does it never end?) Anyway, I was in the parts store when I heard this and the guy behind the counter said his son had used the program. Out of five or six hammer slingers standing around, all of us muttered under our breath about how stupid the program was, and all of us congratulated the parts-man on his son's good fortune.

See, here's the thing about wasteful government attempts to shape our behavior -- it's wasteful, and unfair because not everyone can participate in it, but if you can take advantage of it, shoot, by all means do. It's going to be your money financing the program, you may as well take advantage when you can.

I don't know how the program will affect the used car market or repair shops. I just know that it's not right to intentionally destroy perfectly good machinery. Really, I cringe.

and completely unrelated...

I apologize for the flashing Amazon ad that has been on the sidebar for the last couple of months. It was down far enough that I never much noticed it. But today, while looking at the Shaq picture, there it was.... irritating as could be.

So I stuck a printer ad in there instead. Not so exciting, but the model I've had for the last 4 or 5 years has been great. It only prints black and white but it's laser so I don't go broke buying ink and it's kept up with both my business and a high school student. Buy two.