John Redwood

Cash for old cars is absolutely freaking insane.

A car provides a service; it gets you from A to B. It costs a certain amount of wealth. The less wealth which has to be expended to obtain the service, the more wealth you have for other things and over the whole of the economy, over a reasonable period of time, that translates into investment and that into real increases in wealth.

Cash for old cars causes cars, for the wealth expended on them, to provide that service *for a shorter time*, since they are replaced more quickly than they would otherwise be.... Read more

This has one effect and one effect only; to raise the price of obtaining the service, provided by a cars, of getting from A to B.

Increase the costs of goods and services has one effect only; to reduce the amount of wealth available for investment and so to diminish real increases in wealth or even, as we see now, to so diminish them that we see real *decreases* in wealth.

I don't decide to buy a new car because it's old, I decide to buy a new one because it doesn't work as effectively as it once did. It's a tool, I don't replace a hammer because it's old, I replace it because the handle breaks.

And a car scrapage scheme wouldn't help British companies, when British manufacturers are foreign owned and are generally ... Read moremaking luxury (Jaguar) offroad (Land Rover) or high performance (Lotus) vehicles of course most people will buy the more normal Citroens, VWs and Toyotas.

An accurate summary John and we also need to remember the hundreds who have suffered terrible injuries in this futile war who rarely get a mention from Gordon Brown.
Perhaps if he was given a rifle and served in a platoon on the front line in Afghanistan for two or three weeks he might just get a better understanding of what is truly happening!

Devaluation more like! Good Old Gordon and New Labour?????

I am seriously reconsidering who to vote for.