The Car Scrappage Scheme: Good for Germans, Frenchmen, Italians, Spaniards ... and for middlemen everywhere
by johnofgwent
I don't know if you noticed, but the recession is over for yankee bankers - who dumped their poisonous "derivatives" on ourbanks just in time for the arsehole in number ten to force the other arsehole in number eleven to pick up the bill. They'll be back to million dollar christmas bonus handouts this year. And the recession is also over, it seems, for germany and france.
France of course issued a diktat to its motor industry that huge payouts to stay afloat would come only if the companies closed, or mothballed, plants they had opened in the new european union members, sacked their newly taken on minumim wage workforce in those countries, and brought the work home to france. when Sarkozy said "French Jobs Bought With French Euros For French Workers" he meant it.
But what of Germany ? Well one need look no further than the scrappage scheme operating in this country for the answer. In mainland europe where they still have a carmaking industry the scrappage scheme works very well. National governments bribe national populations to buy cars and like the good little nationally proud people they are they buy cars made by their nations workforce. So what goes around comes around and the taxpayers who are forced to pick up the tab for this subsidy get something back when the factories making cars in that nation, staffed by people from that nation, pay their workers and they pay tax on their earnings. It's a bit like VAT really, the same money gets piled on top of the cost and handed from pillar to post with a paper trail the demons of hell would salivate over, but it artificially stimulates production and keps honest men doing an honest day's work instead of sitting on the settee getting suicidal courtesy of Jeremy Kyle.
Here os course we have no car manufacturers. Red Robbo's political masters in the Soviet Union and Margaret Thatcher's cronies have seen to that.
So when Alistair Darling stands up and stumps up one sixth of the price of a new Fiat, who benefits ?
Well. the Fiat Dealership benefit because their salesman gets to keep his job, although you can bet your arse the manufacturer's £1,000 contribution to the scrappage scheme comes largely out of that salesman's OTE bonus and the commission paid to the dealership.
And the car ferry company that ships the cars benefits although in fact they have already shipped a veritable car mountain to Portishead already so your "brand new" Fiat is actually one that has stood rusting at the dockside unwanted and unloved for about eighteen months so they wonlt be rushing out to stack up with more.
No, the only people that actually benefit are the main dealer head office, the staff in the factory that made it and the customs and excise people who get a bonus for every imported car - the bonus being they get to keep their jobs too.
You think I jest ? Well go on then, contradict me. Add a comment teling me of a single advert for a BRITISH MADE motor vehicle attracting the scrappage scheme discount.
France of course issued a diktat to its motor industry that huge payouts to stay afloat would come only if the companies closed, or mothballed, plants they had opened in the new european union members, sacked their newly taken on minumim wage workforce in those countries, and brought the work home to france. when Sarkozy said "French Jobs Bought With French Euros For French Workers" he meant it.
But what of Germany ? Well one need look no further than the scrappage scheme operating in this country for the answer. In mainland europe where they still have a carmaking industry the scrappage scheme works very well. National governments bribe national populations to buy cars and like the good little nationally proud people they are they buy cars made by their nations workforce. So what goes around comes around and the taxpayers who are forced to pick up the tab for this subsidy get something back when the factories making cars in that nation, staffed by people from that nation, pay their workers and they pay tax on their earnings. It's a bit like VAT really, the same money gets piled on top of the cost and handed from pillar to post with a paper trail the demons of hell would salivate over, but it artificially stimulates production and keps honest men doing an honest day's work instead of sitting on the settee getting suicidal courtesy of Jeremy Kyle.
Here os course we have no car manufacturers. Red Robbo's political masters in the Soviet Union and Margaret Thatcher's cronies have seen to that.
So when Alistair Darling stands up and stumps up one sixth of the price of a new Fiat, who benefits ?
Well. the Fiat Dealership benefit because their salesman gets to keep his job, although you can bet your arse the manufacturer's £1,000 contribution to the scrappage scheme comes largely out of that salesman's OTE bonus and the commission paid to the dealership.
And the car ferry company that ships the cars benefits although in fact they have already shipped a veritable car mountain to Portishead already so your "brand new" Fiat is actually one that has stood rusting at the dockside unwanted and unloved for about eighteen months so they wonlt be rushing out to stack up with more.
No, the only people that actually benefit are the main dealer head office, the staff in the factory that made it and the customs and excise people who get a bonus for every imported car - the bonus being they get to keep their jobs too.
You think I jest ? Well go on then, contradict me. Add a comment teling me of a single advert for a BRITISH MADE motor vehicle attracting the scrappage scheme discount.
