EconomistMom.com

Happy Mother’s Day to all moms out there, but especially to my own mother–who has been an inspiration and a source of wisdom and strength for me my whole life!  (Sorry to put this up so late in the day, Mom; I know you’re probably going to bed already!)

A few weeks ago I posted on my daughter Allie’s college decision, and in particular the debate between going to in-state UVA and Ivy League Dartmouth.  That was before Allie got accepted into Princeton, and before she and her dad decided she would in fact accept her acceptance into Princeton.  It wasn’t exactly the careful weighing of costs versus benefits that I wanted to do with her before she made that decision, but I think it was more in keeping with how I once characterized how parents typically decide how to spend money on “investments” in their kids or how family members decide how to spend money on health care for their loved ones:  two questions, (1) is there any positive expected marginal benefit, and (2) can I come up with the money, somehow?  (not how does that marginal money/cost compare with that marginal benefit).

So for a couple days now I am here at Princeton with Allie for her “Princeton Preview” weekend, hoping to be constantly “WOWed” by everything Princeton has to offer, and hoping that come Sunday I will have decided that yes, the expected marginal benefit is high even relative to the (certain and high) marginal cost.  Oh, and I am also doing a lot of searching and begging for aid and any way to pay for it that we can find.  Because although our family is not considered “needy,” when it comes to the Princeton price tag, I still think we “need” a lot of help.  As the summer comes and the first bill due draws nearer, I’ll keep you posted on how we manage.

Meanwhile, I would love any Princeton alums to tell me all the wonderful ways in which your Princeton education clearly enhanced your lifetime income and any other “values” in your life.  Those who disagree, please keep quiet. 

It’s a question I am asking this week, as my oldest daughter hears about her admission status at the 7 schools she’s applied to–4 of them Ivies, who do not give any merit-based aid. As I tweeted yesterday, she’s received a national merit scholarship of $2500 (one time) to any school she decides to attend, but that is only about 1 percent of the 4-year cost of her going to Dartmouth–which in a money-blind contest she picks as her first choice.

There are big reasons why her dad and I chose to raise our (four) children in northern VA when we first decided to come work in Washington, DC, and two of them are called “U VA” and “William and Mary” (or is that three of them?!)–note their places in this Kiplinger “best value” ranking.  She’s gotten into both. As an “Economist” and a “Mom” readers will understand why I find this agonizing.

If you are willing to follow my agony over the next few weeks, I am willing to share…

I am looking for advice everywhere–from Ivy League grads who believe they wouldn’t be where they are today were it not for their Ivy League education, to Ivy League grads who regret graduating with so much debt, to public university grads (like myself) who don’t believe life could have turned out that different had we gone to an Ivy League school instead (and who paid off their small loans rather quickly after graduation).

And naturally I’ve been scouring the internet, which is how I found the ABC News video above with the very bright young man who is the CEO and founder of Unigo.com–a fascinating site that features “insider” info on colleges and which I had never heard of until tonight when I was googling on this very question.

Stay tuned for updates, and feel free to advise!

I have a lot going on in my real (mom) life over the next few days, so I won’t be posting for awhile. I won’t even be able to moderate comments for at least the next couple days. No family emergency–just busy. (And no, this is not at all related to Charlie Rangel’s leave of absence from his Ways and Means chairmanship…)

Keep up the comments without me. (I know a few of you will.)

Oh — here’s a good post by Bruce Bartlett critiquing the idea a couple of House Republicans have for reining in spending.  That is quite a contrast to Paul Ryan’s approach, which although (I believe) unrealistic, is still brutally honest.  Steny Hoyer gave the proposal and its author some credit the other day when he said:

It’s also clear to me that if the commission takes a one-handed approach, it will fail, both politically and substantively. Congressman Ryan’s thoughtful budget proposal shows what an approach looks like when it relies entirely on cutting spending. He should be commended for putting together a serious and detailed plan to tackle the deficit. It doesn’t raise a single tax. But as a consequence, it significantly changes Medicare.

That strikes me, as I think it would strike most Americans, as very much the wrong solution. But Congressman Ryan deserves respect for his honesty—for being one of the few members of his party, or of either party, to tell the public exactly what he’d cut. That’s far better than pretending that the solution to higher deficits is simply lower taxes and wishful thinking. In fact, as much as his party’s leadership tries to distance itself from his plan, Paul Ryan’s program, or something very much like it, is the logical outcome of the Republican rhetoric of cutting taxes and deficits at the same time.

In today’s Washington Post (not that I received it on my doorstep this morning, but just that I read online), Steve Pearlstein has an entertaining little rant about how ill-prepared the DC area is to handle this kind of snow:

Here’s a little thought experiment:

You’re sitting at home for the third straight day, unable to get to work because of the snow. Your kids are on the fourth day of a snow vacation that is likely to last through the end of the week. How much would you have been willing to pay to guarantee that the streets and sidewalks were clear and things could have run pretty much as normal? $10? $25? $50?

Or imagine that you own a business with 50 employees that is closed for three days because of the snow, but you still have to pay $30,000 in salaries for work they didn’t do. What would you have been willing to pay to have things running normally this week? $1,000? $2,500? $5,000?

My guess is that, given the benefit of hindsight and several days of house arrest, “snow insurance” sounds tempting…

Steve then argues that it would be reasonable for local policymakers to consider raising revenues (i.e., taxes or fees) to pay for this more adequate “snow insurance”–but the only reason that’s a fantasy is because of the “broken politics” that makes it so hard to raise taxes for any reason:

Republicans would immediate call it “the biggest tax increase in history” and declare unequivocally that it would send the economy into a tailspin while radically expanding the government. Chambers of commerce would issue news releases warning that the tax would particularly hurt small-business owners, who as we all know create every new job and would now be forced to cut their payrolls or close their doors. Virginia’s House of Delegates would move immediately to kill the proposal, thereby dooming consideration by all the other jurisdictions.

It is a measure of the dysfunction of our political system that we can no longer rationally debate whether it is penny-wise and pound-foolish not to spend a little more to try to keep the Capital of the Free World from grinding to a halt every time a snowflake descends from the heavens.

I realize there are lots of problems that cannot be solved just by throwing money at them, but snow removal is not one of them. We have the know-how, we have the technology and we have the money and economic self-interest to do it right. What we don’t seem to have is the leadership or political will.

Steve then goes on to do a “back-of-the envelope” calculation of how costly these lost days of work and school have been to this region, as evidence that government has not spent enough money on their snow-removal capabilities.

Yes, I agree with Steve that our local governments are ill-prepared to deal with these kinds of snowstorms.  Growing up in the Great Lakes region, I know that there are other parts of the country that do it much better and faster.

But we in DC are ill-prepared for this kind of snow, not so much because of our bad politics (I think politics over the rest of the country are just as bad, no?)–but because this kind of snow is such a low-probability event here.  Here’s a chart from a WashingtonPost.com weather blog (weather-blogger Matt Rogers)–as of before today’s blizzard which is supposed to add maybe a foot more!–showing the rarity of 2′+ snow seasons here in DC:

Matt puts this in perspective:

With the impending storm for tomorrow and Wednesday, we have a legitimate chance for an all-time (since records have been kept in the late 1800s) seasonal snow record.

Our big weekend storm surged Reagan National Airport’s seasonal total to 45″ with the balance of February and March yet to go. This places our current winter in position number three for the snowiest winters on record, behind 1995-96 (46″) and the big one, 1898-99 (54.4″). Of course, that all-time record was set at a more downtown location (M Street), so some may argue the higher elevation and location away from the Potomac was an easier accomplishment. But in my mind, that makes this potential record season all the more notable.

The chart above tracks seasonal totals since the 1990-91 snow season. Just look at that volatility. Get this: our 45″ this season is more than the last four winters COMBINED (which was only 35.5″).

An economist would say we’ve got to make decisions about public infrastructure and contracted services from a cost-benefit perspective, which has to be evaluated under conditions of uncertainty–weighing expected marginal costs against expected marginal benefits.  Of course, from an “ex post” perspective (after the snow has fallen–e.g., Steve’s current view), it looks like local policymakers got it all wrong and spent way too little on snow-removal equipment and services.  But from an “ex ante” perspective (before the snow has fallen or any even long-term weather forecasts have been made, maybe with the exception of the farmer’s almanac) I can’t imagine that any cost-benefit analysis would suggest it makes sense for the DC area to gear up for the kind of major snowfall we’ve experienced this week–in terms of purchasing equipment or advance contracting for services or otherwise committing to spending their budgets on something they might not ever use.

Instead, what such low-probability-but-bad-outcome events suggest is the need for local governments to have adequate “rainy-day” (ok, “snowy-day”) funds in place, in order to be prepared for what this snowfall really is (in this part of the country): an unanticipated emergency.  That’s where the “broken politics” messes things up, because Steve is right: we can’t seem to raise taxes for any reason, especially if it is to be better prepared for the future–be it a big snowstorm or even our kids’ standard of living.

***UPDATE (5 pm):  We just broke the all-time record for the snowiest season in the DC area!  Here’s a new graphic from the WashingtonPost.com weather gang below.

Well, they come in lots of varieties and come from all different parts of the country.  Here’s a neat little video CNN-Money produced out of their tagging along with the Concord Coalition’s “fiscal advisory councils”–whose representatives came to DC earlier this week to take their message (and model good behavior) to Congress.

…and A Side Note to Readers:  By the way, this is “Nutcracker week” on the homefront–which means I don’t have much time to think and write because I’m spending most of this week doing things like shopping for false eyelashes, sewing ribbons onto ballet slippers, and attending performances (as well as attending to injuries).  Glad there are so many good things out there to point to in place of doing my own work!… 

OK, I’m jumping into this controversy about screening for breast cancer (mammograms, self exams, and the under- versus over-50 issue) a week late, but not because I haven’t been following the stories.  It’s kind of hard to know how to talk about one’s breasts when one has the perspectives of both an economist and a woman. Health care is like no other economic good, and breasts are like no other part of a woman.

I’ve been listening to/reading all the arguments, and I am fascinated by all the chatter on this topic from male columnists/pundits (but should I be, really?…I mean, a chance for them to think about breasts as an important “public policy” issue?), but I found Howard Kurtz’s compilation of some very varied thoughts from female commentators most enlightening (and often entertaining) and provoking of my own opinions on the issue.  I am one of those women in question–over 40 but under 50–who the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force now says shouldn’t bother with routine breast cancer screening, whether via mammograms or even self exams.  Their judgment is that for the broad group of “women in their 40s” who do not have genetic predisposition for breast cancer (unfortunately I do), the “benefits” of such screening don’t outweigh the “harms” (costs).

To me this is a very curious (and odd) proposition.  As explained in this New York Times article by Gina Kolata, the task force’s new position basically says that more information, even if free via self exams, can be a bad thing–not because the actual gathering of that information is risky, but because of how women might react to that information (with anxiety) or choose to act on that information (with potentially unnecessary surgery, perhaps with the encouragement of their doctors).  My understanding is that the health risks from the (minimal) radiation produced by mammograms is (not coincidentally) very minimal.  And of course there are no health risks from the process of self-examining one’s breasts.  So the task force is not saying that the process of gathering the information is risky; they’re saying that how women might choose to use that information is risky.  It’s a “save me from myself” argument.

But I still don’t get it.  From a pure health perspective, the potential net benefits of early detection of breast cancer–even netting out the risks associated with the various surgical and chemical treatments for the disease–can be quite large.  Not gathering the information increases the likelihood of “false negatives” and disease that goes untreated, the potential cost of which is death.  The argument against gathering the information for those women who have lower risk on average (the under-50 crowd) is that it increases the likelihood of “false positives” and overreacting with treatment that is unnecessary, has potential complications, and which can be drastic–for example, cutting off a breast.  But the decision about whether and how to act on a positive result is a woman’s personal decision, taken under the advisement of her physician who presumably helps her evaluate her own personal physical health risks (and emotional costs as well) of treating versus not treating.  I have heard stories of women with such a strong genetic predisposition to breast cancer that they opt to have double mastectomies to preempt the disease, and I assume that those women have done their own personal cost-benefit calculation and decided that they (personally) were willing to “pay” two breasts in order to guarantee they would live a full life.

My own personal story about breast cancer screening has no such drama, although I’ve had routine mammograms since age 40 and on my own had found a small lump many years ago (which has never gone away but has also never grown) and have had a needle biopsy on it that I admit wasn’t a lot of fun.  But it’s always been a no brainer for me, the only issue ever being “do I have time”  or “can I remember” to get my annual mammogram–not whether getting it is worth the “risk” of learning something I might act upon or the “cost” of some temporary physical discomfort from seeking even better information (via the needle biopsy).  I weigh the various “costs” or unpleasantries to myself against the benefits of detection, knowing that breast cancer runs in my family, but also understanding a lot about the potential complications of the potential “next step” of treatment–including watching my mom currently dealing with the complications of what had been expected to be an uncomplicated lumpectomy.  (My mom is tough though; one of her mottos has always been “deal with it.”)

But would I choose for myself to purposely not know about my lump because I’m afraid of making a dumb decision about what to do about it?…

For me, my experience during my four full-term pregnancies and deciding whether or not to have an amniocentesis to screen for Down’s syndrome was much more a case of weighing the risks of getting the information against the possible benefits of having the information.  The potential health “cost” of the procedure was the small risk of premature labor or even miscarriage, but the potential “benefit” of having the information was even smaller–because had I found out my baby had Down’s syndrome it would not have changed my carrying out the pregnancy but would have only helped me prepare (psychologically and practically) for having such a baby.  (Given that calculation, I never had an amnio with any of my pregnancies, but opted for less informative, but also much less risky, screening methods instead.)  My decision about the screening of my own pregnancies was about very personal costs weighed against very personal benefits and not some aggregate evaluation of the cost versus benefit to someone “like” me, in my broadly-defined “risk category”.

This strikes me as a fundamental policy challenge in trying to save money by using “comparative effectiveness” research; the government can present the public with evidence that on aggregate or average some procedure is not effective enough and hence should not be supported (and by that I mean not subsidized and not not allowed), but the subset of the population for whom it is effective (no matter how narrow) will surely balk at the suggestion, and policymakers will be very reluctant to take away any kind of health benefit from anyone who actually benefits from the benefit.  I’ve suggested this before: wasteful spending is in the eye of the beneficiary.

Now, it’s true that this sort of aggregate calculation of costs versus benefits has to be done if we’re going to make any progress in paring back public health spending in as “smart” a way possible, and health care subsidies by drastically reducing personal out-of-pocket costs certainly work to tilt every insured individual’s own cost-benefit analysis in favor of doing too much screening and testing.  I’m just saying “good luck” coming out with the recommendations on which procedures and protocols will no longer be government recommended and subsidized without hearing from “lobbyist advocates” representing every narrow subset of people for whom the personal cost-benefit analysis doesn’t jive with the aggregate one.  It’s going to be awfully hard.

Finally, while we’re on the topic of breasts, I feel like pointing out the irony of the Senate health reform bill now having a tax on elective cosmetic surgery–including “boob jobs” presumably.  (Yeah, I know–it’s just another way to tax only “rich” people.)  Hopefully reconstructive surgery is not considered “elective” (I haven’t read over the legislative text), but I suppose there are “grey areas”…for example, if one used to be an A cup and after “reconstruction” is a C cup, then at least some of that is obviously “elective”–and maybe some “pro-rata” portion of the cost of surgery should be taxed!  (I see this as a potential tax avoidance strategy giving tax planners “more material” to work with.)

I could tell more stories and make more analogies here, but I will resist the temptation lest the additional information have negative net benefit to you readers–at least on average. 

Well, everyone’s waiting in great anticipation of the President’s Wednesday night address to Congress and the American people, hoping to get more clarity on how the President plans to actually change how health care works, hopefully for the better.  The Concord Coalition today released this statement written by Coalition co-chairs (and former U.S. senators) Warren Rudman and Bob Kerrey.

But the Senate is still struggling to come up with a single, bipartisan plan (despite Senator Baucus’ attempts to make it look as if one is very close), and the House Democrats are still in disarray–with the Progressives insisting that it’s the public way or the highway, and the Blue Dogs today making it clearer that they want just the opposite.

We can still hope for “real change” in terms of getting bipartisanship, political compromise and cooperation, mutual sacrifice, tough choices for the greater and longer-term good–all that good stuff that the President has been great at talking about.  And the opportunities for “real change” might actually be there for the taking.  But hope and opportunity are not sufficient, because to actually accomplish “real change” we still have to choose to change.

And with today’s first day of school, there was this story in the Washington Post about school lunches.  You see, the President wants to improve the quality of school lunches, which could easily be interpreted as part of his broader agenda for health care reform, contributing to the “preventive” care part of the strategy.  The Post’s Jennifer LaRue Huget explains (emphasis added):

President Obama has asked for $1 billion more for child nutrition programs, including the school lunch program, in his 2010 budget proposal. Among the changes school-nutrition advocates hope Congress will consider: increasing the per-meal reimbursement the government gives schools, banning trans fats from school menus and encouraging schools to include more locally grown foods in the lunches they provide.

The subsidized meals are built in part around surplus edibles that the federal government buys from farmers to keep prices steady; these foods include far more meat and dairy products than vegetables or whole grains. The subsidized meals must meet certain nutrition standards, but processed and fatty foods such as chicken nuggets and french fries remain staples in many school-lunch programs.

Why? Part of the problem is money. According to the SNA [School Nutrition Association], the federal government reimburses schools $2.68 for each lunch served, while those meals cost about $2.92 to produce. Cooper says that two-thirds of this expense goes toward salaries and overhead. She challenges anyone to take the remaining dollar or so to the grocery store and come out with a well-balanced, nutritious and tasty meal. It’s no surprise, she says, that many schools simply resort to “highly processed, cheap food.”

There are glimmers of hope. The SNA points out that 37 percent of school programs consistently offer locally grown fruits and vegetables, 99 percent offer fat-free or low-fat milk, 96.3 percent offer whole-grain items and more than 91 percent offer salad bars or prepackaged salads. Nearly 64 percent offer vegetarian meals. (All of which is not to say that kids are necessarily eating those foods or that chicken nuggets have lost their place on lunch trays.)…

You see, just like how health reform is going, changing what our kids actually eat at school isn’t that easy either.  You can tell them that the healthy food is better for them and hope that the message sinks in, and you can give them the opportunity to choose the healthier options alongside the not-so-healthy options.  But if you’re not willing to force them to eat the healthy food–i.e., limit or “ration” their choices so that there isn’t as much of a “choice”–you’re not going to be assured that “real change” in their diets will happen.

So today, my son Johnny bought lunch at his Fairfax County public school cafeteria for the first time this school year.  Today’s menu offered a choice (for main dish) among chicken tenders (with brown rice, which is supposed to make it healthier I guess), cheese quesadilla, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and something called a “yogurt biteable” (gosh, I hope they’re all “biteable”…).  Johnny chose the chicken tenders, because he always chooses the breaded chicken option as long as it’s an option–same as he’s done for years.

And the photo above is an intentional “reenactment” done at dinnertime tonight with McDonald’s chicken nuggets.  But Johnny actually ate them (for dinner).  (Yes, I know, bad mother!… I asked Johnny’s dad to buy them for him after his baseball practice, for the sake of a better blog entry!… It is a good thing my family tends to make up for our not-so-good diets with lots of physical activity and pretty great genes.)

Let’s hope President Obama will do better to help our nation choose to do the right (or at least better) thing.

Well, today’s the last day of summer vacation for my kids, and at least my girls will be making sure their “first day outfits” are just right and ready to go.  It’s what the Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson playfully (yet accurately) wrote about on Saturday in her story on “flip-flop fashionistas” planning “The Outfit” (an example pictured above with these two 12-year-old rising 7th graders–just the position my 3rd daughter is in).

Also in Saturday’s Post Joel Achenbach reminds us that Congress and the Administration go “back to school” in a way, too, this week, and that the “kids” that are the flashiest dressers and get the most attention aren’t exactly the bipartisan centrists (my emphasis added):

President Obama came into office vowing to end the old divisions of Washington. That may be his signature failure to date. The divide between the parties has turned into a gulf. There is essentially no middle anymore. If you see a prone body in the Capitol, it belongs to someone who toyed with being a centrist…

Congress-watchers see this not as an aberration but as a long-term trend — “hyperpartisanship.” The parties used to be more eclectic and less ideologically regimented. In the past two decades or so, they’ve become more philosophically homogeneous — there are no liberal Republicans to speak of, for example. Party leaders are more prone to crack down on anyone showing signs of apostasy. Buck the party caucus and you’ll lose a plum committee assignment or party help with fundraising.

The media are complicit. Cable TV news channels require guests to meet certain standards of stridency. Anyone wishing to express a moderate opinion will be upbraided and mocked. [I mentioned I saw this earlier this weekend when MSNBC was making fun of Al Franken for being too moderate and restrained.]…

“Being sober and reasoned in the national interest is often less entertaining than being hyperbolic and accosting the other side,” says Jason Grumet, a Democrat who directs the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank that is parked in the lonely middle of the spectrum.

There might be moderates out there, but they don’t march. They don’t go to town-hall meetings to berate a member of Congress. The people who do go seem to have a tendency to worry about such nonexistent things as “death panels.” At least, that’s how it looks on TV.

“You gotta rebuild the dormant center,” says Lee Hamilton, the former Democratic congressman who was known as a centrist during his decades in the House…

Well, that all sounds kind of exciting–like we just have to “fire up” the centrists and moderates out there–those folks willing to work in a bipartisan manner.  Trouble is, whenever we talk about building up the “sensible center” (as Dave Walker has often referred to it), it often sounds, well, kind of boring. Again from Joel Achenbach’s article:

Says Democrat Richard Gephardt, the former House leader: “It’s always easier to defeat something than pass something.” He adds, “The only way to change any of this is for the public to demand public servants who want to solve problems and want to act in a bipartisan way.”

There is, in fact, a bipartisan health-care proposal. It’s being pushed by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah…

I often reflect on the set of personalities that get put into the “centrist” and “moderate” camp and think that yes, these are a bunch of very smart and reasonable men and women, but let’s face it–there’s a little blandness there, too.  And that doesn’t help get them much notice, and it certainly doesn’t help them get their way.

I say the centrists need to pick their bodies off of the floor, pick out a flashy new “first day outfit”, and get ready to “start school” in a more assertive, engaging, persistent, confident, and courageous way.  I think they even should get more aggressive in their “noodging” and “nagging”–but in a “cooler” way.  In Sunday’s Washington Post there was a cute article about how many parents use text messaging to effectively “nag” their kids.  I’m certainly guilty.  Here’s an idea for a text message I’d like to send President Obama:

“POTUS: OMG, Y R U extending the BUSH tax cuts?!”

(And if he didn’t respond, I’d send back:  “HELLO?–R U there?”)

And the “hyperpartisans” need to stop bullying.  We need to urge for “tolerance” in the halls of Congress just as we demand it in the halls of school.  From the same psychology book I quoted from about “courage” earlier this weekend, this in the “tolerance” chapter:

“With rare and precious exceptions, politicians demonstrate through their actions a striking lack of tolerance and maturity because they flourish within a system where posturing, blaming, lying, goading, defaming, egotism and lack of personal responsibility can bring success.  To listen to politicians elaborate their refusals to take responsibility for actions that were ill-advised or even stupid, and to hear how the fault lies always somewhere else, is to hear the language of profound immaturity and lack of tolerance, which is also, all too often, the language of our communities and even our homes.”  –Stephanie Dowrick, Forgiveness & Other Acts of Love, 1997, page 256.

So, it’s back to school time!  Time for a fresh start, so let’s pick out THE really great “OUTFIT” for the first day.  And let’s make sure it’s a little OUT of what we were comfortable FITting into last year.  It’s the opening shot for the “image” that will carry us through the rest of the schoolyear–how others will “see” us.  I hope to see those centrist, moderate, bipartisans turn out to be the most popular “kids in school” this year–not just the smartest (and nerdiest) ones with whom no one wants to dance.

Well, the “Cash for Clunkers” program ended earlier this evening (Monday).  It started as a $1 billion program that was expected to go on for four months (the original rule was from July 1st through Nov. 1st, or when the money ran out).  It ended up a program triple the size (after $2 billion in additional funds were added) that managed to run out of funds in less than half the time.

Whether the program was that wise for the environment and resource “conservation” could certainly be questioned (I worried here about the wasteful death of still-useful vehicles turned in as “clunkers”), but the program has been an obvious success as a pure fiscal stimulus program:  it brought customers to the dealerships, and they indeed bought the new cars without the usual (especially recessionary) hemming and hawing and mulling the purchases over.  Potential buyers knew it was “now or never” to get the $4500 federal rebate before the money ran out, and the contest-like feel to the program really kicked those competing American consumers into action.

Now we’ll watch to see what happens in the aftermath of the program.  Will it have served as an effective and sustainable “jump start” to the U.S. auto industry?  Or will it have merely concentrated the timing of car purchases into these past few weeks without having boosted demand over the longer run?  Will the autoworkers called back to the assembly lines still have their jobs a few months to a year from now?

I never went to the dealer with my minivan, deciding I wanted to try to “recycle” my van at the “proper” time, rather than rush to kill it.  (My van would have ended up like part of “Carhenge” pictured above.)  As soon as I decided to opt myself out of the Cash for Clunkers pool, I realized I had no incentive to rush out to the dealerships, and that, in fact, I’d better wait until the clunker dust settled before shopping for my new car.  Now everyone is out of the Clunkers pool, and instead of it feeling like a contest, it may start to look like a dance where everyone’s back to being wallflowers.