At 8p.m. this evening the cash for clunkers program is being suspended. Following on from my post Riddle Me This? where I explained in easy to understand terms the basics of the TARP program and how it affects you, today I have decided to shine the Sidewalker flashlight of clarity squarely on the cash for clunkers program. Disclaimer: Never forget the four inhabitants of Castle Sidewalker are apolitical, and we just call it as we see it.

1. Take $4,500 of your money (as a taxpayer) give it to a total stranger and tell them to get rid of their old ride and buy a new car.

2. Joe your local mechanic, who has had a totally viable family business for four generations servicing the older cars in the neighborhood is out of business within six months.

3. The bloated car manufacturers will implode next year instead of this year, because there will be no one left to buy new cars as all the demand has been brought forward due to the cash for clunkers program.

The big question is how do we profit from this? The simple answer; buy vacant lots in the Detroit area because they are going to have to park these cars somewhere unless they stop making them!

I have published this post on auto (pardon the pun) as you know I’m away.
Feel free to comment…

-Luke Sidewallker
-Current balance $18.30

…along with every other taxpayer in the U.S.! I have been dreading this day for some time. The day that is when someone I don’t know, acting on information I’m not privy to, decided that I invest in General Motors. How come the “faceless few” never invests my funds in healthy companies?

I don’t watch a lot of business news as I’m sure you’re aware of if you have been a reader for some time, but I did come across this little gem on CNBC. One of the talking heads said “There is a silver lining to the GM chapter 11 bankruptcy, they are the number one car and truck seller in the U.S.”. Lets think about this oral buffoonery for a second. If loss per unit sale is an irrelevance let me go on record as saying, you pick the product and Sidewalker Enterprises will be the number one seller of said product in the U.S., with the “doesn’t matter what you lose” provision in place. And to think CNBC is a major source of business news for the majority of the Nation.

I don’t like to rant but I could not keep a lid on this one. No money found since the last post, some money lost to Detroit though…

-Luke Sidewalker
-Current balance $10.15

I had to take a trip out today and I had the choice to walk or drive. I must have had a premonition as I decided to walk and ended up 6 cents richer for the experience. Actually I’m a little bit better off than even that 6 cents would suggest, as I saved on gas by walking, eliminated parking costs, and got a little exercise thrown in for free! Detroit won’t like it, but maybe the answer to a lot of our current problems could be solved by walking instead of driving!

It is a simple equation:

Walking = Finding Opportunity + Gas Saving + Health Benefit

As always the location of today’s finds can be found on the map to the right.

Anybody out there found any cash recently? Let me know.

-Luke Sidewalker
-Current Balance $6.40