Hello, my name is James Hatcher and I have been in the car business for 21 years. I cannot believe the American public is allowing the Cash for Clunkers "advertisement" to be conducted by our government. I have extensive experience in the new and used car industry. I would like to share with others the major impact and mistakes that this program will cause. First of all, this program is only helping those people with good enough credit to buy a new car. I have been by several dealerships and only about 10 percent of the cars I have seen need to be crushed. The other 90 percent most people would love to have the opportunity to buy. Example: 1999 Cadillac Seville only 84,000 miles to be crushed. These are vehicles I have seen myself. If Mr. Obama wanted to help MAINSTREET as he says he would have had the government sale these cars through the auto auctions and let used car dealers decide what are clunkers. This would have allowed the average person in the US to upgrade their vehicle and most of them are driving the TRUE clunkers. Also, this would have allowed the used car dealers to make a small profit again helping MAINSTREET. The biggest impact this would have had would be the government getting a return on our cash dollars. For instance: If the cash for clunkers program provided $4500.00 in assistance to a customer and a used car dealer bought the car for $2500.00 at the auction guess what the government only spent $2000.00 of your cash dollars. This would have also reflected on the auto auctions and helping them maintain their employees, helped the transport companies, the parts stores all the way down to the detail shops that detail the cars for the used car dealers. The list goes on and on. If you don't believe me just drive by a new car dealership and take a look at the "CLUNKERS" to be crushed and see if there is something you would have liked own and that you could afford.


Now, Wall Street Investors, this one is for you:
     I, James Hatcher, predict that by the first quarter of 2010 the auto industry will be in much worse shape than it has been in to this point. Here's the reason. This program or sales tactic by our government has taken future buyer's of cars and put them in today's buying market. Why is a customer going to have a reason to buy a new car after this is over? Car sales will come to a screaching hault and once again new car dealer's will be sitting on an abundance of new cars by the first of the year with minimal buyers. Again resulting in a request for a government bailout. I just read that GM is bringing people back to work. Again, this is a joke. If the CEO's of the big three had any sense at all they would cut production by 50 percent RIGHT NOW and try to survive the storm because it is coming. Do you remember in High School when you were taught about cost and demand? It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure this one out. I remember after 9/11 when GM was freaking out. I was a sales manager for one of the largest GM dealerships in the US. GM came in and offered an unheard of 0 percent financing for up to 60 months. We became flooded with customers and soon out of inventory. Once the program was over we struggled every month to survive. This finally ended in GM having to sell GMAC to Houshold Financial. Didn't they learn anything at all or did they just forget. Again this is just the tip of the iceberg. Automakers and affiliates hold on because it's going to be a rough ride and you probably won't make it unless you start doing something today.

I hope that by writing this I can help our country and my fellow citizens.

Sincerely,

James Hatcher