Couple funny emails I got...

[Bam]

THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER

 

This one is a little different... . Two Different Versions.... .......... .... Two Different Morals

 

OLD VERSION

 

 

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

 

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

 

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

 

The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

 

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

 

MODERN VERSION

 

 

The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

 

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

 

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

 

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

 

America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

 

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

 

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.'

 

ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.” Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.

 

President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight.

 

Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

 

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

 

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.

 

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.

 

The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

 

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and once peaceful, neighborhood.

 

The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it.

 

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2010.

 

AND

 

--------------

this is all factual my friends as I called my CPA to confirm. Dan

 

 

 

 

If you traded in a clunker worth $3500, you get $4500 off for an apparent "savings" of $1000.

 

However, you have to pay taxes on the $4500 come April 15th (something that no auto dealer will tell you). If you are in the 30% tax bracket, you will pay $1350 on that $4500.

 

So, rather than save $1000, you actually pay an extra $350 to the feds. In addition, you traded in a car that was most likely paid for. Now you have 4 or 5 years of payments on a car that you did not need, that was costing you less to run than the payments that you will now be making.

 

But wait, it gets even better: you also got ripped off by the dealer. For example, every dealer in LA was selling the Ford Focus with all the goodies including A/C, auto transmission, power windows, etc for $12,500 the month before the "cash for clunkers" program started. When "cash for clunkers" came along, they stopped discounting them and instead sold them at the list price of $15,500. So, you paid $3000 more than you would have the month before. (Honda, Toyota , and Kia played the same list price game that Ford and Chevy did).

 

So lets do the final tally here:

 

You traded in a car worth: $3500

You got a discount of: $4500

Net so far +$1000

 

But you have to pay: $1350 in taxes on the $4500

Net so far: -$350

 

And you paid: $3000 more than the car was selling for the month before.

 

Net -$3350

 

We could also add in the additional taxes (sales tax, state tax, etc.) on the extra $3000 that you paid for the car, along with the 5 years of interest on the car loan, but lets just stop here.

 

So, who actually made out on the deal?

 

The feds collected taxes on the car along with taxes on the $4500 they "gave" you.

 

The car dealers made an extra $3000 or more on every car they sold along with the kickbacks from the manufacturers and the loan companies.

 

The manufacturers got to dump lots of cars they could not give away the month before.

 

And the poor stupid consumer got saddled with even more debt that they cannot afford.

 

Obama and his band of merry men convinced Joe consumer that he was getting $4500 in "free" money from the "government" when in fact Joe was giving away his $3500 car and paying an additional $3350 for the privilege.

 

Who thinks this makes sense?

 

Think of it this way...

 

A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year.

A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons a year.

So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year per car.

 

They claim 700,000 vehicles so that's 224 million gallons saved per year.

 

That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil. 5 million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption.

 

More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars.

 

So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million..

 

We spent $8.57 to for every dollar saved.

 

How good a deal was that ???

 

They'll probably do a great job with health care, though!!

[AWW$HEEET]

cliffs?

[wnaplay1647545503]

Interesteing read.

[iwashmycar]

hahahahah. good stuff

[Ramsey]

for the clunkers thing, wouldnt they have got 3500 +4500??

[Tripleskate]

I've heard both of these before, several times. But that makes it no less true.

[SPL_Josh]

for the clunkers thing, wouldnt they have got 3500 +4500??

 

no, no matter what your car was worth it got the clunker prices (3500-4500 depending on vehicle)

then they locked up the motor and were sent to a junk yard.

 

So if your car was worth 2000. you didnt not get 4500+2000...you just got 4500

 

And the thing about the dealers stop discounting new cars was 100% true.

[Gergwheel1647545492]

cliffs?

 

he hates his country

[iwishiwascool]

"So, who actually made out on the deal?

 

The feds collected taxes on the car along with taxes on the $4500 they "gave" you. "

 

To

"So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million."

 

You can't have it both ways. Either the big scary government is evil and raking in taxes on the back of the poor, or they are stupid and ignorant for spending so much with nothing to show for it.

 

 

The first one starts off as a polite polemic then shifts to another tone entirely when it subtly suggests we supplant "under privileged" with "poor minorities" (one in particular).