Cash for Clunkers: Taxpayers Paid $24,000 per Vehicle Sold http://www.edmunds.com/help/about/press/159446/article.html
Do people really read what they quote? This article explained: So they just disregarded 78% of the sales as frivolous and "would have happened anyway". That is like saying to a mortgagor that he is going to pay next year's payments sooner or later anyway, so why doesn't he pay the whole amount now? There is no way of knowing for certain how many and what kind of vehicles would have been sold at that given time of economic crisis.
The only thing more full of shit than the government itself is Edmunds. As a car nut myself, I can tell you from experience: disregard everything they say and go look for a better source.
Car's aside, there's plenty of others spewing shit, like the entire staff at CNBC. But, even that bastion of hard hitting financial journalism was eclipsed when the schmucks behind the Nobel Peace Prize gave a medal to someone who did nothing more than consume oxygen.