Cash for clunkers incentives

Good point:

The [Cash for Clunkers] buying frenzy is widely interpreted to mean that Congress and the administration did a brilliant job of designing the plan. George Mason University economist Russell Roberts contends on his Cafe Hayek blog that it proves just the opposite.

If you put your house on the market and immediately get 10 offers at the listed price, it means you should have asked for more. The stampede, says Roberts, indicates the subsidy ($3,500 or $4,500 per trade) was too rich and the government could have gotten "the same effects with a much smaller amount."

It's all so ridiculous.