Talk about being right on the mark. Everybody is trying to get a piece of this new consumer incentive plan for old cars (Abwrackprämie) over here in Germany these days. The government shells out 2,500 euros to anybody who trades in his old wreck for a new, more environmentally friendly one, I mean new one. German consumer confidence is way up at the moment, primarily because of this.

But this is another one of those only-in-Germany kind of things, folks. The wreck you trade in here to get the money has to be at least nine years old! That’s right, nine (not nein). Only German cars live that long, of course, so it’s basically a subsidy for the German car industry. And they’re selling their smaller models like hotcakes at the moment, despite all of the economic doom.

By the way, you can’t trade the ones in you torch first, though, no matter how old they are.

„Die Verbraucher in Deutschland haben trotz der schwersten Rezession seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg mehr Lust zum Einkaufen.“