Why they’ve been shipped off to Africa, of course. The German cash for clunkers plan, the so-called Abwrackpämie, was also a roaring success over here, you see.

Not only could anybody with an old car help stimulate the German economy by trading it in for a big rebate to purchase a new, more environmentally-friendly model, he or she could then rest more soundly at night knowing that their old CO2-spewing wreck had been taken out of service for good and that they had done their part to help save the world’s climate as we know it.

But now it turns out that up to 50,000 old German cars which had been declared wrecked were in fact later sold to Eastern European countries or shipped off to Africa. I know this sounds bad at first, ex-clunker owner, but I would not worry my little worried head about it and continue to keep on sleeping soundly through the night if I were you (and we both know that you will). This unfortunate “massive scrapping bonus betrayal” is in fact, well, unfortunate, but it will eventually only encourage the Eastern Europeans and Africans to initiate cash for clunkers programs of their own.

And the best part of all of this? This program only cost the German government (that means the German taxpayers) eighty zillion quadrillion bazillion euros (nobody does billion anymore). Government programs rule.

“By taking clunkers of the road, the thinking went, Germany’s carbon footprint could also be reduced.”