Scotty Kilmer on Philippines crushing expensive illegal cars

[Old55]

For those of you who don't know who Scotty Kilmer is he was a small time TV car "guy" on east coast television who went on to become a big deal on YouTube. He's a hoot and mostly spot on with his auto advise. 

 

[Mike J]

I wonder if a better solution to the problem would be to have an international auction for the seized cars.  The buyer would also have to pay the fees to ship the car back out of the country.  The car leaves, but money stays.   

[Old55]

33 minutes ago, Mike J said:

I wonder if a better solution to the problem would be to have an international auction for the seized cars.  The buyer would also have to pay the fees to ship the car back out of the country.  The car leaves, but money stays.   

I don't think we would ever learn the reason crushing the cars is done. It could be a Eat The Rich ploy or the importers are known but too important to call out in public or something along those lines? 

On the other hand there is vindictiveness in Filipino culture it could just be that simple.

Edited July 5, 2021 by Old55

[scott h]

1 hour ago, Old55 said:

I don't think we would ever learn the reason crushing the cars is done.

What pops right to the front of my mind is.............If they confiscated the auctioned off these cars like they due in the states and the money goes into the city/state/federal coffers. If they tried that here there would automatically be cries of corruption, either the bids would be fixed or kickbacks would be involved.

Easier to avoid it all and destroy them.

 

[OnMyWay]

1 hour ago, scott h said:

What pops right to the front of my mind is.............If they confiscated the auctioned off these cars like they due in the states and the money goes into the city/state/federal coffers. If they tried that here there would automatically be cries of corruption, either the bids would be fixed or kickbacks would be involved.

Easier to avoid it all and destroy them.

 

I tend to agree.  By doing this, Duterte is basically admitting that the government is so corrupt at so many levels, it would be impossible dispose of them without cars or money ending up in the hands of corrupt officials.

[hk blues]

Personally, I don't have a problem with destroying them, it's not like they belong to anyone legitimately.  The amount of revenue that selling them would raise is a drop in the ocean and more bother than it's worth to the government.  It's no worse than the practice of destroying illicit booze and tobacco.  

I watched a video of how Amazon destroys perfectly good products all day, every day, things which could be donated to the countless worthy causes around the world.  That would be a better problem to solve IMO.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Old55 said:

or the importers are known but too important to call out in public

Bingo. Same reason they got so publicly angry at Canada for the shipping containers filled with garbage but never went after the consignee.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, hk blues said:

The amount of revenue that selling them would raise is a drop in the ocean

And would invariably wind up in someone's private bank account.

[OnMyWay]

3 hours ago, JDDavao said:

And would invariably wind up in someone's private bank account.

This reminds me of another angle to this story.  I wonder if the cars publicly destroyed were only those whose importers / owners did not work out a mutually satisfactory financial arrangement?

I don't know if it has improved a lot, but in the 90's, Philippines customs was extremely corrupt.  I have first hand knowledge of this as I was in the package shipping industry at the time, and the manager of our Manila import / export facility was my ex-boss.  I visited that facility in 1995.

[Jollygoodfellow]

On 7/6/2021 at 12:01 PM, hk blues said:

I watched a video of how Amazon destroys perfectly good products all day, every day, things which could be donated to the countless worthy causes around the world.  That would be a better problem to solve IMO.

Why are they destroying them? I see places that sell pallet loads of returns or damaged goods from Amazon and can be bought cheaply. Ofcourse you dont know whats in each pallet load.