Is it tight credit? A global recession? Sapped consumer confidence? Try all of the above. December’s auto sales numbers were downright horrific. Here’s a summary of the carnage:
GM & Nissan Sales off 31%
Chrysler Sales off 53%
Ford Sales off 32%
Even Toyota and Honda saw their sales numbers hammered with both companies reporting greater than 35% decreases in year over year sales for December 2008. Contrary to popular opinion, this trend has been a developing one and proves that the problem is not just bankruptcy fears regarding Big Car. It is a marketwide problem, and it encompasses pretty much the entire country.
Which really should put some scrutiny on the inept Treasury’s decision to throw $5 billion in perfectly ‘good’ money to GMAC so they can lend it out at 0%. Apparently, the way to combat bad loans now is to create even more of them by opening up the lending spigots. This really shouldn’t be much of a surprise though. This is the same logic that is being used to fight bad loans in the housing market. It is the same way that government is dealing with the problems that ail Wall Street – throw enough money at the problem and somehow it’ll just go away.
I guess none of these folks ever stopped to think that it might be the money itself that is part of the problem.