Bailout Watch 454: Public Support Falling, Sales To Follow
President Obama wasn’t indulging in hyperbole last Sunday when he told 60 Minutes that “the only thing less popular than putting money into banks is putting money into the auto industry.” The Freep reports that a new Polk survey shows that 61 percent of Americans now oppose giving GM and Chrysler more money. More tellingly, support for a continued bailout of the auto industry peaks at only 16 percent in the manufacturing-heavy Great Lakes region and drops to as low as 4 percent in favor in New England. And there’s little room to argue that lack of support is based on ignorance or misperception. About the same percentage of people who opposed more loans also recognized that denying them would have dire economic consequences. One Polk analyst describes the emerging consensus on Detroit’s predicament as “it’s a problem, but it’s not a problem for taxpayers.” Cold.
But consumers aren’t exactly stepping into the breach either, as the Freep reports on a Deutsche Bank analysis that says Detroit is staring down another 40 percent plus sales drop. US SAAR could drop to 8.6 million units this month, with GM and Chrysler taking the brunt of the damage on “solvency concerns.”
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50merc, Actually, the evidence has been reported in the Los Angeles Times in November about how revenue and earnings for women working in Nevada brothels is down big time.
Aren't the sales (or lack of them) votes on the viability of GM & chrysler? It is the only way the public can vote, with their feet. This vote has been going on for a long time here in the US, and the denials from the domestics just as long. We sometimes fail to remember, that nothing has changed. GM and Chrysler were losing market share all doing the boom (16 Million per year) sales years as well as now. The foreigners are still gaining on them, but at the reduced numbers of total sales. GM and Chrysler are about to go irrelevant, the most dire consequence that could be awarded.
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