Frosty August, Foggy Outlook

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

It’s not just the Tokyo stock market that is worried about worse than expected August numbers. Back home, the public is being prepared for shocking numbers. “We are crawling around,” said Jesse Toprak of TrueCar to Reuters. “It feels like we got a dead car to jump-start but we just can’t get it to go over 20 miles an hour.” Just as GM prepares its IPO, industry watchers see more evidence of a slower-than-expected industry recovery.

Edmunds predicts a 17.7 percent fall from August last year. TrueCar paints an even darker picture: down 20 percent from a year earlier when cash for clunkers drove demand. TrueCar sees SAAR about flat from July, 11.68m.

JD Power and Associates has trimmed its 2010 and 2011 U.S. auto sales forecasts, reflecting a “flattening of the recovery.” Analysts are getting ready for a double-dip recession.

“All the measures that we track that correlate very strongly with new vehicle sales have largely been negative, particularly in the last two weeks,” said Toprak. “I think really what is being damaged here more than anything is the already very fragile consumer confidence.”

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • MikeAR MikeAR on Aug 29, 2010

    I call Fox News by its name as I do MSNBC, I don't watch either one because there are too many other places to get news. The stars of both networks are pretty much blowhards except for Beck, he bores me. The true danger to free markets in this country is crony capitalism where who you know and who you can buy determines your success. Think GE, they couldn't compete against cheaper, more efficient incandescent bulb makers so they lobbied to ban them and replace them with cfl bulbs that they had a head start manufacturing. Consumers pay more for the bulbs and they are dangerous when broken beacuse of the mercury in them. But GE got their money's worth from buying politicians. Thing about the Toyota sua crisis. How many think that was made worse by GM's owners meddling in the markets? Get the goverment out of the markets except as law enforcers and penalize harshly any business that tries to compete by influencing government and we will be on our way to recovery faster than you can imagine.

  • Speedlaw Speedlaw on Aug 30, 2010

    The Framers thought of almost everything. Corrupt persons in power. Handling the mob mentality and "something must be done". Balance of individual rights and state power. Even though they were mostly successful businessmen, they could not foresee the corporate takeover of government and media. While business always "had a say", today, laws are passed for corporate America, not you. Health insurance reform is but one example. Any copyright legislation is yet another. There is never any choice that helps a person....rather, industry writes the laws and paid for congresspersons vote "DA!" If there was ANY push for a law which would help the average, there would be usury laws again.

  • Angainor Angainor on Aug 30, 2010

    Porschespeed, I am awed by your intellectual arguments. Your positions are so undeniable true that you can go straight to name calling and belittling those who don't agree with you. You truly are a bright, shining example of the very best of left wing thought today. And to think there are whole Congressional districts of people just like you out there sending Representatives to Congress. No wonder this country is screwed.

    • 1996MEdition 1996MEdition on Aug 30, 2010

      porshespeed - "his audience is non-critically thinking, low-IQ, unemployed people who want to blame someone for their plight" .....and when someone doesn't agree with your point of view, just resort to calling them ignorant. ....as to being related to a participant of the Continental Congress, why is that relevant? I would think that your position on W would automatically negate any references to heredity being a predictor of anything. There is no cut and dried right or wrong in politics and economics. This is why we all get so heated up when mentioned. Extremists on either side cannot be reasoned with and typically never succeed. Only when people can listen to other viewpoints and reach a reasonable compromise will real results ever be achieved.

  • Porschespeed Porschespeed on Aug 31, 2010

    @1996MEdition, I resort to calling a spade a spade, when it is by any sane definition, a spade. I'm all for an intelligent debate of anything, anything that is actually debatable. That's where we can find a middle ground (which is truly important) and move on. Fishing quotas, how to educate our kids, how to mitigate gang violence.These are grey areas. Let's kick them around and see what happens. But, the Founding Fathers wrote The Declaration with the intent of "freedom from religion - not 'freedom of', let alone 'Christian based nation'. That is no more arguable than stating the earth is flat. Or 'creationism' is a valid counterpoint to evolution. Yes, if you believe crap, it is my duty to call you on it. 'Flat-earthers' are low IQ meat-puppets and I have no hesitation to point out that they are. If they develop a logical argument, I'm glad to debate the point. But they can't. Getting 'news' from FOX is like getting science from the Vatican - it's crap, it has been crap for over a thousand years, and the makers only accept that which meshes with their best interests. Regardless of any scientific proof to the contrary. If you didn't side with that heretic Galileo, you were a cretin then, and a cretin now. And I have no hesitations to calling water wet. There are most certainly cut and dried 'right and wrongs' in politics and economics. Is having 1% of the population control over 80% of the world's assets and income right or wrong?

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