We bought a new truck last month due to the spectacular incentives. Got a great price for our trade in, too.
Usually purchase used but couldn’t pass up a great deal at zero percent interest.
I think sell/buy algorithms rule the intraday/day-to-day trading now. I mean ya can't tell me these markets moves largely on reports, earnings, dividends anymore.
The only real economy is manufacturing - using the term in a broader sense that what is common today.
It all comes down to this. People make stuff. If they get efficient at making stuff then they trade with other people for the stuff they make. People, and people groups that become very efficient can make a lot of stuff per person hour expended. They then have more to trade with and accumulate lots of other peoples stuff (become wealthy).
Everything thing else, including currencies, is fluff at best and smoke and mirrors at worst.
If a country continually buys more stuff than they sell - they become poor over time. They export their wealth until they run out of it.
In principle I am all for free markets and free trade.
That said there are people on this forum who are so hung up on the theory they refuse to acknowledge any complexities. There is the façade of free trade among nations but that trade is never fair. Other governments, including many of our best allies, constantly screw us by any means necessary. Such as the French constantly stealing our industrial secrets, countries that pay no heed to the pirating of our intellectual property, or countries that pull stunts like declaring all US products to be ‘unsafe’. We have stupidly tolerated this since WWII.
So screw free trade. There is no such animal in the real world. We need fair trade - and as much as possible would be good for everyone.
Fair trade can only be obtained by each country putting up tariffs on partners who they run trade deficits with until the trade balances out.
When there is little cheating going on - then lots of trade can take place. If governments try to cheat under this system then they end up losing out to other countries who do not cheat, and therefore, do not have tariffs placed on their goods.
Final point. The US is a huge market and we would be much better off (in the long run) with no international trade at all than what is happening now. We are exporting our wealth, and creating a two class society. The solution is absolutely free markets - but we cannot be naïve or simple about it.
“Atlas shrugs off Obama economy...”
Perhaps they see a long drought ahead, and are reducing inventories before buyers disappear.
Isn't that one of the signs of a depression, a period of deflation as too many goods chase too few buyers?
” if the U.S. economy as a whole grew while manufacturing merely held its own”
Without government-subsidized (by the taxpayers eventually) consumer spending where would the wealth come from for the economy to grow without manufacturing?
Because manufacturing represents only about 12% of economic activity, he said that the ISM would have to fall to about 43 before a recession is in the cards.
——Autos zipped out of showrooms last month at the fastest rate since July 2005.——
based on the number of TV ads, I suspect the heavy auto sales result from strongly discounted ‘15 model clearance