Ford to post first US sales rise in 2 years ( Thanks to cash for clunkers)

[Kdillard]

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5711TM20090802


"Ford Motor Co will report its U.S. sales for July rose from a year ago on a late-month surge under the federal government's "Cash for Clunkers" incentive program, senior U.S. executives said on Sunday.

The July increase marks Ford's first year-over-year monthly rise since November 2007, just before the U.S. economic downturn began, and the first increase for any of the largest automakers since the start of the financial crisis a year ago.

The result is "important to Ford, but it is also a very good indication for the economy," Ford U.S. sales chief Ken Czubay said in a telephone interview.

"It was a deep hole that the entire economy was in," Czubay said. "We may not be out of the hole, but we are seeing very encouraging signs in July."

Ford, the only U.S. automaker that has not restructured in bankruptcy with federal funding, has consistently outperformed the other six largest automakers in the U.S. market this year, with less severe sales declines than its rivals amid the lowest vehicle sales rate in nearly three decades."



Plus I read in GD that GM was going to call back
workers at a plant on Monday. Hopefully this is happening around the country.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6200641

[Drunken Irishman]

1. But Glenn Beck says Cash for Clunkers is BAD!

[Jennicut]

2. Right, because anything that benifits those darned US car companies is just wrong

when we could be helping out foreign automakers in Rethug districts.

[Kdillard]

3. In other related news Glenn Beck is insane.

[HughMoran]

18. Can we send him to Uranus on a clunker?

Friggin' batshit crazy troll.

[doc03]

4. I looked around GM, Ford and Toyota dealer's

lots today they all had a bunch of clunkers parked in their lots, looks like they had a great week. I only wish my car would have qualified.

[Kdillard]

5. That makes me so happy. Hopefully Congress will approve the rest of the money next week to

keep the program running for a few more months and there will be efforts to make it permanent and expand it. The auto industry has needed this shot in the arm for a while.

[Zynx]

6. This program has crazy huge multiplier effects on the broader economy.

It's possible that the multiplier is greater than 3x for each dollar the government spends.

[livetohike]

8. Absolutely! I saw the President of the USWA on tv last night

and he was talking about all of the work that will start in other plants once the car industry recovers :-).

[Cha]

12. Good to know..

thanks!

[Cha]

7. That's the Obama admin..actually

thinking of ways to implement successful ideas to counteract the bushcheney years of raping our country and spilling the blood of our Soldiers in their misbegotten War On Iraq..started by bombing Baghdad.

[Kdillard]

10. That is the best part. It is unbelievable how many years were wasted with Bush

doing nothing that was actually beneficial to the broader economy.

[doc03]

9. I think there is one big unknown

consequence. The auto sales will look great for August but once the program is over how will sales be?

[Kdillard]

11. Difficult to know. I believe the program is something that Congress wants to make permanent

but they weren't expecting things to go so well out the gate. November was the period tossed around for another vote so they could hammer out more sticky details like including preowned cars that get better gas mileage etc. Before Obama and Biden stepped in and added pressure and assurances were made it almost didn't pass. Hopefully like I said before the success of the program will encourage them to do it sooner rather than later. It is a great program for the environment, for businesses and hopefully they won't find a way to mess it up. If it is made permanet I believe it will help car sales for the forseeable furture. Fingers crossed.

[girl gone mad]

19. They fell precipitously in other countries..

who have tried similar programs.

I don't understand the hype on DU over this plan. It's not really big enough to waste much time arguing about, but I will say that if you step back and look at it from a position of logic, it isn't going to do all that much good. At most it is pulling demand for autos forward by a few months to years. That comes with a heavy downside, however, as you alluded to. Not only will demand shrink again at some future point, but we are also adding more consumer debt at a time when our goal should still be to reduce as much consumer debt as possible.

At least this program does give us an idea of what the auto companies need to be doing to improve their American sales: build more fuel efficient cars and cut prices by 15% to 20%!

[Clio the Leo]

13. Obama's destroying America. ;-) NT

:sarcasm:

[donco6]

14. Cash for Clunkers is the best kind of spending.

It only applies to a certain group of people (yeah, the Hummer idiots can get in on it, but they'd have to really eat crow to pull into that lot), it gets polluters and inefficient cars off the road, and it stimulates the economy faster than any other program so far. And I think it's probably pretty easy to manage (online records). But it should be temporary, so I hope they don't try to make it some permanent thing.

[Kdillard]

15. Why do you think it should be temporary if it stimulates the economy

so well? I believe they were looking at making it permanent sometime in the fall with the goal of addressing the sticking points that made it almost not pass the first time like including used cars and upping the fuel efficiency standards. Quite frankly I am all for anything that gets Americans off the gas guzzling mentality.

[donco6]

16. Because once it becomes institutionalized, it will be abused.

You won't be able to keep people from abusing this system. It's too wide-open.

[Kdillard]

17. Good point I hadn't thought of that but does that outweigh

the potential value to the economy? I mean the auto industry across the board needed a shot in the arm. It tells you how bad things are when Ford hasn't seen growth in two years.

[donco6]

20. They should keep it open as long as possible, but . . .

at some point someone's going to figure out how to game the system. That would look really bad on the administration and really torpedo what has been a good project. I'd hate to see that happen.