What you're seeing is a glut of gently used vehicles, and that's putting pressure on all vehicle prices.
We now believe that the first Fed rate hike will not come until December, and we continue to worry the Fed may be forced to ease again before it begins hiking rates.
The economy is weakening and we're going to see more of the effects of that.
The stronger data virtually assure significant changes in the Fed's directive this week. The new directive will probably include a grudging acknowledgement of the stronger labor market and inflation statistics.
It'll be a solid number, but it won't post the 8.2 percent growth we saw for the third quarter.
The employment picture remains fairly grim, and that's having a dampening effect on measures of consumer confidence. And we have higher energy prices, which is another drag on consumer confidence and a 'tax' on consumer spending.
We are talking about an economy averaging about 30 miles per hour in a 60-mph speed zone. That keeps pressure on the unemployment rate, forcing it to continue to rise. By summer, we could have 6.4 percent unemployment.
In the long run, crowding out tends to mitigate the effects of fiscal policy.
The market didn't like his lines about inflation. Overall, the speech was extremely well balanced . . . The market is just focusing on one or two lines out of the entire speech.
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