Auto sales dropped in April following rise in unemployment rates
What a surprise. More and more of the country is unemployed as we go spend $1B+ a day on the war rather than helping jumpstart the economy, and the thrill of the 0% financing for one's brand new car has been increasingly tempered by the one's need to buy food instead! According to this New York Times story (registration required):
April sales fell 6.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual selling rate of 16.44 million units, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank, a data tracking service. Sales for the month a year earlier came in at an annual pace of 17.3 million, a robust performance that made for a tough comparison....
"When one considers the heavy incentives for the month, the sales levels are quite disappointing," said Domenic D. Martilotti, an analyst for Bear, Stearns. "Each iteration of this zero-percent-for-60-months push, there are clearly diminishing returns. So the question is, where do we go from here?"