Monday, December 1, 2008

Bad Deal

It's pretty obvious: As the Big Three suffer, the auto dealers trying to sell the Big Three's cars also suffer.

Clifford Krauss of The New York Times reports:

"The National Automobile Dealers Association predicts that roughly 900 of the nation’s 20,770 new-car dealers will go out of business this year, and automobile analysts say the number of failed dealerships could rise into the thousands next year.

"Even if Ford, Chrysler and G.M. survive, many believe a comeuppance is inevitable among dealerships; indeed, for years the nation has had more dealers for domestic brands than warranted by the sales volume of the Detroit automakers.

"The economic toll of a mass failure of dealerships around the country has already begun to harm the broader economy. In October alone, 20,000 employees of auto dealerships lost their jobs nationwide, more than half of those who were newly unemployed in the retail trade, according to the Labor Department."


3 comments:

  1. In light of everything going on with the Big Three, I just had to laugh at one of my co-workers last night. He clocked in, super-excited about something, and when we asked him what was up, he said "I just watched Roger and Me. Did you know that that takes place in Michigan? And Michael Moore is from Michigan too!" I sat down on the floor and just laughed and laughed, and he couldn't figure out why . . . .

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  2. Megan: It's always a little weird for me when people "know" Flint via Michael Moore. It's weird to think that one person has really defined a town like that.

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  3. This guy really blew my mind, though. We're not that far away from Traverse City, and Michael Moore's been so active there, what with the State Theatre and all, that I couldn't believe he'd just figured it out. We keep copies of a weekly paper called "The Northern Express" out front at the restaurant where we work, and it seems like every fourth issue has something about Michael Moore in it. We all read it, and this guy somehow missed every mention of Michael Moore altogether.

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.