#14 | Posted by oneironaut
Talk about today and Post a useful link.
Fewer people were buying cars because they were not available period. Which also helped drive up the prices (Supply v Demand). I JUST talked to someone that works for a "subprime" auto lender about 5 minutes ago. Their business absolutely boomed under COVID and now they have laid off a lot of people and their repos are surging.
The COVID shortages are over. That was the main driver of inflation initially - shortages. The remaining shortages were mainly because of Chinese lock downs which are also now done. China ended their lock downs in end of January 2023 and by April inflation fell 30%. Global supply chain economics for you...
The "excess" money helped drive inflation as well not as much as you may hope. Evidence says most of it was transitory. And sorry but Excess money in the hands of consumers is and has been gone. March 2021 were the last stimulus checks - 3 years ago. It was spent or put into savings in 2021. Consumers drive the economy. Our business stimulus was spent long ago as well and talking to folks other business owners spent it long ago. Inflation peaked years ago too and we have been sitting just over 3% since the Chinese shortages ended.
Oil keeps being an issue and if you look where inflation is - again Housing and Energy are the main drivers. We are sitting at just over 3%. 2% was pre-COVID with very low interest and the "target". Long gone is the inflation you are talking about. Inflation in Housing is easy to tie to interest rates. My house would cost me about 50% a month more with today's interest rates and rents have even gone down slightly.
Our business costs for materials are down. We haven't lowered prices but we have increased discounts which amounts to the same thing. Our customers and end users are paying less than peak " not more. We would have lowered them more - if we weren't paying so much in interest. We sell to every major industry. But we are kind of an exception, if companies are leveraged to the hilt they are jacking their prices up. They have to and not because of competition.
The Fed was buying more and more securities to stablize the market. This puts money into the system.
The nonlinear jump in the Fed balance sheet is what is causing this inflation, as we are downstream of these purchases, it takes time to get through the system. On top of that you had an "supply chain" issues with JIT manufacturing. But these have been mostly resolved. The spiral of the US debt/fed interplay with the interest rate is a serious one. It can't be ignored.
The Fed has been doing quantitative tightening and selling securities since 6-22. Nearly 2 years. The balance sheet is down 1.3 trillion in that regard from $9 to $7.7 trillion. Past tense when inflation was sky high makes your observation plausible - but not the reality for almost 2 years now. So what is driving inflation TODAY? Corporate greed, Energy and Interest Rates.
The auto industry is about to implode. They jacked up prices so high and messed with customers so many are not buying. Even with great interest offers the prices are too high. People who bought in 2021, 2022, 2023 are so far upside down currently they won't be buying - they cannot take the financial hit. People I know who were buying a new car every year are now holding onto them. I am seeing prices on anything non-exotic, collector, rare in cars dropping like a stone right now.
