BrianMSmith

Car sales are going to get worse and stay that way. I do not think we appreciate how significant the credit boom of the 90's was in terms of making us all think we are much wealthier than we actually are, which led to rediculous and unsustainable spending habits. Many producers in our economy grew in the same bubble fashion to meet consumer demand, and we are now seeing a popping of that bubble. This bubble-bust cycle equates to jobs also, a lot of them high paying jobs - not least of which young real estate agents who made money like mad for a few years and spent it just as fast, thinking it would last forever. Overall, the economy will get a bit worse, then improve at more historical rates (averaged over 1945-2010), but even then we are unlikely to see the same consumer spending - s.a. new cars - that we got used to in the 90s. People are realizing they have to save money again, after the national per capita savings rate has been negative for years. Personally, I save 15% of my pre-tax income, and that's one of the reasons I could not afford a Z until I was 40 years old. It blows my mind to think 20 year olds are buying $40k cars....of course many of these purchases are subsidized by rich baby boomer parents, which was very common the 80s-2006 (my dad gave me $5k for my first car in 1994, and the Z is only my 3rd car!). The baby boomers, however, have recently found their wealth shrink drastically too, the money trees are all wilting. We'll see how it goes...hope for the best.