HousingPANIC Thought of the Day

It's time like these it kinda sucks we've lost our
manufacturing base, eh?

The manufacturing sector and its workers were hardest hit by the growth of Wal-Mart’s imports. Wal-Mart’s increased trade deficit with China eliminated 133,000 manufacturing jobs, 68% of those jobs lost from Wal-Mart’s imports. Jobs in the manufacturing sector pay higher wages and provide better benefits than most other industries, especially for workers with less than a college education.

FLASH: GM runs out of gas, blames housing crash

I guess the fact that GM makes overpriced gas guzzling crappy cars nobody wants is just a side note.

Seriously, for a company this screwed and mismanaged (a car company that owns subprime loans!), I don't know how they can avoid bankruptcy. And the fact that (as HP predicted) the housing crash helped kill the US automotive industry is mind boggling.

For GM, all that cash-out refi loot is gone, never to return. I'd guess HELOC money bought half the new cars purchased these past few years (anyone know the #?). And how many trucks were purchased by people in the homebuilding profession? Those days are over...

Had enough? Here's more... The yen is undervalued. Toyota is kicking their behind. Their pension situation is a time bomb. Their cars are crap. Their workers make a hundred times someone in China would require. They still own 49% of subprime cancer GMAC. And now desperate homedebtors are flooding the used car market with inventory in an attempt to raise cash.

And yes, I'm short GM via put options at time of writing...

Mortgage 'meltdown' hits auto sales: GM's Lutz - Vice chairman sees entire sector hit by problems in home financing market, truck sales to suffer.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Reuters) -- The crisis in the U.S. mortgage market has hurt U.S. auto sales this month, General Motors Corp. Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said Monday.

"The market as a whole has been a little weakish. That has come as a result of the housing market problems and the mortgage industry meltdown," Lutz told Reuters. "A lot of people are finding themselves in a position of reduced affordability and that has had an impact, not just on us, but across the industry."