The Massive Prop Barely Holding up the US Economy Cracks
“The so-called car recession”: Ford, AutoNation wave red flags
by Wolf Richter
WolfStreet.com
July 29, 2016
t was the second warning in two days: auto sales – last year one of the few booming sectors in the US economy – are exiting the freeway and turning south on a road full of potholes. And that would come at the worst possible time.
The debt-fueled growth of this economy is already fizzling. On Friday, first quarter GDP growth was revised down to 0.8% on an annualized basis. “Annualized” means that if this awful pace continues, growth for the year will be 0.8%! Second quarter growth was a meager 1.2% annualized. For the first half, annualized growth amounts to 0.9%, the worst in four years.
Business investment in equipment and structures, residential investment, and government investment all declined. Trade added a smidgen. But the inventory draw-down we’ve warned about for over a year, given how business inventories have bloated to crisis levels, has arrived with a vengeance, slashing 1.2% from GDP growth.
What kept GDP growth from falling into a hole was a big bout of consumption (up 2.8%), led by debt-fueled consumer spending.
Now, the auto sector, which has propped up GDP growth for years, is slowing down. For the first six months, total car and light truck sales, at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 17.5 million vehicles, are lagging behind last year by 100,000 units. Over the first half, fleet sales to rent-a-car companies and big fleet buyers were up industry wide. But retail sales fell 2%
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