Unanimity is rare in surveys of business people, but the St. Louis Fed found it among area car dealers. The Fed’s latest Burgundy Book survey says that all the dealers it talked to expect lower sales this year.  Other retailers…

When General Motors granted stays of execution last week to 60 dealers, I wondered if it was good news for Wagner Buick Pontiac GMC in Belleville. When I talked to owner Rusty Wagner for a column about his plight, Wagner told me…

The “cash for clunkers” bill passed the House yesterday, so it’s time to take another look at this badly  designed legislation. We’ve already explained why it’s poor environmental policy and ineffective economic policy and why it will hurt the poor. Now,…

The Financial Times’ Lex column makes a good point today about the “cash for clunkers” bill making its way through the U.S. Congress: Not only is the bill unsound environmentally, it’s also bad for the poor. Here’s Lex’s take:

The new plan…

St. Louis will be one of the starting points next Monday for a 34-city “Keep it Made in America” bus tour that’s meant to drum up support for the U.S. auto industry. The organizers, led by the United Steelworkers and the…

I explained all the reasons why “cash for clunkers” is both terrible economic policy and terrible environmental policy, but the idea appears to be on the Washington fast track anyway. Apparently Bill Ford has more clout than I do.

The White House and…

The Big Three automakers’ real problem is that they don’t make enough cars that Americans want to buy. A case in point, the Detroit News points out, is the lineup of vehicles owned by members of the new Presidential Task Force…

Update: See this followup post for more information.

The rental-car industry may be next in line for a federal bailout, the Wall Street Journal reports today.  Enterprise, Hertz and their competitors want help financing their new-car purchases, and they apparently…

After we discussed the sad state of the St. Louis job market yesterday, a reader posed a good question: How much of the job loss here is due to cutbacks in auto production?

Answer: a lot.

Auto assembly plants employed just 2,000…

The St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank has more downbeat news this week about the region’s economy. Its Burgundy Book report, focusing on 71 counties in Missouri and 45 in Illinois,  tells of slow retail sales, a weak housing market and a…