patrick.net

duxbury001 says

so gov’t caused the housing boom and therefore the crash.

Nope. Government FAILURE TO ACT in 2003-2006 caused the housing bubble/crash.

Government policy had some contributory elements to the bubble, but government policy had NOTHING TO DO with suicide lending. CRA and "subprime" had nothing to do with that. Subprime loans tended to be better-underwritten than prime and Alt-A loans.

It was suicide lending -- roping borrowers into 2-5 year loans that they had no hope of being able to fully service -- that was the primary cause of the bubble.

You can tell what the suicide lending was because these forms of loans were banned in the bubble aftermath.

Government basically spun the wheel in 2001-2002 and walked away from the table in 2003. The FIRE sector had their fun 2004-2007, raking in their cut of a TWELVE TRILLION dollar bubble.

Your 1-5:

1) fannie
2) fha
3) fed easy money
4) subsidies– mortgage tax deduction
5) cra, lending affirmative action

were "sustainable" interventions, to a great extent at least. GSEs didn't cause the housing bubble of 2002-2004, they only got in the game in 2005 and 2006.

FHA was a total non-entity during the bubble, losing market share to private label mortgage houses with looser rules.

Fed easy money 2001-2004 was an indirect cause, but "easy money" didn't make home prices go past affordability -- rate resets haven't been the problem, it was people paying more than they could afford, and the interest rate is orthogonal to that.

Likewise, the MID raised prices but didn't force borrowers to borrow more than they could pay back.

All this "government intervention" crap is perfectly disproven by the fact that Texas did not suffer a bad housing bubble. The Texas market has TONS of government intervention -- both high property taxes and very strict rules about home equity extraction.

What really turned the bubble into a catastrophe was the feedback that home equity withdrawals were having, 2004-2006. This kept the bubble going much longer and made it twice as big as it should have been.

duxbury001 says

I think liberals are just psychos and like to raise taxes because it is legalized theft.

I like to raise taxes because I think government should be paid for, and when it IS paid for we get better government because without taxes there is no feedback on the citizens. Having to pay for Iraq as it happened would have educated people to not fall for the warmonger's call again.

I also think taxes should NOT be too "progressive". I think everyone should pay their fair share and I also believe that tax cuts on the poor is just a backdoor subsidy for the rich since every dollar not taxed just ends up in land values and the rents poor people pay.

I would move to Norway, Denmark, Sweden, or Germany in a heartbeat if I could. They've got their act together. The US? Not so much.

Troy - you don't need to move land to move your business. Businesses have been fleeing California for the last several years.
http://jan.ocregister.com/2010/02/24/list-names-100-companies-leaving-california/31805/

As others have pointed out, government costs and spending have exploded. For instance, we spend more now per student then we did 20 years ago in inflation adjusted dollars for education. Yet the quality of our schools are worse today despite spending more money. Is the solution to raise taxes and spend more on education?

It just boggles the mind that so many folks really seem to believe that our State, Local and Federal Government doesn't need to reform and reduce costs. Virtually every country in Europe has implemented austerity programs to scale back their welfare states and the Private sector has cut to the bone.

But we are being told that the US Government is just find and dandy and no cuts need to be made.

FFS - the new GAO report today shows that Medicare Fraud alone is $48 BILLION a year. That is over 4X the combined profits of the top 10 insurance companies. Just imagine what the waste is going to be once Obamacare is fully implemented?

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11430t.pdf

currently your grandkids pay for it with deficit spending. leftists love big government following lenins maxim "the worse the better"

ultimately exponentially exploding gov't costs, entitlements, regulatory state, trial lawyer litigation state will destroy what's left of the private sector. unions rightly view themselves as adversaries to the private sector, whom they despise ("the rich"). So they don't care if their policies are utterly reckless.

as for europe, they aren't corrupt like us. american goverment is 21st in the world corruption wise (and this understates it). include collusive trial lawyer/ union rackets... we are one of the most corrupt country on earth. 4 of the last 5 governors of illinois are in jail. no other western nation can touch the democrats in terms of gangsterism.

So we cant do what canada or denmark do. we are a kleptocracy, so socialism here is just an invitation to more corruption. so the US needs radical laissez faire with an emphasis on catching corruption. Higher taxes will just be squandered on rackets and hoaxes. Hence the tea party argument is correct. Limit government. No gov't in housing.

duxbury001 says

4 of the last 5 governors of illinois are in jail. no other western nation can touch the democrats in terms of gangsterism.

Actually the only former Governor of Illinois currently in jail is a Republican.

socal2 says

But we are being told that the US Government is just find and dandy and no cuts need to be made.

I don't say that. I post here every day how I'm simply flummoxed by the $5.5T total government spending going on this year. That's $50,000 per household, a totally insane number.

I'm perfectly open to see spending cuts. We need to cut $500B/yr from defense for starters. Move everyone into Medicare and wring profit margins out of that sector like Japan has, we'd get another $500B/yr in savings.

That leaves $500B more to cut, I'm sure we could find it.

Just imagine what the waste is going to be once Obamacare is fully implemented?

Probably more because private insurers need a large topline to get that 20% MLR working for them.

There are ways to fix this but this country is far, far from being able to see the fixes. Our loss!

Rate of growth isn't that much of a news. if I have a dollar and get 2 more its a 200% increase, but not worth writing home about.

There is a piece on some news channel about stuff thats "made in america" and how an average household doesn't own a single item made in US; everything they own is made elsewhere. Well I looked around our household and I have to say that absolutely nothing I own is made in USA as far as I can tell.

The only thing American in our house are food items, and to get even that far I have to avoid certain stores that sell food that comes from either China or other countries.

I really think US Manufacturing is going away, a lot due to tax policy which provides benefit to capital gains and shrinks labor and manufacturing.

http://seoblackhat.com/2008/12/09/4th-illinois-governor-in-35-years-headed-to-prison/

with blago... 4 out of 5.

an illinios republican is a de facto democrat. illinois, like new york, detroit, cali... is just a progressive gangster state.

Government spending is just a criminal enterprise that cannot be contained and voters want their free lunch. Our only hope is the tea party against the big spending corrupt politicians. Politicians get payola back on every dollar of gov't spending and handouts are a narcotic. The intellectuals are psychotic and self-destructive. We are finished and breakfast for China barring a tea party revolution.

Seems a lot of "low comment" number posters popping up these days, delivering broadsides of Fox News talking points.

duxbury001 says

http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2008/01/23/subprime_bailout

this one… pretty much says the story. Banks had “lending affirmative action” foisted upon them

No. You're just repeating lies that are written by people with a political agenda that have no interest in facts.

Even the Republican dissenting report from the recent Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission agreed this was not a significant cause.

Neither the Community Reinvestment Act nor removal of the Glass-Steagall irewall was a significant cause.

http://c0182732.cdn1.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/fcic_final_report_hennessey_holtz-eakin_thomas_dissent.pdf

I think this Republican "dissent" is even better than the majority report. Notably:

....This conclusion by the majority largely ignores the global nature of the crisis. For example:

• A credit bubble appeared in both the United States and Europe. This tells us that our primary explanation for the credit bubble should focus on factors common to both regions.

• The report largely ignores the credit bubble beyond housing. Credit spreads declined not just for housing, but also for other asset classes like commercial real estate. This tells us to look to the credit bubble as an essential cause of the U.S. housing bubble. It also tells us that problems with U.S. housing policy or markets do not by themselves explain the U.S. housing bubble.

• There were housing bubbles in the United Kingdom, Spain, Australia, France and Ireland, some more pronounced than in the United States. Some nations with housing bubbles relied little on American-style mortgage securitization. A good explanation of the U.S. housing bubble should also take into account its parallels in other nations. This leads us to explanations broader than just U.S. housing policy, regulation, or supervision. It also tells us that while failures in U.S. securitization markets may be an essential cause, we must look for other things that went wrong as well.

• Large financial firms failed in Iceland, Spain, Germany, and the United Kingdom, among others. Not all of these firms bet solely on U.S. housing assets, and they operated in different regulatory and supervisory regimes than U.S. commercial and investment banks. In many cases these European systems have stricter regulation than the United States, and still they faced inancial irm failures similar to those in the United States.

These facts tell us that our explanation for the credit bubble should focus on factors common to both the United States and Europe, that the credit bubble is likely an essential cause of the U.S. housing bubble, and that U.S. housing policy is by itself an insufficient explanation of the crisis. Furthermore, any explanation that relies too heavily on a unique element of the U.S. regulatory or supervisory system is likely to be insufficient to explain why the same thing happened in parts of Europe. This moves inadequate international capital and liquidity standards up our list of causes, and it moves the differences between the regulation of U.S. commercial and investment banks down that list.

If you want to blame US government housing policy for the housing bubble, you MUST explain how that also caused a bubble in commercial real estate, and a housing bubble in many other countries. All at exactly the same time.

socal2 says

did you see the GAO report I linked? The fraud and incompetence in government run Medicare is 4 times higher than the top 10 biggest insurance company’s profits alone!

You seem to think that "fraud and incompetence" doesn't exist in the private sector too?

Thing is, this nation is paying twice as much as the rest of the world for health care.

I consider universal coverage non-negotiable, and the only functional examples of this are single-payer systems like those found in Japan, Australia, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Germany, and France.

All these pay $3000 per capita for health care. We pay $6,000 and don't cover tens of millions of the underclass at all.

Also, you're ignoring private insurer's high overheads:

Wellpoint: $9B in overhead / $5B in profit on $55B in revenue
Cigna: $7B / $2B on $21B
Aetna: $6.5B / $2.6B on $34B
UHC: $4B / $2B on $24B

So Medicare's $50B in waste (10%) was less than half of private insurer's take (~25%).

Sounds like a slam-dunk for Medicare for all!

MarkInSF says

I think this Republican “dissent” is even better than the majority report. Notably:

yeah I read it and thought it was pretty innocuous. There's a 2nd dissent from the AEI guy that of course goes beyond the bend tho.

MarkInSF says

you MUST explain how that also caused a bubble in commercial real estate

Frankly I think the equity being liberated 2002-2007 was the primary driver of everything else.

Home prices ratcheted up in response to the tax cuts and interest rate drops of 2001-2003.

Here's a fun graph: Homeowner equity, 1990-2010

The equity bubble jumped from $10T in 2001 to $16T in 2006 -- and this $1T per year of free money was really hitting the economy.

People say China was importing our inflation, but they were also exporting it back to us by partially funding our housing bubble. Same thing with the oil exporters, they were also cycling their trade surplus back to us via debt.

This bubble economy then extended to other sectors -- CRE -- and also propagated to other economies.

So the mortgage rate falling from 7.5% to ~5% was a really massive global stimulus. It gave the US consumer a big hit on the meth pipe that lasted right through 2007.

What also was happening was the bubble blow-off of 2005-2006 was being supported by fraud. This allowed the early movers of 2001-2004 to "cash out" as it where as the credit cycle started eating itself and buyers started leaving the building.

Troy said:
"You seem to think that “fraud and incompetence” doesn’t exist in the private sector too?"

Certainly not in the scale that we see in the Federal Government. The fraud numbers in Medicare are staggering. Absolutely staggering. While insurance profits are very small.........essentially making 5 cents on the dollar.

Look, I will admit I am very biased. I work as an engineering consultant for California municipalities. I have seen first hand over the last 20 years how inefficient and grossly overpaid these union protected government enterprises operate. It used to be that you go work for the government for less pay, but had better benefits and job security. During the boom years, their pay and pensions skyrocketed - and now the Democrats are screaming bloody murder and fleeing the State instead of implementing modest pension and pay reform.

Troy said:
"Thing is, this nation is paying twice as much as the rest of the world for health care."

Yes - see the GAO report regarding the Medicare fraud. You could eliminate all insurance profits and it would hardly put a dent in the government waste. There is alot wrong with our healthcare system, insurance profits are a drop in the bucket and a big diversion.

Next we can talk about our ridiculous tort lobby and what that does to our healthcare costs.

While insurance profits are very small………essentially making 5 cents on the dollar.

This is the same game people play with Big Pharma. Looking at their profits and not their SG&A, which is gold-bricked all to hell. I just posted above how the top 4 insurers are raking 25% of the flow, and you just ignored it.

The fraud numbers in Medicare are staggering.

Actually, that 10% "waste" was not all fraud, just Medicare overpaying for stuff.

Furthermore, Wellpoint alone's profit was $5B on $55B in sales, just about that 10%, PLUS they had another ~20% in administrative overheads.

tort lobby and what that does to our healthcare costs.

Not much, actually. The big win is single payer eliminating the profits in the sector via cost controls. Obamacare is trying to outsource cost controls onto private insurers, but that is only a half-measure and is easily gamed.

You could eliminate all insurance profits and it would hardly put a dent in the government waste.

And yet other countries government single-payer systems cover ALL their citizens for $3000/yr, half of our costs.

This is the central fact that you will continue to ignore.

socal2 says

The fraud and incompetence in government run Medicare is 4 times higher than the top 10 biggest insurance company’s profits alone! How about we “wring the fraud and waste” out of government before going after private sector profits or raising taxes?

So why DON'T the Teabaggers go after MediCare and particularly Defense? I can tell you from working in aerospace it's worse over there.

Why? really? Because they actually only care about waste when it's useful to an agenda and party power. Eliminating waste if it were to hurt say, a well-funded program in my state? Forget it. As many have pointed out the proposed ridiculous nonsense like "no earmarks" is PRECISELY because the Teabag reps want to be seen doing something, without actually really doing anything.

For some of them like Rand Paul it's patently obvious. He was all about cutting MediCare until it became obvious to him it would hurt his income, then he did a 180-degree turn and said how it was ESSENTIAL and that doctors "deserve to make a good living".

They know better, that if they eviscerated Defense and MediCare in their home states, they'd be out on their asses in 10 seconds flat.

Tell your Tea Party folks to give an across the board X% reduction of Defense and MediCare, without idiotic noodling in cutting some specific 5-million here and there. DO you really take the time to go after this or that excess? Of course not, you tell underling they are getting a 10% cut but still have to do the same job or better, and you let them figure out how to "find new efficiencies". Then actually achieve that and get back to us. Until then the charge stands and it's absolutely correct. Teabaggers are full of crap.

duxbury001 says

http://seoblackhat.com/2008/12/09/4th-illinois-governor-in-35-years-headed-to-prison/
with blago… 4 out of 5.
an illinios republican is a de facto democrat. illinois, like new york, detroit, cali… is just a progressive gangster state.
Government spending is just a criminal enterprise that cannot be contained and voters want their free lunch. Our only hope is the tea party against the big spending corrupt politicians. Politicians get payola back on every dollar of gov’t spending and handouts are a narcotic. The intellectuals are psychotic and self-destructive. We are finished and breakfast for China barring a tea party revolution.

OK.. Here are the last 5 governors of Illinois:

Pat Quinn---currently in office.
Rod Blagojevich--convicted on 1 count, not currently in jail
George Ryan-- currently in jail
Jim Edgar-- Never on trial
"Big" Jim Thompson-- Never on trial.

Not sure how you get 4 of 5. Even if you don't include Quinn, you've still got Edgar and Thompson...

socal2 says

Dude - did you see the GAO report I linked? The fraud and incompetence in government run Medicare is 4 times higher than the top 10 biggest insurance company’s profits alone

Dude, it looks an awful lot like you're intentionally cooking up some numbers to make it sound worse than it is. Funny how you chose to compare to a small slice of total health care spending - insurance company profits are just 3% of private health insurance costs. BTW, the fraud is just as rampant with private insurers, and exceeds the profits of the insurers.

Still, it is bad. Thankfully the Obama Justice Department has made this a priority.

A health-care crime sweep Thursday netted 114 defendants on charges related to Medicare fraud, in what Attorney General Eric Holder called the largest such takedown in U.S. history.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704657704576150293189313156.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird

Vicente says

Seems a lot of “low comment” number posters popping up these days, delivering broadsides of Fox News talking points.

Yes, and one of them the other day was accusing me (and also Patrick) of being on the payroll of some, I don't know, liberal cabal. Hmmmm. I think the exact accusation was that I was being payed to shoot down fine logical objective "conservative" opinions of RayAmerica.

bob2356 says

What’s an SCM?

Supply Chain Management.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_Chain_Management

bob2356 says

So are you saying that the “manufacturing” numbers include a lot of parts manufactured in other countries then just assembled here?

A typical company like HP, Juniper or any other tech company contracts its mfg overseas. Since half of your sales come from overseas customers, your production and final sales stay mainly offshore.

There is no point assembling your final product in the USA to reship elsewhere. ie.. Asia to US back to Asia or Europe. From the Asia factory shipped to final Asian, European, or American customers. Production and inventories on HP books goes up, but not all inventory hits our shores, unless sold to final US domestic customer.

I am surprised that I can still find a job in US because 100% are made in China.
Even a video game DVD or music CD are made in China.

On one hand, the oil price goes through the roof.
On the other hand, people ship back and forth between China and US. That is across the half global!!!!

bumping up just for investment ideas. if anyone has any symbols that they think will do well and have done well for them please post.

has anybody checked out VALE. Biggest mining company and with solid financials, moat and growth.
I am expecting the market to go sideway for a while with high volatility and then eventually go up.
US stocks look promising. looks like other countries are running out of steam.

note : this is my opinion not investment advice.follow at your own risk.

I could'nt help myself from remembering Nomograph from this -

Rents are outrageously high in La Jolla. Greedy or spoiled landlords have been reluctant to lower rents, As a result, many "for rent" or "for lease" signs are going up in La Jolla. Businesses that have been here for decades are suddenly closing shop.

http://www.321gold.com/editorials/russell/russell030111.html

marcus says

Yes, and one of them the other day was accusing me (and also Patrick) of being on the payroll of some, I don’t know, liberal cabal. Hmmmm. I think the exact accusation was that I was being payed to shoot down fine logical objective “conservative” opinions of RayAmerica.

I should join me one of them "liberal cabals". Does it pay well? I could be down with the whole evil empire thing. I always like "mirror Spock" better, he had the cool goatee going, and he knew how to use an agonizer on underlings who didn't perform.

Astonishing that the few minutes spent here and there on a forum over.... hmmm too many years can get that idea in someone's head. Guess this has turned into Cheers hasn't it. Shrek has adopted the role of Cliff Claven. Patrick is either Coach or Sam, I can't decide.

I believe government spending is counted as part of GDP. So even if the government takes all your money, as long as they turn around and buy pencils for bureaucrats and new cars and such, the tax/GDP representation will not reflect the full effect. In fact wouldn't the graph be the same if 25% of the population were enslaved to the government by 100% taxation and the government comprised the remaining part of the economy, buying and selling w/o taxation?

Not entirely sure on this, but its a reasonable hypothesis to explain the flat line on the graph in light of the massive role the govt is playing in the economy.

Or perhaps its the deficit financing that's keeping it flat and the trillion the chinese haven't asked us to pay back yet.

Y'all Teabaggers need to just chill the fark out. Have a Cheeto.

patientrenter says

I could’nt help myself from remembering Nomograph from this -
Rents are outrageously high in La Jolla. Greedy or spoiled landlords have been reluctant to lower rents, As a result, many “for rent” or “for lease” signs are going up in La Jolla. Businesses that have been here for decades are suddenly closing shop.
http://www.321gold.com/editorials/russell/russell030111.html

Looks like APOCALYPSE from this forum wrote that.

duxbury001 says

The primary challenge confronting the West is thugocracy.

I think people like you are much bigger challenge. People that called themselves Conservatives used to include honesty among their virtues. But now sadly a huge swath of them, clearly including you given your posts here, are completely comfortable with listening to and repeating lies.

Ahh, good times.

I say that I and other liberals or liberal libertarians around here are the new true conservative. The republicanss are far too influenced by extremist loons. I am not kidding. I consider myself a conservative. I would like to see the America I have known and loved, preserved.

Yo, dimwitted republitards (like Duxbury); read everything this guy posts if you wish to better yourself.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Y'okay... america is not from the 1950's where we lead the world. Today we hold the honor of being the most corrupt western nation... more similar to southern italy (dominated by the mafioso). We are 21st in the world in corruption... like a piss ant african dictatorship. More corrupt states like illinois, cali, new york (thugocracies run by an alliance of trial lawyers / public sector unions) trump Egypt. You can't compare Denmark to the USA because we are a kleptocracy in comparison.

So the whole country is embroiled in a labor racket / kickback scam where grossly overpaid public employees give money back to their union, who funnels it back to the democracts. That's the racket that's driving so many unionized states to bankruptcy.

Then you've got the trial lawyers (#1 contributors to the dems)... basically a shakedown racket where lawyers get 30%++ of settled cases. Then they kick back to the dems like "giving back to pauly" in goodfellas.. where the dems pick judges that give the most to lawyers. The trial bar is so powerful the republicans don't even bother taking them on.... like entitlemants.. you can only do so much with a psychotic liberal elite / media and a narcisstic population on their somma of easy sex, entitlements, public school indocrination.. they don't even realize that the government just saddled them with $15 trillion in debt (stolen from future generations) and don't even care.

duxbury001 says

So the whole country is embroiled in a labor racket / kickback scam where grossly overpaid public employees give money back to their union, who funnels it back to the democracts. That’s the racket that’s driving so many unionized states to bankruptcy

Keen insights.

We need to get to where workers are totally unrepresented by politicians. Even though corporations are now "citizens" who can totally rig any election with their vast resources that dwarf any union, you say that the workers need less political representation. MAybe you're right. Let's give the corporatocracy complete 100% control. Because after all none of the corruption you speak of comes from there.

You say total outright fascism is the only answer, and you support that with extreme trollish exaggeration. Hard to argue with that.

SF ace says

I’m pretty sure Thomas is wong on this one. Better check the facts yourself.

Where does one do that? Everyone here seems to "know" how the process works, but can't say where and how they get their knowledge from or provide any numbers other than nono's survey.

So if value is counted at each step of the process then what is the value of the final assembly if you use 50% domestic 50% imported parts? Do you only count the value added of the domestic parts? I don't believe the perpetual cheerleaders in Washington would miss the opportunity to pile on feel good numbers wherever possible.

John Bailo says

This Recovery is all about the basics:
Wages on the lowest end are rising

Manufacturing Growing

Jobs returning to the US
Labor shortages are just around the corner driving up the long beleaguered lower third….

I guess demand for illegal mexicans will be high, very soon.

Vicente says

Who’s the Tea Party idol?

The sort of clown who thinks it’s perfectly reasonable to espouse voting rights be restricted to property owners only.

I'm fairly certain I went to high school with that guy. Classroom conversations amongst my fellow students consisted of such great topics as:

Best Way To Lynch A N----
Best Way To Truck Drag A N----
I'm Drunk, Let's Go Find A N----

and they loved the ever popular school sponsored event:

Beat A N---- Day

Our PE teachers and coaches were enthusiastic promotors as it was rumored one of the schools in our league had a black student. Never confirmed, though.

SF ace says

As far as manufacturing, the US were selling 10M-11M vehicle during the recession in 2009, 2010 even with cash for clunkers, 2011 and 2012 are projected to be in the 14.5 and 16M respectively. That’s 25+% increase in units that spiils over to a very important manufacturing industry from steel fabricator, to component fabricator to assembly. growth rate is not surprising.
That is why Obama did the right thing in bailing out the auto industry.

god americans are stupid and lazy....!.......do a little research on dealer inventory. i am not going to train your ass by explaining why or how 'car sales' have increased. anyone that bases their financial decisions on headline news deserves to lose their ass. do some research and learn what the surveys and polls and reports that are trotted out by the gov or NAR mean and how they are calculated.....or dont and live in ignorant bliss....and wait for your place in the poor house.

John Bailo says

This Recovery is all about the basics:
Wages on the lowest end are rising

Manufacturing Growing

Jobs returning to the US
Labor shortages are just around the corner driving up the long beleaguered lower third….

name 50 items in your house that are made in america.......

dipsh*t - GM is pushing cars to the dealers that are sitting on them...they arent 'selling' anything.

like i said before....learn or fail. what i say isnt important...what you learn and act on is....dont do the research and lose your ass and live in a hole!

...go look up the manufacturer numbers...then look at inventories and then look at dealer sales...or dont!

709hannah says

dipsh*t - GM is pushing cars to the dealers that are sitting on them…they arent ’selling’ anything.
like i said before….learn or fail. what i say isnt important…what you learn and act on is….dont do the research and lose your ass and live in a hole!
…go look up the manufacturer numbers…then look at inventories and then look at dealer sales…or dont!

Hannah--

Some free advice for you. How about you actually post some data? Where did you do your research? Please post the dealer sales numbers. I'm curious too.

You said they were full of crap, though your graph clearly never goes over 20%. 20% full of shit is pretty good. Obama has never been lower than 65% on the FOS scale.
If you can proof "Full of Shit" on a scale, good enough to make an accurate chart.
Then it would make politics obsolete.

go to the GM website/investor and start digging thru all the releases......

http://www.gm.com/investors/sales-production/

( or download the pdf http://media.gm.com/content/dam/Media/gmcom/investor/2011/FebruarySales.pdf)

""Month-end dealer inventory in the United States stood at about 517,000 units, which is about 7,000 higher compared to January and about 101,000 higher than February 2010.""

so go thru all the past releases and look at the month-end inventory numbers:

517,000 feb11
510,000 jan11
511,000 dec10
536,000
515,000
478,000
452,000
.
.
.
.
385,000 dec09

...channel stuffing....obama pushing tax payer bailouts to GM and the unions.

now you do this research:

next question is.....how much of the actual real sales were to the government? i wouldnt consider my tax money buying cars for the gov a positive......?

next question is GM financing and rebates...how much does GM make on each car? are we giving away 'subprime' loans to sell cars just like we did in the housing bubble?

next do a little research on high frequency trading (HFT) and how taxpayer money is used to pump the GM ipo share price.......

next question is where do the dealers get the credit to 'buy' there inventory...?.....maybe the us taxpayer....?

last question....who is/will be buying almost the entire production run of the volt....?

we are not in an economic recovery. we are in a credit bubble powered by QE and the fed..................