Month: November 2013

GM “Stuffs Channels” At Fastest Pace In Its Post-Bankruptcy History; Volt Sales Plunge 32%

Moments ago, General Motors reported its October domestic car deliveries number, which at 226,402, was 31K better, or 15.7% higher, than the 195,674 from a year earlier, better than the 7.9% increase expected. Unlike the ISM, GM was quick to point the counterfactual, namely that sales picked up because, you guessed it, confidence returned once the government reopened in the second half of the month. “Chevrolet, Cadillac and Buick-GMC all performed well in the month, and the sales tempo really picked up after the government shutdown ended,” said Kurt McNeil, vice president, U.S. sales operations. Apparently, like houses, Americans just can’t buy cars if the government isn’t around to hold their hand.

Joking aside, one thing that was not mentioned in the otherwise blemish-free GM sales report, is that the biggest reason for the surge in GM “deliveries” was because the car company once again resorted to that old faithful gimmick: dealer channel stuffing. At 728K units in dealer inventory at month end, or 87 days supply, this was the highest number since March 2013, but far more disturbing, the monthly rate of increase was the highest since GM’s emergency as a “new” company from bankruptcy. And just to complete the picture, combining the past two month channel stuffing, we get 99,168 GM cars parked at dealer lots: the biggest two month jump in the restructured company’s history.

The full sales breakdown:

Last but not least, it seems that the electric car dream may be alive for Tesla (if only until something cooler and more expensive appears), but is all but dead for GM after a 32% plunge in Chevy Volt deliveries. If only GM could somehow charge 50% more for the car and make it a little more spontaneously combustible, all would be well.

Source: GM


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/AheWft55S1g/story01.htm Tyler Durden

GM "Stuffs Channels" At Fastest Pace In Its Post-Bankruptcy History; Volt Sales Plunge 32%

Moments ago, General Motors reported its October domestic car deliveries number, which at 226,402, was 31K better, or 15.7% higher, than the 195,674 from a year earlier, better than the 7.9% increase expected. Unlike the ISM, GM was quick to point the counterfactual, namely that sales picked up because, you guessed it, confidence returned once the government reopened in the second half of the month. “Chevrolet, Cadillac and Buick-GMC all performed well in the month, and the sales tempo really picked up after the government shutdown ended,” said Kurt McNeil, vice president, U.S. sales operations. Apparently, like houses, Americans just can’t buy cars if the government isn’t around to hold their hand.

Joking aside, one thing that was not mentioned in the otherwise blemish-free GM sales report, is that the biggest reason for the surge in GM “deliveries” was because the car company once again resorted to that old faithful gimmick: dealer channel stuffing. At 728K units in dealer inventory at month end, or 87 days supply, this was the highest number since March 2013, but far more disturbing, the monthly rate of increase was the highest since GM’s emergency as a “new” company from bankruptcy. And just to complete the picture, combining the past two month channel stuffing, we get 99,168 GM cars parked at dealer lots: the biggest two month jump in the restructured company’s history.

The full sales breakdown:

Last but not least, it seems that the electric car dream may be alive for Tesla (if only until something cooler and more expensive appears), but is all but dead for GM after a 32% plunge in Chevy Volt deliveries. If only GM could somehow charge 50% more for the car and make it a little more spontaneously combustible, all would be well.

Source: GM


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/AheWft55S1g/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Saudi Women are Fighting For Their Driving Rights, Says Shikha Dalmia

Islamic.womenFor well over a decade, Saudi women have been
fighting to convince their Islamic rulers to give them driving
rights. But now their argument has taken a strange twist, Shikha
Dalmia notes. They are invoking the same law that has for centuries
subjugated them to argue their case. They claim that lifting the
driving ban would be more consistent with sharia that, elsewhere,
has been used to circumcise them and make them subordinate to men.
Is this a wise strategy?

View this article.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/01/shikha-dalmia-on-how-saudi-women-are-fig
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Manufacturing ISM Prints At Highest Since April 2011; “No Impact From Government Shutdown”

So much for the government shutdown – as one of the just released manufacturing ISM respondents so candidly put it, “The government shutdown has not had any impact on our business that I
can determine, nor has it impacted any supplier shipments.” And speaking of the ISM itself, it naturally rejected everything that the Markit PMI noted, and printed at 56.4, beating expectations of a 55.0 print, the 5th beat in a row, and the highest print since April 2011. Sadly, it was not 66.4 or 76.4 to at least partially “confirm” the Chicago ISM surge. So while virtually all ISM components rose, with exports spiking by 5 points to 57.0, it was the employment index that dipped yet again, from 55.4 to 53.2, the lowest since June, but in the New Normal who needs jobs when one has Schrodinger diffusion indices to confuse everyone on a daily basis. Either way, while stocks did not like yesterday’s exploding Chicago PMI and dipped on fears of a December taper, today’s 2 years ISM high is one of those good news is good news instances, and ES soars as usual.

In chart format:

The report breakdown:

From the report:

The report was issued today by Bradley J. Holcomb, CPSM, CPSD, chair of the Institute for Supply Management™ Manufacturing Business Survey Committee. “The PMI™ registered 56.4 percent, an increase of 0.2 percentage point from September’s reading of 56.2 percent. The PMI™ has increased progressively each month since June, with October’s reading reflecting the highest PMI™ in 2013. The New Orders Index increased slightly in October by 0.1 percentage point to 60.6 percent, while the Production Index decreased by 1.8 percentage points to 60.8 percent. Both the New Orders and Production Indexes have registered above 60 percent for three consecutive months. The Employment Index registered 53.2 percent, a decrease of 2.2 percentage points compared to September’s reading of 55.4 percent. The panel’s comments are generally positive about the current business climate; however, there are mixed responses on whether the government shutdown and potential default have had any effect on October’s results.”

And the respondents:

  • “New business is booming.” (Textile Mills)
  • “The government shutting down and threatening to go into a default position is causing all kinds of concerns in our markets.” (Fabricated Metal Products)
  • “The government shutdown has not had any impact on our business that I can determine, nor has it impacted any supplier shipments.” (Chemical Products)
  • “Government spending continues to be slow in defense and military. The government shutdown and debt ceiling crisis did not affect business.” (Transportation Equipment)
  • “Telecom market — wireless and VOIP — appear to be spiking. We are very busy; busier than we have ever been.” (Computer & Electronic Products)
  • “Seasonal demand has not decreased at the typical pace. Market showing resiliency in the residential market.” (Primary Metals)
  • “Business continues to improve every month for the past nine months.” (Furniture & Related Products)
  • “Big Box Store discounting providing increased sales bump short term.” (Food, Beverage & Tobacco Products)
  • “Our customers continue to be cautious and are closely managing their purchases. Business continues to be flat to slightly down.” (Machinery)
  • “Outlook on general appliance market continues in a positive direction. Uncertainty, however, looms with unclear government direction pending.” (Electrical Equipment, Appliances & Components)


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/uaAtKgMQhUQ/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Manufacturing ISM Prints At Highest Since April 2011; "No Impact From Government Shutdown"

So much for the government shutdown – as one of the just released manufacturing ISM respondents so candidly put it, “The government shutdown has not had any impact on our business that I
can determine, nor has it impacted any supplier shipments.” And speaking of the ISM itself, it naturally rejected everything that the Markit PMI noted, and printed at 56.4, beating expectations of a 55.0 print, the 5th beat in a row, and the highest print since April 2011. Sadly, it was not 66.4 or 76.4 to at least partially “confirm” the Chicago ISM surge. So while virtually all ISM components rose, with exports spiking by 5 points to 57.0, it was the employment index that dipped yet again, from 55.4 to 53.2, the lowest since June, but in the New Normal who needs jobs when one has Schrodinger diffusion indices to confuse everyone on a daily basis. Either way, while stocks did not like yesterday’s exploding Chicago PMI and dipped on fears of a December taper, today’s 2 years ISM high is one of those good news is good news instances, and ES soars as usual.

In chart format:

The report breakdown:

From the report:

The report was issued today by Bradley J. Holcomb, CPSM, CPSD, chair of the Institute for Supply Management™ Manufacturing Business Survey Committee. “The PMI™ registered 56.4 percent, an increase of 0.2 percentage point from September’s reading of 56.2 percent. The PMI™ has increased progressively each month since June, with October’s reading reflecting the highest PMI™ in 2013. The New Orders Index increased slightly in October by 0.1 percentage point to 60.6 percent, while the Production Index decreased by 1.8 percentage points to 60.8 percent. Both the New Orders and Production Indexes have registered above 60 percent for three consecutive months. The Employment Index registered 53.2 percent, a decrease of 2.2 percentage points compared to September’s reading of 55.4 percent. The panel’s comments are generally positive about the current business climate; however, there are mixed responses on whether the government shutdown and potential default have had any effect on October’s results.”

And the respondents:

  • “New business is booming.” (Textile Mills)
  • “The government shutting down and threatening to go into a default position is causing all kinds of concerns in our markets.” (Fabricated Metal Products)
  • “The government shutdown has not had any impact on our business that I can determine, nor has it impacted any supplier shipments.” (Chemical Products)
  • “Government spending continues to be slow in defense and military. The government shutdown and debt ceiling crisis did not affect business.” (Transportation Equipment)
  • “Telecom market — wireless and VOIP — appear to be spiking. We are very busy; busier than we have ever been.” (Computer & Electronic Products)
  • “Seasonal demand has not decreased at the typical pace. Market showing resiliency in the residential market.” (Primary Metals)
  • “Business continues to improve every month for the past nine months.” (Furniture & Related Products)
  • “Big Box Store discounting providing increased sales bump short term.” (Food, Beverage & Tobacco Products)
  • “Our customers continue to be cautious and are closely managing their purchases. Business continues to be flat to slightly down.” (Machinery)
  • “Outlook on general appliance market continues in a positive direction. Uncertainty, however, looms with unclear government direction pending.” (Electrical Equipment, Appliances & Components)


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/uaAtKgMQhUQ/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Bubblespotting With Jim Bullard

Today’s “good Fed cop” award goes to St. Louis Fed president James Bullard who has some words of caution which neither he, nor anyone else at the FOMC, will pay attention to:

  • BULLARD SAYS RISK OF ASSET PRICE BUBBLES ‘HUGE ISSUE’ FOR FOMC
  • BULLARD: LOW RATES, NOT JUST QE, WOULD ACCOUNT FOR ANY BUBBLE
  • BULLARD SAYS LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION DECLINE BEGAN IN 2000

And the punchline:

  • BULLARD: `THERE MAY BE SOME OTHER’ ASSET BUBBLE `GOING ON’

Yes: the bubble of Fed “assets”

As for his conclusion…

  • BULLARD SEES U.S. ECONOMIC GROWTH ACCELERATING NEXT YEAR

… forgive us if this seems like a small case of deja vu.

  • Bullard Says Fed Shouldn’t Rush to Ease as Economy Accelerates – December 2011
  • Fed’s Bullard says U.S. growth may accelerate to 3% in 2012NAPMPMI Index – April 2012
  • Bullard Says Economic Growth Will Probably Accelerate – February 2013

So, thanks, but we’ll pass on any “acceleration”

Full Bullard slideshow (lots of pretty charts but no kittens):


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/igDHfZ2IuNo/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Unions Refuse To Advocate for Obamacare Enrollment

Although the Obama administration has made
enrollment cheerleaders out of the
Baltimore Ravens,
Organizing for America, and the now-disgraced
Chad Henderson, many major unions who were allies of the
president are now treating Obamacare-advocacy like a hot
potato.

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial
Organizations (AFL-CIO), which has over 11 million members and is
the largest federation of unions in the country, is displeased
about the
false promises of Obamacare and refuses to promote enrollment
on the government’s behalf. It’s not just private sector unions,
though. Politico
explains:

The AFL-CIO isn’t lifting a finger to help the White House — it
remains in negotiations at the White House and on Capitol Hill to
change elements of the law it finds objectionable to workers. Those
talks were put on hold earlier this month during the government
shutdown — a far larger concern for the federal government employee
unions — and have begun to restart only in recent days, according
to officials from multiple unions.

Major public-sector unions also aren’t fired up to help the
White House with a law that won’t affect the vast majority of their
members. Nor are they ready to register people who aren’t union
workers for a benefit they won’t receive themselves.

Beth Moten, legislative and political director of the American
Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents over
650,000 federal employees,
said that although the AFGE would like to help, but “frankly,
we have our hands full in everything else, and we don’t have [the]
luxury of getting involved.”

Even the American Federation of Teachers, the largest teacher
union in the U.S., though they have made presentations for their
own members, refuse to get involved in the touting enrollment to
the communities in which they work. Furthermore, they expressed
concerns about how the healthcare system will impact part-time
teachers whose hours have been cut.

The imbroglio began earlier this year when the union leaders
realized that Obamacare was
not actually beneficial to their members and pensioners. The
Teamsters, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union,
and UNITE HERE, which collectively have over 2.5 million members,

sent a strongly-worded letter to the president demanding that
changes be made so Obamacare would not hurt union workers. The
president did not come through. Unions recently made another effort
through the Senate Democrats, but that
failed, too. The
persistent problems that have been exposed since the Oct. 1
opening of the exchanges has done nothing to help the
situation.

Unions are not the only one-time supporters who have now turned
on Obamacare. Reason’s Nick Gillespie covered another
prominent advocate who recently abandoned ship.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/01/unions-refuse-to-advocate-for-obamacare
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American Health Care Killed My Father: David Goldhill on How Consumer-Driven Medicine Saves Lives

In 2007, David Goldhill’s father was admitted to a New York City
hospital with pneumonia, and five weeks later he died there from
multiple hospital-acquired infections. “I probably would have been
like any other family member dealing with the grief and disbelief,”
says Goldhill, a self-described liberal Democrat who is currently
the CEO of the Game Show Network. “But,” as Goldhill recounts,

A month later there was
a profile in The New Yorker of physician Peter
Provonost, who was running around the country with fairly simple
steps for cleanliness and hygiene that could significantly reduce
the hospital-acquired infection rate, but he was having a hard time
getting hospitals to sign up for this. I had helped run a movie
chain, and we had a rule that if a soda spilled, it had to be
cleaned up in five minutes or someone got in trouble. And I thought
to myself, if we can do that to get you not to go to the theater
across the street, why are hospitals having such a hard time doing
simple cost-free things to save lives?

That’s how Goldhill first got interested in the economics of the
American health care system. In 2009, he published a much-discussed

article in The Atlantic, which he has now expanded
into a book, titled
Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My
Father–and How We Can Fix It.

View this article.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/01/american-health-care-killed-my-father-d
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These Journalists Laugh at Your Puny Health Insurance Policy Cancellations

Insert "press gaggle" joke here. Also, this really does come from the White House press shop. ||| White HouseYesterday, I wrote about how
President Barack Obama’s approach toward journalists while selling
the Affordable Care Act has arguably amounted to “working
the refs.” But there are some professional truth-slingers who
require no extra nudge–they’re here to tell you that Obamacare
critics are all wet, that maybe the president went a
wee bit too far with that whole you-can-keep-it stuff, but
that the more important thing is that these aren’t the health plans
you were looking for.

Here’s a sampling from the genre; bolding is mine to emphasize
apologia for presidential mendacity and other WTFery:

David Firestone, New York Times, “The
Uproar Over Insurance ‘Cancellation’ Notices“:

Most lawmakers mentioned President Obama’s unfortunate
blanket statement that all Americans would be allowed to
keep their insurance policies if they liked them. He failed to make
an exception for inadequate policies that don’t meet the new
minimum standards. […]

The so-called cancellation letters waved around at yesterday’s
hearing were simply notices that policies would have to be upgraded
or changed. Some of those old policies were so full of holes that
they didn’t include hospitalization, or maternity care, or coverage
of other serious conditions.

Republicans were apparently furious that government
would dare intrude on an insurance company’s freedom to offer a
terrible product to desperate people. […]

Luckily, a comprehensive and affordable insurance policy
is…now a basic right….Ms. Sebelius never lost her cool in
three-and-a-half hours of testimony, perhaps because she knows that
once the computer problems and the bellowing die down, the country
will be far better off.

Pssst! Hiltzik! That box to your right! ||| White HouseMichael Hiltzik, Los
Angeles Times, “Obamacare
hysteria: Don’t believe the canceled insurance hype“:
 

We’re supposed to be scandalized by this, since
President Obama himself assured everyone that if they
liked their insurance they’d be able to keep it. […]

Back in March, Consumer Reports published a study of many of
these plans and placed them in a special category: “junk
health insurance.” Some plans, the magazine declared, may be
worse than none at all. […]

It’s time to tamp down the breathless indignation about these
health plan cancellations. Many of the departing plans are
being outlawed for good reason, and many of the customers
losing them have no idea how much financial exposure they were
saddled with in the old days. That’s the real scandal in American
health insurance, and Obamacare is designed, rightly, to fix
it.

I prefer his early work. |||Henry J. Aaron, New York Daily News,
“The
truth about those Obamacare coverage letters”:

Of late, numerous reports have told of people surprised by
letters telling them that insurance plans they now have will not be
renewed. Many are puzzled. Weren’t they told that if they like
their insurance they could keep it? Opponents of health reform in
general are seizing on the fact and asking in an accusatorial
manner: “Isn’t this a betrayal of trust?”

No. […]

[Obamacare] bars certain common practices of insurance companies
that most people find unacceptable at best, outrageous at
worst. […]

People should be no more shocked when substandard insurance
plans are removed from the market than they would be if food purity
legislation caused some products to be removed from a grocer’s
shelf. Obamacare is removing insurance products from the
market that are bad for your health.

“Terrible” insurance products that are “bad for your health” and
being “outlawed for good reason”? You might want to ask
Robert Laszewski about that.

Read Peter Suderman for more on how “The
Obama Administration’s Response to Insurance Plan Cancellations Is
Misleading and Condescending.” An excerpt from that:

The argument here, essentially, is that anyone whose plan gets
canceled didn’t really like his or her plan—that, even though the
beneficiary might not know it, the plan being canceled wasn’t worth
having anyway.

It’s a fundamentally condescending argument that makes a blanket
assumption that people don’t know whether or not they liked their
plan. It’s also a bunch of nonsense.

The administration can’t possibly know what sort of insurance
each and every individual likes or wants, and it can’t account for
the people who are losing plans that clearly did meet the needs of
the individuals who purchased them.

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal‘s
James Taranto has a
piece making similar points to mine, and with more examples
worth reading.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/01/these-journalists-laugh-at-your-puny-hea
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