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“Obama Calls Obamacare Disaster ‘A Starter Home’, Republicans Should Be The Bulldozer”

Authored Op-Ed via The Wall Street Journal,

ObamaCare has suddenly been injected back into the 2016 election debate, on the news of the law’s 25%-plus average premium increase for 2017. Even Donald Trump is talking about it. With only two weeks to go, this is a moment for voters to hold accountable the Democrats who imposed this debacle on the country over voter objections.

Next year’s enormous price increases are merely the latest expression of ObamaCare’s underlying problems, and the dysfunction is undermining the health security of Americans who lack employer coverage. A wave of major insurers have quit the exchanges, and those that are left have raised deductibles and copays and restricted choices of doctors and hospitals. The public is witnessing—and the unlucky are experiencing—the collapse of one progressive promise after another.

At every stage of the ObamaCare saga, liberals said not to worry. Sure, the law was unpopular when Democrats rammed it through Congress on a partisan vote in 2009-10, but voters would learn to love it once the subsidies started rolling. That didn’t happen, and in 2014 President Obama tried to buck up Democrats by saying that “five years from now” people will look back on the law as “a monumental achievement.” Two years later it’s worse.

Nothing could shake the liberal faith in their supposed landmark: Not the Healthcare.gov website fiasco of 2013, or the millions of individual health plans that were cancelled despite President Obama’s promise about keeping them. The left kept the faith as the entitlement subtracted from economic growth, hurt incomes and killed jobs. MIT economist Jonathan Gruber called the critics stupid, and Mr. Obama denigrates anyone who disagrees with him as illegitimate or politically motivated.

Now reality is confirming what the critics predicted. ObamaCare’s regulatory mix—benefit mandates, requiring insurers to sell coverage to all comers, and narrow ratings bands that limit how much premiums can vary by health status—was tried by several states in the 1980s and ’90s. Every one saw the same results that are now unspooling nationally: high and rising costs, low and declining enrollment, and less insurer and provider competition.

The Affordable Care Act was supposed to solve these predictable disruptions with subsidies and a mandate to buy insurance or pay a penalty. But most people don’t think ObamaCare plans provide value for the money, especially if they are non-subsidized.

So now the liberal line is that ObamaCare has a few problems, but don’t worry: The same geniuses who wrote the law know how to fix it. The Bernie Sanders-Elizabeth Warren left wants a new “public option,” higher subsidies, more price controls and even more intrusive regulatory control. Hillary Clinton has endorsed all of this.

“The Affordable Care Act has done what it was designed to do,” Mr. Obama declared last week in Miami, apparently meaning that the law has reduced the number of uninsured. But most of the coverage gains have come from dumping patients into Medicaid, a failing program that provides substandard care. Nominally private exchange plans increasingly resemble Medicaid too.

***

Mrs. Clinton may be horse-whispering Ms. Warren now, but ObamaCare’s failures aren’t likely to bring the U.S. closer to their single-payer nirvana any time soon. ObamaCare was the best Democrats could do when they had a 60-vote Senate supermajority and bought off interest groups like the insurers, hospitals, drug makers and American Medical Association.

The only way to break the ObamaCare status quo is if the public returns a Republican Congress to Washington. If Republicans can hold the Senate amid a Clinton victory, they’d be in a better position to negotiate solutions along the lines of the House GOP “Better Way” blueprint that would start to repair the individual market and create incentives for more choice and competition.

Take Wisconsin, where Democrat Russ Feingold cast the deciding 60th vote for ObamaCare and voters fired him for it in 2010. He’s back hoping voters forget. Evan Bayh, who also cast the deciding vote before retiring to become a superlobbyist, is back facing Indiana voters and Hoosiers can deliver a verdict.

In Arizona, premiums will rise a mind-boggling 116%, only two insurers are still selling plans, and John McCain has made ObamaCare a major theme. His opponent, Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick, calls ObamaCare her “proudest vote.” Katie McGinty likes to say Pennsylvanians should be “proud of ObamaCare,” though the commonwealth is slated for a 53% increase. A memo about ObamaCare pride month must have gone out from Democratic HQ.

Mr. Trump has missed a chance by not prosecuting a consistent case against ObamaCare, despite Mrs. Clinton’s past as the chief architect of its HillaryCare prototype in the 1990s. As that episode shows, the longstanding progressive goal has been to centralize political control over American health care.

Now voters are finally seeing what happens when the planners try to design a single health-care solution for a large and diverse country.

Mr. Obama called ObamaCare “a starter home” in Miami. Republicans ought to campaign as the bulldozer.

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Russia Cancels Refueling Stop In Spain Following Widespread Opposition

While details are unclear, Europa Press reports that Russia has cancelled its request to refuel three of its warships at Spain's eastern Mediterranean port of Cueta. Whether this is a pre-emptive move to avoid being shunned by Spain – after massive opposition from politicians and NATO officials – is unclear.

The enclave of Ceuta sits on the tip of Africa’s north coast, across the Straits of Gibraltar from mainland Spain, and bordering Morocco, which also lays claim to the territory. Although Ceuta is part of the EU, its Nato status is unclear, and since 2011 at least 60 Russian warships have docked there.

 

As we noted previously, Spain is facing anger and criticism from all asunder at their decision to allow the refueling to occur…

Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg warned on Tuesday that Russian warships heading for Syria could be used to target civilians.

“We are concerned and have expressed very clearly by the potential use of that battle group to increase air strikes on civilians in Aleppo,” Stoltenberg said, adding that it was “up to each nation to decide whether these vessels may obtain supplies and refuel at different ports along the route to the eastern Mediterranean”.

 

“The battle group may be used to increase Russia’s ability to take part in combat operations over Syria and to conduct even more air strikes against Aleppo,”

Guy Verhofstadt, former prime minister of Belgium and now the EU’s representative on Brexit talks with the UK, called Spain’s decision to allow the refuelling “scandalous”.

Sir Gerald Howarth MP, a former Defence Minister, said it would be “wholly inappropriate” for a Nato member to refuel the Russian vessels.

“Spain is a member of Nato and Nato is already facing challenges from Russia, not least in the Baltics.

 

“The Russians stand accused of indiscriminate bombing in Aleppo and Syria and it would be inappropriate to render them military assistance.”

Former Royal Navy chief Lord West told the newspaper:

“There are sanctions against Russia and it’s an extraordinary thing for a Nato ally to do.”

*  *  *

And now, as EuropaPress reports, Russia has canceled the request submitted to Spain for three of its military ships bound the eastern Mediterranean calling at the port of Ceuta between October 28 and November 2, as reported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.

The department headed by José Manuel García-Margallo explained that the Government had granted last September permits scale to Russia "in the context of practice in this area for which ships of the Russian Navy made scale normally in ports Spanish for years. "

 

But both NATO and the British government had expressed concern that an ally help ships that could be used for an offensive in Syria that included the bombing of civilian targets.

 

Therefore, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has indicated that it had requested the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Madrid clarification on this possibility as "the Government of Spain continues with extraordinary concern the bombing of Aleppo and the humanitarian tragedy that is living".

 

Thus, the Russian Embassy announced this afternoon the Spanish Government to withdraw the request for permits for three vessels scale, scales are therefore canceled by.

*  *  *

 

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Wall Street Reacts To Apple’s Disappointing Earnings

As reported last night, despite a kneejerk spike higher in AAPL shares, the stock ultimately faded the release of its Q4 earnings which had a mix of positive and negative components, however the market ultimately focused on the latest revenue and ASP miss and the projected margin decline and glossed over Tim Cook’s exuberant revenue forecast for 2016, pushing the stock lower by nearly 3% this morning. 

So, having had a chance to digest the results, Wall Street’s sellside analysts chimed in, and the prevailing sentiment was neutral to negative, with Stifel’s Aaron Raker most disappointed, downgrading the stock from Buy to Hold, and lowering his price target to $115.

ANALYST COMMENTARY STIFEL (Aaron Rakers)

  • Downgrades to hold from buy, lowers PT to $115 from $130
  • Says Apple stock is likely to remain “range-bound” for next two-three quarters until investors gain greater insight into potential fundamental upside drivers

WELLS FARGO (Maynard Um)

  • Says 1Q gross margin guidance of 38%-38.5% (vs 38% in FQ4) was disappointing; notes FX had a 50bps impact
  • Management commentary aligns w/Wells Fargo view that units per carrier are higher in non-S cycles (this yr) and lower in S-cycles (next yr)
  • May create some headwinds in next year’s cycle, weigh on margins

Rates market perform

JPMORGAN (Rod Hall)

  • JPM continues to be cautious on consumer demand into early 2017
  • Expects better trends in H2’17 on increased shareholder returns and stronger replacements
  • Says co. FY1Q rev. view implies 76m iPhone units sold into channel; being driven by Samsung Note 7 problems and extra week in qtr
  • Rates overweight, raises PT to $114 from $107

BARCLAYS (Mark Moskowitz)

  • Interprets management commentary on iPhone 7 plus demand likely outstripping supply in Dec. qtr as “affirmation of the near term lift to the iPhone business”
  • Says investors should “wait for the dust to settle in coming days”; says momentum-focused investors may trim/exit positions
  • Longer term, more positive on stock based on Android issues, extra week in Dec. qtr and better iPhone units and ASPs
  • Rates overweight, raises PT to $119 from $114

WILLIAM BLAIR (Anil Doradla)

  • Says component shortages during the qtr. may have muted share shift trends from Samsung to Apple
  • ‘‘Impressed’’ by the strong growth in FY4Q services segment (up 24.4% y/y)
  • Gross margin guidance miss was driven partially by FX; management notes 340 basis point headwind from stronger U.S. dollar
  • Rates outperform

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Greens Against a Carbon Tax in Washington State

GlobeCO2AbluecupDreamstimeIf man-made global warming produced by rising concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels poses a significant problem, then most economists think that a revenue neutral carbon tax imposed at the minehead and the well-head is the cheapest and most efficient solution. So too should most environmental activists who are concerned about climate change. However, many environmentalist groups are surprisingly opposed to just such a proposal in Washington State.

Ballot Initiative 732 (I-732) would establish a tax on carbon emissions at $15 per metric ton of emissions in July 2017, $25 in July 2018, and then 3.5 percent plus inflation each year until the tax reaches $100 per metric ton. The tax would be phased in more slowly for farmers and nonprofit transportation providers. If adopted, I-732 could cut the state sales tax by one full percentage point from from 6.5 to 5.5 percent. It would fund the Working Families Rebate to provide up to $1500 a year for 400,000 low-income working households to counter their increased energy expenditures. And it would essentially eliminate the Business and Occupation Tax for manufacturers thus encouraging them to remain in the state.

I-732 aims to neither increase nor decrease state revenues; the new carbon tax would offset other taxes and there would be no additional revenue left over for Washington State politicians and bureaucrats to spend. The goal of the tax is to lower greenhouse gas emissions by incentivizing people to switch to low- and no-carbon based fuels. One would think that environmentalists would cheer and be urging Washington State residents to support I-732. However, a remarkably interesting article, “The left v. a carbon tax,” over at Vox explains how many Washington State environmentalist and progressive groups came to oppose I-732.

One huge reason for their opposition is that the left-leaning groups against I-732 are against to revenue neutrality; they want to use climate policy as a way to increase tax revenues in order to “invest” in clean energy and to support “climate justice” redistribution programs. Consequently, as Ramez Naam, who has worked with the group CarbonWA to get I-732 on ballot, emailed me that its progressive opponents are essentially arguing, “Let’s make the perfect the enemy of the really extremely good.” He added, “On its merits, I-732 would be the strongest climate policy in North America, extremely market based, and the most progressive change to the tax code in Washington State (and possibly the biggest anti-poverty initiative here) in 40 years.”

Actually, it is highly debatable that the revenue increasing proposals that Washington State’s soi-disant climate progressives would prefer to enact are in any sense more “perfect” than I-732.

Jerry Taylor, the president of the Niskanen Center libertarian policy shop, favors a revenue neutral carbon tax as a way to address concerns about climate change. When asked what he thought of I-732 Taylor responded in an email:

“I-732 gets it right for the state of Washington. The initiative make polluters pay for the risks and damages they are imposing on the rest of us … and then turns around and gives that money (in the form of a sales tax cut) to those they are putting at risk. Even if corporations passed all of the tax on to consumers, a majority of the citizens of Washington would gain more in tax reduction than they would pay in higher energy prices. It is not a perfect model for federal action in that existing regulatory authority to address greenhouse gas emissions would continue to exist, but it is nonetheless a very good start.”

Unfortunately, the opposition to I-732 by progressives is proving the salience of Cato Institute senior fellow Patrick Michaels’ tart observation: “Do you really think $3 trillion will walk down K Street unmolested? That’s what’s required for a ‘revenue neutral’ tax.” K Street is the notorious address for many of Washington, DC’s more prominent lobbyists.

On the other hand, if I-732 does succeed that will provide some hope for supporters that a carbon tax could pass unmolested. A recent poll found support for I-732 at 42 percent with 37 against, and 21 percent undecided. Stay tuned.

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Florida Prohibitionists Fight Medical Marijuana With Halloween Legend

In 2014, the last time Florida voters considered a medical marijuana ballot initiative, opponents warned that doctor-approved pot cookies would abet rape. This year anti-pot groups are warning that cannabis candy made for patients could be surreptitiously handed out to children on Halloween, despite the fact that there are no confirmed cases of anything like that happening in the two decades since California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996.

“It is almost impossible for anyone, let alone a child, to tell a marijuana gummy bear or cookie from the real thing,” said Calvina Fay, director of the Drug Free America Foundation, at a press conference on Monday, a week before Halloween and two weeks before voters decide the fate of Amendment 2, which would allow the use of marijuana for the treatment of eight specified diseases as well as “other debilitating medical conditions of the same kind or class as or comparable to those enumerated.” The No on 2 group Don’t Let Florida Go to Pot says “Florida children who go door to door for candy on Halloween may one day be at risk of receiving edible marijuana products if Amendment 2 comes to pass.” The group claims “it’s a very real scenario playing out in states like California, Washington and Colorado, where marijuana has been legalized.”

The Florida Sheriffs Association (FSA) has joined other opponents of Amendment 2 in hyping the mythical menace of marijuana edibles in trick-or-treat bags. “After other states approved legislation,” said FSA President Jerry Demings, the Orange County sheriff, “they saw a surge in marijuana edible products that are clearly attractive to children, advertised and marketed in commonly recognized edibles such as lollipops, candy bars, Pot-Tarts, and Krondike Bars.”

What those states did not see, however, was a surge in tots tripping on THC-tainted treats they got from sneaky strangers on Halloween. The hazard described by Fay and Demings did not materialize in Colorado after medical marijuana became legal there in 2001, after dispensaries began proliferating in 2009, or after state-licensed recreational sales started in 2014. If surreptitious dosing of trick-or-treaters with cannabis candy has happened in any of the two dozen other states where marijuana is legal for medical or recreational use, it seems to have escaped the attention of police and the press. The Orlando Sentinel reports that Demings “could not offer examples of children receiving laced Halloween candy in states where medical marijuana is legal.” Miami New Times noted that “zero cases” have been documented in Colorado or Washington, the first two states to legalize marijuana for recreational use.

That’s hardly surprising, since pot pranksters have little incentive to substitute expensive marijuana edibles for cheap Halloween candy, especially since they would not get to witness the results, which would kick in up to two hours after ingestion. The fear of cannabis-infused Halloween candy, which goes back a decade at least and has been used for political purposes in the past (against California’s Proposition 19 in 2010, for instance), is a variation on older urban legends about poison, needles, razor blades, and glass shards lurking in trick-or-treat bags. Last Halloween hysterical cops and yellow journalists put a new twist on these stories, warning parents that candy-colored MDMA tablets might be mixed in with their kids’ Jolly Rancher gummies and miniature peanut butter cups.

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Pirate Party May Soon Lead Iceland, Clinton Aides ‘Wanted to Get Away With’ Private Servers, Libertarians Sue Over Selfies: A.M. Links

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Why Hillary Clinton is Bad News For Feminism: New at Reason

It’ll soon be all over for Donald Trump. He was already limping from many self-inflicted wounds by the time PussyGate broke. But that scandal repulsed women, giving Hillary Clinton a huge lead amongHillary Clinton them. But it would have been much better for feminism, argues Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia, if Hillary had lost to a good man rather than won against a bad one.

The notion that women are as capable as men of occupying high office is now firmly entrenched in the zeitgeist. A female U.S. president was a question of when not if. So feminists could have waited for a less flawed candidate. But now they’ll be stuck with one who can’t promote their cause without being jeered at and undercutting their movement.

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Wikileaks Celebrates Hillary Clinton’s Birthday By Releasing Another 1,500 Podesta Emails; Total Is Now 33,042

With less than 2 weeks left until the November 8 presidential election, and perhaps to celebrate Hillary Clinton’s birthday, Wikileaks continued its ongoing Podesta dump by unveiling another 1,508 emails in the latest Part 19 of its release, bringing the total emails released so far to exactly 33,042.

As usual we will go parse through the disclosure and bring you some of the more notable ones

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Clinton Campaign Chair Had Dinner With Top DOJ Official One Day After Hillary’s Benghazi Hearing

In the latest revelation sure to reignite accusations of collusion between the Clinton campaign and the DOJ, among the recent batch of hacked emails released by Wikileaks, we learn that the day after Hillary Clinton testified in front of the House Select Committee on Benghazi last October, John Podesta, Hillary’s campaign chairman met for dinner with a small group of well-connected friends, including Peter Kadzik, who is currently a top official at the US Justice Department serving as Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs.


Peter Kadzik, with lobbyist Tony Podesta, brother of John Podesta.

The post-Benghazi dinner was attended by Podesta, Kadzik, superlobbyist Vincent Roberti and other well-placed Beltway fixtures. The first mention of personal contact between Podesta and Kadzik in the Wikileaks dump is in an Oct. 23, 2015 email sent out by Vincent Roberti, a lobbyist who is close to Podesta and his superlobbyist brother, Tony Podesta. In it, Roberti refers to a dinner reservation at Posto, a Washington D.C. restaurant.  The dinner was set for 7:30 that evening, just one day after Clinton gave 11 hours of testimony to the Benghazi Committee.

Podesta and Kadzik met several months later for dinner at Podesta’s home, another email shows. Another email sent on May 5, 2015, Kadzik’s son asked Podesta for a job on the Clinton campaign.

As the Daily Caller notes, the dinner arrangement “is just the latest example of an apparent conflict of interest between the Clinton campaign and the federal agency charged with investigating the former secretary of state’s email practices.” As one former U.S. Attorney tells told the DC, the exchanges are another example of the Clinton campaign’s “cozy relationship” with the Obama Justice Department.

The hacked emails confirm that Podesta and Kadzik were in frequent contact. In one email from January, Kadzik and Podesta, who were classmates at Georgetown Law School in the 1970s, discussed plans to celebrate Podesta’s birthday. And in another sent last May, Kadzik’s son emailed Podesta asking for a job on the Clinton campaign.

“The political appointees in the Obama administration, especially in the Department of Justice, appear to be very partisan in nature and I don’t think had clean hands when it comes to the investigation of the private email server,” says Matthew Whitaker, the executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, a government watchdog group.

“It’s the kind of thing the American people are frustrated about is that the politically powerful have insider access and have these kind of relationships that ultimately appear to always break to the benefit of Hillary Clinton,” he added, comparing the Podesta-Kadzik meetings to the revelation that Attorney General Loretta Lynch met in private with Bill Clinton at the airport in Phoenix days before the FBI and DOJ investigating Hillary Clinton.

Kadzik’s role at the DOJ, where he started in 2013, is particularly notable Kadzik, as helped spearhead the effort to nominate Lynch, who was heavily criticized for her secret meeting with the former president.


A Long, Friendly History

Podesta and Kadzik have a long history, one which has surprisingly gone mostly unnoticed during the ongoing Clinton email scandal. As DC helps summarize, Kadzik represented Podesta during the Monica Lewinsky investigation. And in the waning days of the Bill Clinton administration, Kadzik lobbied Podesta on behalf of Marc Rich, the fugitive who Bill Clinton controversially pardoned on his last day in office.

That history is cited by Podesta in another email hacked from his Gmail account. In a Sept. 2008 email, which the Washington Free Beacon flagged last week, Podesta emailed an Obama campaign official to recommend Kadzik for a supportive role in the campaign. Podesta, who would later head up the Obama White House transition effort, wrote that Kadzik was a “fantastic lawyer” who “kept me out of jail.”

screen-shot-2016-10-25-at-11-57-45-am

As the DC Chuck Ross notes, it is unclear to which case Podesta was referring and whether he was joking about prison. But Podesta was caught in a sticky situation in both the Lewinsky affair and the Rich pardon scandal. As deputy chief of staff to Clinton in 1996, Podesta asked then-United Nations ambassador Bill Richardson to hire the 23-year-old Lewinsky. In April 1996, the White House transferred Lewinsky from her job as a White House intern to the Pentagon in order to keep her and Bill Clinton separate. But the Clinton team also wanted to keep Lewinsky happy so that she would not spill the beans about her sexual relationship with Clinton.

Richardson later recounted in his autobiography that he offered Lewinsky the position but that she declined it.

Podesta made false statements to a grand jury impaneled by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr for the investigation. But he defended the falsehoods, saying later that he was merely relaying false information from Clinton that he did not know was inaccurate at the time. “He did lie to me,” Podesta said about Clinton in a National Public Radio interview in 1998. Clinton was acquitted by the Senate in Feb. 1999 of perjury and obstruction of justice charges related to the Lewinsky probe. Kadzik, then a lawyer with the firm Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky, represented Podesta through the fiasco.

Podesta had been promoted to Clinton’s chief of staff when he and Kadzik became embroiled in another scandal.

Kadzik was then representing Marc Rich, a billionaire financier who was wanted by the U.S. government for evading a $48 million tax bill. The fugitive, who was also implicated in illegal trading activity with nations that sponsored terrorism, had been living in Switzerland for 17 years when he sought the pardon. To help Rich, Kadzik lobbied Podesta heavily in the weeks before Clinton left office on Jan. 20, 2001. A House Oversight Committee report released in May 2002 stated that “Kadzik was recruited into Marc Rich’s lobbying campaign because he was a long-time friend of White House Chief of Staff John Podesta.”

The report noted that Kadzik contacted Podesta at least seven times regarding Rich’s pardon.

On top of the all-hands-on-deck lobbying effort, Rich’s ex-wife, Denise Rich, had doled out more than $1 million to the Clintons and other Democrats prior to the pardon. She gave $100,000 to Hillary Clinton’s New York Senate campaign and another $450,000 to the Clinton presidential library.


Kadzik’s current role

In his current role as head of the Office of Legislative Affairs, Kadzik handles inquiries from Congress on a variety of issues. In that role he was not in the direct chain of command on the Clinton investigation. The Justice Department and FBI have insisted that career investigators oversaw the investigation, which concluded in July with no charges filed against Clinton.

But Kadzik worked on other Clinton email issues in his dealings with Congress. Last November, he denied a request from Republican lawmakers to appoint a special counsel to lead the investigation.

In a Feb. 1, 2016 letter in response to Kadzik, Florida Rep. Ron DeSantis noted that Kadzik had explained “that special counsel may be appointed at the discretion of the Attorney General when an investigation or prosecution by the Department of Justice would create a potential conflict of interest.”

DeSantis, a Republican, suggested that Lynch’s appointment by Bill Clinton in 1999 as U.S. Attorney in New York may be considered a conflict of interest. He also asserted that Obama’s political appointees — a list which includes Kadzik — “are being asked to impartially execute their respective duties as Department of Justice officials that may involve an investigation into the activities of the forerunner for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.”

It is unknown if Kadzik responded to DeSantis’ questions.

Kadzik’s first involvement in the Clinton email brouhaha came in a Sept. 24, 2015 response letter to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley in which he declined to confirm or deny whether the DOJ was investigating Clinton. Last month, Politico reported that Kadzik angered Republican lawmakers when, in a classified briefing, he declined to say whether Clinton aides who received DOJ immunity were required to cooperate with congressional probes.

Kadzik also testified at a House Oversight Committee hearing last month on the issue of classifications and redactions in the FBI’s files of the Clinton email investigation.

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Wholesale Inventories Growth Weakest Since 2010 Even As Auto Stocks Soar

Wholesale Inventories were unchanged year-over-year for the first time since June 2010 (up 0.2% MoM).

 

However, below the surface things are worrisome with motor vehicle inventories up again MoM and up a shocking 9.0% YoY. Wholesale inventories-to-sales ratios are improving modestly but remain deep in recessionary territory.

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