"Gleaming new Mercedes cars roll one by one out of a huge container ship here and onto a pier. Ordinarily the cars would be loaded on trucks within hours, destined for dealerships around the country. But these are not ordinary times." - Dave Winer from Bookmarklet

So much for the incompetence of the American auto industry. - Dave Winer

WOW! Another classic example of a picture being worth 1000 words. - John D. Lemke from twhirl

Unbelivable. - Roberto Bonini

Renault is selling 25% less cars than last year if you were looking for further proof... - Benoit Cazenave

And yet, I still can't afford a new car. Wait. . . I think I see a connection here. - Steve Lowe

there's a way to visualize the banking crisis too -- some bank financed the manufacture of all those cars.toxic assets. - Dave Winer

This is great, in 6 months to a year the prices for all these cars will actually drop and they'll get pulled off the lot. Supply and demand, simple economics. Why should I be concerned about corporate profits? They're not concerned about me. - Bjorn Stromberg

Bjorn: even if the prices do drop, there is no guarentee that a) demand will be strong and b) that profits can be made from those sales (selling to dispose of assets is different from selling to make a profit). - Roberto Bonini

I don't want the big three to disappear, I just want them to go through the bankruptcy reorganization process. It works and there are many large companies that have go in and emerged stronger as a result. The choice is not simple to hand them cash or else the company goes belly up and everyone is out of work at the same time. Bankruptcy also doesn't preclude special bailout packages either. - tim

Roberto: I'm not sure what your point is, clearly cars are overpriced and there are too many of them, otherwise they wouldn't be sitting in parking lots by the boatload. I am all for lower demand, it drives the prices of cars down and makes them more affordable. Here's a question, why haven't the prices of cars come down similar to the way prices of computers have come down? - Bjorn Stromberg

Bjorn: cars require physical resources like steel and plastic that are impossible to reduce in price a lot. Computers are based on things that can be greatly reduced in price over time. Even the process of simply miniaturizing them would make them cheaper to build, store, and ship. - Robert Scoble

My point is Bjorn, even if prices do come down ( hear that used cars prices are plumeting already) to manageable levels, there is no guarentee that consumers will buy. Consumers at the moment are hoarding and will continute to, since they reckon that now is the time to save for the worse times round the corner (which makes things worse, not better). There will be those who WILL cash in big and buy becase they have comfortable savings already. - Roberto Bonini

On your second point, cars are not computers. the two markets ate different. Consider. Cars represent a greater investment over the life of the car in terms of both time and money than a computer does. You can, rather, compare cars to puppies. They both take time, they both are expensive, they both require a commitment over their lifetime, they both require love and care. And tey are both sold investments, not expendable ones. Get my point? And what Robert said. - Roberto Bonini

From a consumer's perspective, low demand and "no guarantee that consumers will buy" is a great thing because it drives prices down. Those are things that benefit someone who wants to buy a car. Car prices are artificially high, this cost of steel and plastic and whatnot is absurd. We've been making cars for almost 100 years and we can't drive the price down any more? It reeks of fat and happy corporations sitting on their asses and not innovating. Car companies need to evolve like all the other industries. - Bjorn Stromberg

We've been building houses forever and they still cost money to build. And your point is? - Roberto Bonini

Everything costs money to build, I'm not arguing that. I fail to see why the American taxpayer should pay to bail out a bunch of corporations who are obviously not doing a good job innovating. Rewarding bad behavior only encourages more bad behavior. - Bjorn Stromberg

Of course. bjorn. If The big Three built small, fuel efficent cars with some nice sleek designs, we wouldn't be in this position in the first place becase our reliance on foreign oil wouldnt be as high, and people would be buying american instead of japanse and korean. On the otherhand The Big Three do employ a boatload of people that we'd rather have stay in work. Then again, Chapter 11 does have credible reasons for its use as a force for change as opposed to a bailout. - Roberto Bonini