Americans Keep Getting Crushed
There is an ongoing computer chip shortage which has limited supply of new vehicles in the U.S. since 2021. According to a Forbes article from April 30, 2022 “For dealerships, higher margins per vehicle have more than made up for the drop in new-vehicle volume due to the computer chip shortage, said Earl Hesterberg, president and CEO of Houston-based Group 1 Automotive, one of the nation’s biggest new-vehicle retail chains.”
“Demand is extremely strong,” he said, in a conference call on April 27 to announce first-quarter earnings. “We sell most units almost immediately after manufacturer delivery.”
Cars are actually sold not just immediately after, the sale is brokered months before the vehicle arrives because of the high demand and limited supply. People routinely pay thousands of dollars above sticker price, and that is why 2022 is shaping up to be the most profitable year ever for dealerships.
According to a Forbes wheels article from Feb 28, 2022 “What’s changed since then, of course, is the Covid-19 pandemic followed by the shortage of semiconductors (chips). Through December 2021, the chip shortage cost North American auto factories more than 2.3 million units of production, according to AutoForecast Solutions. Some analysts say the chip shortage will ease later this year. Others say it will stretch into 2023.” Dec, 2021 was the record high for New Car prices. They haven’t dropped much in 2022. The same article advises putting off buying a new car, which is good advice, but that same article says the shortage may last till 2023.
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It’s nice to believe everyone is in a position to outwait a global crisis for 3 years but since cars are a product with planned obsolescence, that’s not really an option.
If you’re fortunate enough to own a car, welcome to skyrocketing gas prices. Gas prices have increased steadily since Aug 2021 with no end in sight. This may also be a trend running into 2023. So even if you have a car you might not be able to afford to use it. I have a friend and her coworker came to her saying she might have to quit her job because she couldn’t afford the driving involved. Luckily the company increased the compensation per mile for the workers, but not every company will follow suit.
So American workers, where minimum wage increase was defeated by the Senate Parliamentarian of all people, have steady wages that must be stretched to cover unprecedented car prices and gas prices and the government has done jack shit to fix this.
This shouldn’t really be a surprise, the same government let over a million people die to Covid 19. Several hundred thousand of those deaths deemed preventable by scientists. But between the gas prices and the car prices it is more expensive to be a worker than ever before and it almost unfair to be alive at this point and time. It is not unreasonable for the government to take some action to alleviate the crushing economic pressure on the American labor force.
And of course there is the ongoing housing crisis. Housing prices have skyrocket the last year. Some houses have gone up by hundreds of thousands of dollars…in the last few months! Months! Nationwide rent went up 12 percent in the last year. That might not sound that bad but did your paycheck go up 12 percent in the last year? Did some other cost drop? Then that 12 percent is coming out of whatever portion of your check didn’t already go to rent, car payment and gas. Fun may well be a thing of the past for the American worker.
I can’t remember a more crushing period of time in America and it would be nice if the government acknowledged that fact. It would be even better if they did something about it. But given the cohort of criminals we have, I can well imagine Manchin, McConnell and Lindsay Graham rubbing their hands with glee as if they drew energy from our suffering and misery.
In addition to being a lawyer and writer for Medium, I write novels and perform stand up comedy as Doug X. My latest novel is Succubus Schemes
