A Timely Auto-Buying Tip: Don’t Let Your Guard Down

In spite of the near-universal availability of employee-discounted prices on new GM and Ford cars, you can still negotiate.

The CNN-Money article is good for what it does cover (negotiate the price of the car), but it glosses over the fact that you need to nail the new car price down:

• before you even think of talking about what you will get for your trade-in. In fact, it’s best not to even mention the possibility of a trade-in. Instead, pretend you don’t have one or that you will sell on your own.
• and before you begin any discussions about the financing. Don’t answer a “Leasing or Buying?” question or let them pull your credit report until AFTER you nail down the new-car price. Don’t give them your driver’s license when you go for a test drive (they need it to pull a credit report; they don’t need it to allow you to take a vehicle out for a spin). If they insist that they must know your credit first, leave immediately.

A Kinder, Gentler Toyota

On a somewhat related note, Mickey Kaus notes the “so sorry” marketing strategy of Toyota (scroll down a bit): “What’s really annoying now are Toyota’s pledges to be gentle with us.”

It may be annoying to Kaus, but it must be downright embarrassing to the Big Two.

The Supremes and P2P

All the focus on the ruling’s impact seems to be on how tough it will be for Groskster, LimeWire, Kazaa, BitTorrent, et al when they (and users) have to adapt or die.

I haven’t seen much mention of the idea that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may be sued for merely hosting P2P sites. I personally expect this, and soon, as the big ISPs are where the money is, and where the most effective intimidation can occur. If I’m right, it will force ISPs into a whole new level of site policing that consumers will not like one bit.

Up, up, up: The final revision of first-quarter GDP came in at 3.8%, up from the originally estimated 3.1%, up from the first revision of 3.5%, and beating Street expectations of 3.7%.

Good news? For Reuters, of course not (my heckling is in italics):

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Robust new-home building and stronger exports helped the U.S. economy expand at a faster-than-expected 3.8 percent annual rate in the first quarter, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday.

Initially, the department said gross domestic product — the broadest measure of total economic activity within U.S. borders — grew at a 3.1 percent rate but it pushed that up to 3.5 percent a month ago before finally revising it to match the 3.8 percent rate posted in the closing quarter of 2004. (so much for the “sluggish” talk we’ve had to endure for months)

The final figure outpaced Wall Street economists’ forecasts for a 3.7 percent rate of first-quarter growth and added to expectations that the U.S. central bank will again raise short-term interest rates this week. Most forecasters say GDP will continue expanding at rates around 3.5 percent in coming quarters, despite some strain from costlier energy prices.

“We are not out of the woods with the economy,” said economist Robert Brusca of Fact and Opinion Economics in New York. “The global economy is still up in the air depending on what oil prices will do.” (leave it to Reuters to find a pessimistic economist-we’re not IN the woods, Mr. Brusca)

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the GDP data showed the economy enjoying “solid and sustained growth and job creation,” and urged House and Senate lawmakers to agree on proposals for boosting energy output.

…… The first-quarter GDP report was one of the final pieces of economic data that Federal Reserve policy-makers, who are scheduled to begin a two-day meeting on Wednesday afternoon to consider interest-rate strategy, will have as they move toward a widely predicted ninth straight rate increase on Thursday. (Reuters sure seems to hope so; they’re thinking “Something’s got to slow down this good economy so we can start saying bad things about it. This good news is getting really painful for us to report.”)

Inflation remained well in check. A gauge favored by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan — the personal consumption expenditures index excluding food and energy — advanced at a 2 percent annual rate instead of 2.2 percent estimated a month ago. That was only moderately ahead of the fourth quarter’s 1.7 percent rate.

The Fed began raising rates a year ago, pushing its trend-setting federal funds rate up in eight successive quarter-point increments from a 46-year low of 1 percent to a current level of 3 percent. So far it has given no indication that it is considering a halt to the rate-rise cycle.

The first-quarter GDP data is relatively old and some analysts were skeptical about its predictive value. (How blatant. Reuters’ message to the reader is: “Be patient-Give us a few days or weeks and we’ll find some bad news.”)

Horrid reporting like this is what led to BizzyBlog’s personal favorite rant when the 3.1% figure was first released, and to an “I told you so” when the first upward revision occurred.
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UPDATE: American Thinker notes the quiet coverage of the upward revision.

UPDATE 2: The Wall Street Journal (link requires paid subscription) wonders why whether the frequent upward revisions are an indicator of data-collection problems, and gets in a good rip at the pessimists:

These increasingly frequent, and substantial, revisions raise some questions about the accuracy of government statistics in our entrepreneurial, information age economy. The employment numbers have seemed especially odd the past couple of years, underestimating actual job creation. Personal income growth was also wildly understated at first last year. If the average CEO revised his company’s earnings as often as the Bureau of Economic Analysis revises its data, the SEC would charge fraud. The Bureau needs to look anew at what it is, or isn’t, measuring.

The other lesson is that too many economists and politicians continue to underestimate the incentive power of the marginal rate tax cuts on income, dividends and capital gains. In the spirit of July 4, we’ll refrain from quoting the sages who’ve been predicting doom throughout our current prosperity; we’re just happy to say they write for the competition.

As one who likes pleasant surprises better than unpleasant ones, I personally don’t mind BEA’s caution, if that’s what it is. But if they need to do more to pick up entrepreneurial activity, they need to get on it quickly, or the revisions will be larger in the coming years, and they won’t always be upward.