Jerry Flint - low prices not good for American car industry

While many in the industry feel that low pricing has been good for the domestic auto industry based on sales rates, Jerry Flint doses them with the cold water of reality. He notes that despite generally favorable economic conditions, the domestics simply cannot make money right now. That's a sharp contrast to previous bad times in Detroit, which usually followed downturns in the overall economy. It's interesting that he identifies low pricing and its primary drivers - overcapacity and product that's not buzzworthy - as the problems facing the domestics, rather than the usual boogieman of internal and external costs. That may appear to be a subtle difference, but it's important. Flint sees a loss of market share for Ford and GM in the next year, and states that the situation may deteriorate further if gas prices continue to climb, or if the auto market shrinks back to under 16 million units/year.