$60 billion in incentives = .8% rise in sales

Playing with numbers is fun. The Detroit News plays with the numbers that with a mind-blowing $60 billion spent in incentives by the end of 2004 the carmakers are only seeing a 0.8 percent rise in actual car sales. No one is quite sure what that means though. The interesting chart supplied by the paper is more interesting to me. Everyone points to 9/11 as being when all the incentives started but you'll notice the big jump was from 2002 to 2003. Not 2001 to 2002. Maybe 9/11's effects just took longer then one would think. Whatever the reason in 2004 a world event from three years past can not still be effecting these soaring numbers.