Jalopnik: That Zero Hedge Article On Unsold Cars Is Bullshit (May 18, 2014)

It is an admittedly appealing idea to think that automakers, unable to sell cars, are just wildly producing them and then dumping them around the world in an endless cycle of mass production hysteria. So much of the modern economy seems senseless and inexplicable, which is why an article like this seems to give some credence to the feeling many of us have inside that something is terribly wrong.

The visuals are strong, the headline is clear, and you almost don't have to read the article to viscerally understand the problem. I, more than anyone, get the appeal of this story because it seems to largely rip off an article I wrote -- including the images and headline -- more than five years ago (which itself was largely a rehash of a Guardian article).

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There's even an update in the post where either the author, Vincent Lewis, or Tyler Durden -- ZH's mysterious author -- realized there was a fault in their knowledge and they say this:

UPDATE: Currently May 16th, 2014, all of these cars at the Nissan Sunderland test track have disappeared? Now I don't believe they have all suddenly been sold. I would guess they may have been taken away and recycled to make room for the next vast production run.

Well, if you don't want to believe that in five years they couldn't sell a few hundred cars at a price above the recycle rate then I can't help you, because you must be so paranoid you think that Fudgie The Whale is the secret symbol of the illuminati.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

With the Fed buying what are probably CDOs and buying them at face value, or par, they are effectively trading new high powered money for trash at 50 cents on the dollar. So the TBTF entity gets cash for its illiquid asset. If, as likely, the operation is a repo the Fed, in theory, could demand that the recipient buy the 'asset' back. This probably doesn't constrain the recipient of QE because the exercise of that right by the Fed on any significant scale could bankrupt the bank, and, in any case, the whole point of the exercise was to help the financial sector.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

When the regulators turn a blind eye to the activities of the rich, only scams that are not big enough is illegal.

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...They're a cab company with an app. That is a viable business model. It's not a billion dollar one.