This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
GM's Channel Stuffing Goes To Germany: Is Europe's Largest Economy A Fraud?
We have long argued that auto manufacturers have been channel-stuffing (and subprime-lending) themselves back into a disaster and as such class-action lawsuits have begun. Recently we also pointed out the epidemic of dealer-inventory-stuffing in China (and again this morning the Chinese luxury car market's over-stuffing). So today's report from Reuters that German auto manufacturers have been stuffing dealer channels just like the rest of the world as Europe's largest car market is in recession even if few outside of the industry would know it. "Essentially, the carmakers are deceiving their shareholders, since they make it look as if the vehicles were actually sold. They want to pull the wool over their eyes," as three in every ten new vehicles in Germany are sold not to customers, but to carmakers and their dealers - a type of automotive industry pump priming known as "self-registration". At nearly half a million such registrations in the six months through June, the total is greater than the entire new car market in Spain. Is Germany's economy really what it is reported to be given all this fake demand pull-forward - or is it a total fraud?
Via Reuters
Reality versus 'official' figures:
So while official figures show a 0.7 percent rise in German car sales for the half year, figures from auto market research firms Dataforce and BDW Automotive show private demand fell 5 percent in the period, which would mean all the growth had been manufactured by the manufacturers.
Leaving dealers with major problems:
...manufacturers across the board are paying dealers cash bonuses that can be worth 3-4 percent of a vehicle's listing price to reach targets linked to the number of new cars registered as officially sold...
A tactic that can have a "devastating cost" for dealers, as they end up caught in a vicious circle:
"If you push at the end of one month, you start the next one in deficit because you've registered a car you still have to sell," he said. And when dealers can no longer keep it up, carmakers do it themselves. As a result, the two account for a combined 30 percent of the new car market, making the industry the second largest source of demand behind only private customers, who account for 39 percent.
and the reaction:
"It seems that people are burying their head in the sand."
but dealers end up footing the bill as:
"If employed over a long period of time, this is an enormous danger since they completely erode all pricing power, and manufacturers can no longer expect customers will pay more for a car in the future,"
which further distorts reality:
"If you stripped out those distressed vehicles registered only so they can gather dust on the parking lot of a dealer or manufacturer, then the size of the German new car market would have been below 3 million vehicles last year (instead of 3.17 million)," ZDK President Robert Rademacher told Reuters.
"And it's not only irresponsible but also counterproductive to use force to jam these vehicles down the market's throat, since it doesn't lead to higher sales in the end. It only creates distortions down the road."
and if Zee Germans are doing it, you can imagine the rest (who are in real trouble) are at it too:
"It's incredibly difficult getting statistics on what the number of self-registrations actually is. I don't know of any for Europe as a whole," said JATO's Hession, himself a former DaimlerChrysler sales planning manager.
but pleas to carmakers to "accept reality" and stop stuffing the market appear to be falling on deaf ears.
"We can only appeal to the reason of the manufacturer, something we do at every possible opportunity. But unfortunately reason is a rare commodity in this world,"
»
- 14441 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Who cares GM will file bankruptcy again and tax payer money will be used to pay salary in china.
http://www.freefdawatchlist.com/2012/07/stock-market-expected-to-open-lower.html
Noone in germany buys an Opel (GM) and other GM brands anyways.
It's about time people, or "The Market" realize that the king without the clothes is not the EU, not the ECB, not Italy, France, Spain .. but Germany itself. Sadly, only a few seem to understand that Germany - and especially german people, are not doing that well. Rotting infrastructure, detoriarating financials .. just as it is in the Netherlands and Finland.
Looking at the GDP or the theoretical debt levels is nothing but deceit.
That's exactly why Germany will eventually agree to the ESM and Eurobonds. If the Euro goes, Germany also goes bust.
Anyone else get this on their Yahoo e-mail account?
"Yahoo! Mail is now even faster, safer, and easier to use. Yahoo! now automatically identifies items such as words, links, people, and subjects from your email to learn what matters to you so that we can deliver exciting new product features and relevant ads.
Before you can access Yahoo! Mail, we need your consent to our new Terms of Service and the Yahoo! Mail Privacy Policy. Learn more about how we protect your privacy."
The problem is, the "Terms of Service", "Privacy Policy" and "Learn More" links......DON'T WORK !!!
I am required to either click the "I Accept" button. (self explanatory), OR
the "No Thanks" button, which I assume means I wave my rights.
So they are going to read my e-mails so they can sell that info to advertizers!....
And, who knows what else!
Where's the privacy???
Sorry, switching to Hot-Mail!
same here booger.......
Your mail is being read no matter where it is located. And you're probably on a list just for visiting this site. Land of the sheep Home of the survaled.
If you're going to be survaled, spell it surveilled, so it can be properly tagged and catagorizied.
Who worries about email content? "I'm at the store now". "I just left Micky Dees". "I'm stuck in traffic". Surveillance is just a jobs program like TSA.
Click ACCEPT and everything you do gets forwarded to the NSA for safekeeping.
Click No Thanks and everything you do gets forwarded to the DHS because you're trying to hide something, ergo you're a terrorist.
And Microsoft just shortened the hotmail password last week down to a max of 16 alphanumeric entries, and thus forced people to shorten any longer passwords, before they could login to Hotmail again.
Now why would microsoft want to make it easier to break email account passwords?
I'm sure it's nothing.
Important emailz from yer terr'ist friendz can always be encrypted by PGP (or equivalent)
GM( Obama Motrs Co),pulled all Super Bowl Ad's becasue the sport is violent.
They just sewed up a deal, DONATING 600,000,000 To fund and represent Manchester United a UK futbol team.
The same family owns an NFL team.
Way to go GM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now that we have no accounting standards, does anyone believe the balance sheet at any company anymore?
Bonuses and Golden Parachutes for MBAs performing "liquidation" through "short-term-defrauded-metrics" is the "New Normal". These "executives" have no idea what their companies even *do* (e.g., how they "used-to" deliver value). The stock and bond markets are merely mechanisms to defraud people that thought they were "saving" and/or "investing".
Not a surprise. If it's publicly-listed, it's highly suspect.
Not necesarilly. GM = government = accounting fraud. Not all companies are like that otherwise, not much revenue would be produced for the governement to stuff its face with.
Agree that GM is government fraud.
However, the entire financial industry is government fraud.
Now, even GE is government fraud.
Then, there is Facebook, which is merely fraud.
The new model is fraud. The "Bezzle". The slow liquidation of all assets, and transfer of cash to the Executives and the Board (for personal enrichment), without disclosure to the shareholder.
One day everyone wakes up, and wonders, "where did it all go?"
Answer: It was incrementally stolen and liquidated when you were not paying attention. That's today's model, if you are publicly-listed.
Companies don't go to the, "capital markets" to get capital to "build-things-and-deliver-value". Rather, the capital markets are (today) a mechanism to liquidate and defraud.
GM workers just got a 6% raise so they must be doing something right.
And gov workers always get yearly raises. Plus bonus. They surely are doing something right.
They are close to the printing press. soon enough, they will be at the disadvantage, because they are truly the summer grasshoppers while the busy ants have been learning to struggle.
Silly rabbit. There is no accounting "fraud" because it's all legal. Remember this? From Bloomberg Businessweek May 23, 2006 by Dawn Kopecki.
Here is the memo. The secret is to dig into the SEC rules it refers to.
http://www.fas.org/irp/dni/wh050506.html
What I find really interesting is that the Bloomberg link no longer works. This is why I always save the actual web page to my hard drive and then back it up.
Eek! Thought-crime in progress!
How can anyone fall for this laughable "National Security" lie/excuse/fantasy/bullshit/lie for every crime under the sun that's being committed by 'our' Govt, and their organised-crime enforcement syndicate?
'National Security' is possibly the greatest load of horseshit the powers that 'be', have ever dumped on the shoulders of humanity.
Popes used to control us with threats of eternal fire and brimstone, now Govt's trot-out this "National Security" arse, to scare us into compliance and submission instead.
Spot an effective difference?
That's given the SEC plenty of available time to stream porn all day long.
"GM's Channel Stuffing Goes To Germany: Is Europe's Largest Economy A Fraud?"
How could it not be?
Seriously.....considering how long the global Ponzi has gone on, how can anything (financial) be nothing but a fraud?
Hell, didn't the US government buy 70000 GM cars recently? Not like this is a new tactic to fudge the perception of a dying economy.
Govt buys and strong arms companies to buy GM or threatens them with loss of govt business(GE)(UT)(GDynamics) etc. This has been going on for a couple of years now. Thank you planned economy
Bonus time.
Hear! Hear!
Bullish!
So they are all suffering G..M.(gross misrepresentation) Syndrome.
This is going to end well,'cause its different this time.
Let's be optimistic. Let's say that everyone in the world gets their act together and becomes an efficeint manufacturer. After this glorious day, who would the earth be selling to exactly? Mars?
Stupid fucking sheep.
Now that Asia has been industrialized, and the South American markets have been conquered, we still have Africa to go for..
Africa?
Awesome, so along with consent, now demand is a manufactured item!
pods
You can't build buyers, no. You can manufacture loans, but not payments.
The day that everyone gets a "free" GM auto on the Government, and make no mistake, that's where we're going, that will probably be the day that oil hits $1000/barrel.
Well the SCOTUS has ruled that congress may ask you to buy one, and if you fail to do so, you may be taxed the value of one and it is right as rain.
pods
++ for that perspective
That's interesting and I am a fan of yours and lots of others' comments.
Bear with me.
What SCOTUS also rules, in terms of gold, because at this point in life I define EVERYTHING in terms of gold, is that if you do not traffic [in anything] using the federal means of traffic [in anything], you are liable to whatever detriment to the federal govt. that would not be incurred otherwise.
Thus you would pay a toll for the federal highway that you bypass to avoid the toll, an extra tax on any profitable transaction in which federal government services are not a party to, and yes, you would be additionally burdened for using any other exchange medium than the US motherfuckin D.
SCOTUS just threw down the gauntlet before states like Utah, states that seek to unburden the individual in its exaltation of sound money and choice.
This effectively renders the gold suppression scheme as not a federal offense, however it may still be a civil one or perhaps a state one. However once this becomes clear, then we will see who wants to still be in and who wants to be out, and who wants to be out will have a hard time of it.
There will be war between US state factions before there is war in Iran. Hear me out. I've always surmised that with the paths of global interest intermingled and confused, and the US military in a constant state of churning force turnover on multiple, small fronts, how long until it is American interests fighting American interests first on foreign soil and then on native soil? We have already seen this happen - albeit in different time frames - that friendly foreigns become well-trained adversaries. This is our own strength used against us, however delayed through time. How long until that comes home to roost, descending like a huge black swan of unresolved implications?
We are much closer to a Civil War than anyone imagines.
So much for the bulletproof German economy.
The fact that someone is calling out the distortion - which simply doesn't happen in this ideologically polluted land of USA - is reason to awe the German machine.
I've driven a BMW E30, when the transmission was RWD and the shifting was manual. No computer assisted anything. JOY.
I'll take two, please.
For the price of one ...
a couple of my customers are GM suppliers and they have been warehousing alot of parts, yet when i asked the guy responsible for scheduling the presses why they keep running then, he told me because GM has the quantities on order.
all of my customers are busy beyond belief right now but they are in similar situations. it seems to me the supply chain too is being stuffed.
'bama and his billions will buy GM (UAW) to victory!!
What's a few billions in taxpayer money, anyway, COMPARED TO THE GLORY OF OUR QUEER MEDIA MESSIAH, OBAMA?
You must be a rassiss, or a phobe, or a thought criminal, or sumpin'.
Only until election day...
bogus bonus time again!
Exactly..if your an employee your job is only safe as long as you "produce"...it does not matter if its real or not...you get the pat on the back...let the others figure out the problems down the ladder...
Austerity's fault ! /soros
But... They're investing $600 Mil in a football team!
You can't make this shit up.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/30/GM-invests-600-million-in-english-soccer-team
global equity market is a fraud.. why not just make it all one? whats the difference?
Last week you had a humorous article about the laughter of ex Google and new Yahoo employee. I am now unable to access my yahoo account so am not enjoying the humour anymore. Has anyone on this blog developed similar problems?
Super channel stuffing plus subprime blowout.
I feel like we have been here before.
We know how this story ends.
It seems it may never end.
There is a tiny little difference in Germany (and the Netherlands) counting the number of vehicles "sold". In Germany they count the number of newly registered vehicles, which means a car is either already in use or sold before it gets counted. In the Netherlands cars are registered before they can be sold, but the dealers report how many cars they have sold.
I won't deny that production numbers including stockpiling does occur, but actually VW, BMW, Audi and Fiat in Italy don't seem to have serious problems.
Either way, there is in fact a pull back of total car sales in Europe, but most German cars are sold in the US, Brazil or China.
Nein, "In Germany they count the number of newly registered vehicles, which means a car is either already in use or sold before it gets counted", read more carefully, the dealerships AND the manufacturer are the ones actually registering the viehicle. They just sit there on either the sales lot or the empty lots at the manufacturing site.
Besides the GM/Opel way of selling, it is usually different:
In Germany cars on empty lots of the manufacturing site are not registered, neither are most new cars at the dealers site. They simply don't count as sold.
You can say that roughly a third of the cars "sold" aren't sold to private customers but to corporations or institutions. Either way, most car companys in Germany - besides Opel of course - are fine, so it must be a specific GM issue.
In Germany dealers can register a car for one day without moving it a single inch on the roads, which allows them to collect rebates and bonuses from the manufacturer and give price incentives to the customers. These cars are counted officially as sold. Dealers can sell the car within a year as new as long as the same model is produced.
Everything is suspect, rampant fraud everywhere.
I bought a mercedes from germany, i love it no governor. That was an awesome idea. Guess they took the govenor off banking too.....(as an american pot calling the german kettle black on pot). Thats a terrible idea.
But they learned it by watching the professionals.
Germany has always commingled deposit and "investment", er I mean high stakes gambling, oh curses I mean banking.
GM's Marketing Chief Has Left The Building
He sucked, that's why he was fired. Worst ads ever for GM.
Don't forget... It's only halftime...
He didn't drink enough kool aid, he wasn't a team player.
It is hard, as they say, to put lipstick on a pig. Crappiest vehicle line-up in the world. Kia has better products.
The fact that GM are cheaters doesn’t mean that German economy is fraud
Germany builds very good cars – why anyone in Germany should buy this American crap
Just because they make great cars, doesn't mean they don't lie. Don't assume management thinks or acts like their engineers. Huge mistake!
Last man standing... Very good times to learn. US citizens are going to use all the ropes and tricks they know to conceal, misinform, disinform, lie etc and that is a lot of them.
Take a notebook and write down, the best extorters of the weak and best farmers of the poor in human history are teaching a lesson, so good you cant but call them professors.
...or so says the smelly fellow standing in the corner wearing a dunce cap.
Why should big banks be the only ones to use Repo 105 or hyper-hyper rehypothecation accounting tricks? Or being able to lie about the actual value of what you supposedly own? Why can't manufacturers get in on the action?
ALL AUTO MANUFS CHANNEL-STUFF, and they are not alone in industry in doing that. Be fair, it's not just GM -Cisco does it,,,,,they all do it when they can get away with it.
Don't forget they ALL got subsidies, even Ford (loan guarantees in their case but still).
The all got subsidies for alt fuel. GM brought the Volt to market. Tesla did too (but per car subsidy is much higher due to fewer of them sold - and Ford's still catching up too) Where's the Chrysler electric again? Talk about losers - with a zero in the denominator, their subsidy per car is infinite!
I won't argue whether GM has their head up their ass - clearly they do on several levels. Still, I'm a very happy Volt owner - solar charged - and it's making my wallet fat and it's fun to drive.
I up arrowed you for honesty and I do hope when your batteries suddenly ignite one fine August day, the fire department shows up with lots of baking soda.
It's ultimately self-defeating, and inherently crooked - the intention is to deceive. It never ends well, because a sale is only real if a customer parts with her cash to take delivery of your product. Telling shareholders that you are selling a million units of something, of which you actually have only sold 700,000 (with 300,000 foisted onto unwitting/unwilling and captive distributors) is fraudulent. Companies that engage in fraud rarely survive.
Taxi for Mr. Skilling!
Volt: The ultimate of coal fired vehicles.
just bullshit news!
Porsche, BMW, VW, Audi are actually all having their best year ever this year.
Average stock price over earnings for them is 4-5 (S&P average is about 15.) which makes me add their stocks to gold.
They were called to be in extremely big trouble by the press and financial industry 3 times in the past 4 years and came out better than before 6 months later.
Yes, a german that does not want to excuse himself 3 times a day for being poor would never buy Opel or crappy american cars. That is the only true part of the story.
Porsche, BMW, VW, Audi are actually all having their best year ever this year.
Yep, and the Chinese market is drying up.
Expensive cars, and exotics are selling at 70% off sticker.(if they sell at all, sales down 47% over last year).
And the luxury used lots are flowing over.
we are now the peoples repulblic of china.. oops i mean amerika! whats the difference ? both everything is a fraud
Why should I buy a GM (or any other non German brand)? Iam perfectly happy with my Audi and my BMW. One of which I am just about to trade in for a Porsche. There are no comparable cars from any non German manufacturer.
Besides, even if I wouldn't have the money for a real German car, I'd rather buy a Toyota than a GM/Opel. Because those are not only crappy cars, on top they carry with them an 'absolute loser' image. I wouldn't be caught dead in such a thing, to embarrassing.
Nations showing financial stability; Iceland.
Please add others to the list;
It's all good. I am sure the citizens of one of the most austere countries in the world are less austere than US citizens.
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/07/23/4651270/the-three-year-vehicle-purchase.html
The City of Man
http://shutupnsing.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/the-city-of-man/
show me what democracy looks like this is what marxism looks like.
Daimler AG. Q1 and Q2. 59 m Eur operating CF, brilliant, apply a mutiple of 40.
Build them, drive them to a scrap yard, scrap 'em, print money, REPEAT. Now that's a great Economy!
Well, this article is not even half true. Dealers in Germany register new cars for themselves quite often - but just to give more discount. Usually the discount is limited by carmakers. So if you want a little more discount then the care-dealer registers your new care on one's own for only one day ore a week. So you are not the first name in papers. A lot of people can live with that. Thats all there is to it.
Maybe the discounts are bigger then expectet - but def. not a fraud.
Btw. cars from BMW, AUDI, VW or Mercedes are verry less self-registered. More than 50% are usually sold to companies... but that doesn't sound that scary.
More than 50% are usually sold to companies
What kind of Companies ? Finance and Leasing Companies ?