Donate Car to Charity California, Donate Car for Tax Credit, Donate Cars in MA, Donate Your Car Sacramento, How to Donate A Car in California, Donate Your Car for Kids, Donate a Car in Maryland, Donating a Car in Maryland, Donate Cars Illinois, Donate Old Cars to Charity, Met Auto, Car Donate Gas guzzlers and fuel sippers both a deal right now Looking for a deal in the car market? The marketplace is like a barbell at the moment, with vehicles at either extreme — both those that get terrible fuel economy and those that get great fuel economy — representing a real deal right now. SUVs that are built on truck platforms are not selling right now. In fact, I saw a Manheim Auto Auction report that showed giant SUVs have dropped precipitously in value, especially at trade-in time. So if you want a truck-based SUV, now is the time to get a real deal. At the other extreme, people are not buying fuel sippers even with $3/gallon gas on average right now. Toyota Prius sales are down, and dealers have a lot of 2010 Priuses still sitting on their lots. Ditto for other fuel-efficient brands and models. Meanwhile, USAA.com has a car-buying program that offers members a negotiated price on car purchases. No need to haggle at a dealership any more. You simply get a voucher that you present to a dealer for a pre-negotiated price and they honor it. Car loan delinquencies at lowest level since 1999 CLARKONOMICS: New data about late payments on car loans suggests some positive movement in the economy. TransUnion reports 60-day late pays are at the lowest level they’ve been since tracking began in 1999. The delinquency rate is less than one-half of 1 percent. That means less than 1 out of every 200 people with car notes are delinquent on them. That’s fantastic news. The whole reason we’re in so much trouble right now is because of excess borrowing, excess speculation and excess promising. It was way too easy to borrow money for way too long. It got to the point that the average American took on debt of about $1.36 for every dollar earned at the peak of the trouble, which was about twice as much as the historical average. Today we are at a collective debt level of $1.14 for every dollar earned. So we’re going in the right direction, but there’s still more to be done. I just find it very heartening that people are still getting better and better at handling their obligations, even in the midst of a sluggish job outlook and a recovery that doesn’t feel like a recovery. The car loan delinquency numbers from TransUnion echo a decrease in delinquencies on home loans and credit cards, as well. Taken collectively, all are strong leading indicators of when the economy can truly recover. The things that got us into trouble were people essentially exhausting themselves financially with obligations. Take the housing market: Real estate was highly speculative and that exhausted us. We built far too many housing units. Up to 10 million sat vacant before the market fell apart. Now you see headline after headline talking about housing as still being in the toilet. But that is not true in more and more places. There’s been no new building to speak of and natural population growth has started to soak up the existing excess. On the issue of the government, people talk about bloated federal hiring. But really, state and local government employment was too large a percent of overall hiring activity in the United States. Yes, it’s rough if you’re the one facing the layoff now. Yet the reduction of headcount at state and local levels is a necessary part of the process of rebalancing the economy. Mark this well, though: The hardest work is yet to be done. We’ve got to deal with the obligations of the federal government on the promises of Medicare and Medicaid, and Social Security to a lesser extent. We’re not really going to make any lasting progress until that trio is dealt with head-on.
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