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Economy

… But Please: Don’t Let That Stop You Raising Your Prices

Dean Baker notes that, while automobile plants in Japan are closing due to the disaster there, actual shortages of automobiles in this country are extremely unlikely:

The Japanese Disaster and Plant Shutdowns | Beat the Press.

Let me put this another, more cynical way: you can bet that car prices will get jacked up over the next few months, but there won’t actually be any real cause. Prices for autos will, like the price of gasoline, never really return to normal after this. Because after decades of ever-increasing incentive programs, discounts and price wars, the auto industry has so underpriced its stock that no one’s really making any money.