On the campaign trail, President Obama claimed that $50-billion-bailed-out General Motors (GM) was back — as the globe’s top car seller. The president was saying this long after it stopped being true. In July, GM spokesman Jim Cain admitted the following:
We were the largest automaker in 2011. This year, Toyota has sold more vehicles CYTD (calendar year-to-date) as they continue to recover from [the] earthquake and tsunami.
Ah yes, the earthquake and tsunami — the real reason GM claimed the top spot in the first place. Because Toyota (and to a lesser extent Honda) were eviscerated by this double-devastation. Yet another fact omitted from the president’s fact-free auto bailout rhetoric, which we will doubtlessly continue to hear in his second term.
And as western Japan continues its recovery, Toyota has begun to widen its lead on GM.
The company said Friday it sold 7.4 million vehicles globally in the first nine months of this year — 450,000 more than General Motors. While Toyota’s sales rose 28 percent in that period, GM’s rose 2.5 percent, to 6.95 million cars and light-duty trucks.
Government Motors’ pathetic growth rate mirrors Obama’s pathetic US economic growth rate — 2012 GDP growth thus far: 1.77%.
Which makes sense:
Government Motors is What Obama Wants to Do to ‘Every Industry’
Mission accomplished.
