The auto industry sold fewer cars this year. A forecaster looked at this and declared it a fundamental shift that will get worse through 2040. Brave stuff.
This man gazed upon a chart trending downward and concluded the downward trend might continue downward. He called it a perfect storm. Not a storm. Not a bad situation. A perfect storm. Because three things happening at once is apparently meteorological perfection now.
Retail traders heard "smaller auto market by 2040" and immediately started googling which EV penny stock to pile into. They read "fewer cars" and thought "more opportunity." These are the same people who bought Hertz in bankruptcy because the ticker symbol still worked.
The forecaster wants you to believe he cracked the code. That nobody else saw this coming. That Ford and GM executives are wandering the halls muttering "how could this happen" while he alone possesses the divine knowledge that when you sell fewer of something each year for multiple years, you might sell even fewer of that thing in future years.
Here's what's actually happening: Americans are driving cars longer because new ones cost what a house used to cost. Young people can't afford them. Cities are building trains. Used cars last forever now because manufacturers got too good at making them not explode.
But sure. Perfect storm. Write that down. Put it in the forecast. Tell your clients. Collect your consulting fee.
By 2040 this same guy will be forecasting an even smaller auto market by 2060, citing the same trend he's citing now, calling it a perfect hurricane, wondering why nobody listens to forecasters anymore while retail traders are buying synthetic derivatives of companies that haven't manufactured a car since 1987.
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