I said in late 2007 (when many were arguing there would be no recession and in fact everything was fine since the Federal Reserve had our back) that 2008 would be the worst year in 2 decades for auto sales. Ford's numbers are out and they are staggering (down 34%) Yet another group of companies who promised "2nd half recovery" back in the spring.

• Tight credit, economic worries and high gasoline prices combined to cut Ford Motor Co.'s U.S. sales once again in September, with the beleaguered automaker reporting a 34 percent decline from the same month last year.
• It was Ford's worst sales month this year, and the results are a strong indication that analysts' forecasts of another dismal month will come true.
• Analysts have predicted September declines of more than 20 percent for most major automakers when compared with the same month last year as upheaval in the financial markets unnerved consumers.

Many Americans were buying autos with their house ATM. Again, a year ago at this time along with Paulson's "subprime is contained" sing song, we were treated to "what is the fuss about the general economy? housing is only 4.5% of GDP" sing a long on CNBC. Now you are going to see the lagged effect of the "fuss" a few of us were making. Again, this will be (and is) the first consumer led recession since the late 70s/early 80s. Too many investors do not read history, and are not old enough to have lived through that so are used to "corporate" led recessions of the early 90s and early 00s. We've created such a bubble that this is the first time housing leads the economy down rather than vice versa. We've been so inoculated from downturns by government actions that even a 1978 type of recession is going to feel a lot worse than it did back then, since we've not been allowed to have a true recession for so long. Further, we actually had a national savings rate in the late 70s - people saved some of their income instead of spending every last dime as we do now. So there is no buffer for most now - with our 0% savings rate.