The inability to input and produce parts generated fewer overall products for 2022. This was reflected in about 13.9 million new cars and trucks as the year ended.

That compares with 16 million and more prior to the COVID-19 pandemic period, before supply chains got tangled up and demand for new cars shot up dramatically. For 2023, a more rational 15.6 million should be available on dealers’ sales floors.

The key item should be getting less difficult to acquire. Modern cars require many computer chips. The chip situation is still tight but is slowly improving. Inflated prices are finally easing a little. Fortunately, this will continue so that buyers won’t have to fight over scarce models. 

After the average price of a new car hit $48,300 in August 2022, it dropped slightly in the autumn. Still, prices remain far above the pre-COVID normal. Expect this trend to continue this year. But even modest price drops are new instigation.

In 2023, trucks and SUVs will dominate as small cars have lost their value. Larger vehicles that “can take more punishment” seem to have gained more popularity. At the same time, fuel efficiency will be a priority. Since the global tightness of oil will make gasoline prices increasingly more expensive, the collaboration between Vladimir Putin and the United Arab oil domination will surely continue the squeeze on the United States’ oil use.

What Happened to Alternative Energy Predictions?

When President Joe Biden entered the White House a few years ago, he was so engrossed by big oil alternatives as to cancel a major supply of oil just over the Canadian border.

Like others who believe that crude oil, natural gas and coal were on the way to “pure cleanliness,” President Biden was taken in by major voices in the United States, Great Britain and other Western “biggies” who believed that clean air was there for the asking.

Such nonsense had become so universal that big oil was impacted enough to be cut back severely by natural oil production companies. Electric cars took full advantage.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin must have chuckled at this opportunity for oil power, which was Russia’s only major domestic production entity.

With this farcical idiocy beginning to be underrated two years later, a virtual reproduction of major oil producers is in the works.

Major oil companies such as Exxon are being pushed by the White House to give up their reserves to keep the current oil shortage from becoming a major political disaster.

Why Has Powell Undercut
U.S. Major Industry?

When Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell added another 75 basis points to U.S. reserved bonds, by virtue of his graphs continued 75 basis points at every meeting, he crushed the bulk of America’s market share. As bonds have become more attractive and solid, the questionable investment in stock market share has become even less desirable.

In fact, this is contrary to what Powell accomplished years ago when the opposite occurred. Even the Federal Reserve Board indicates that greater bond issues are lurking in the foreground, and few have any hope that this trend will change.

This will continue to weaken the commitment to stock market shares, which previously indicated that it would support the stock market risks. Years before, Powell took this stock market buildup into concern when he reversed the buffered U.S. bonds and effectively endorsed the risky stock market.

Even a risky warning by this writer was renounced by Powell as “foolish” and put Powell back into the previous Fed Reserve tendencies.

If this tendency becomes an annual fact, it would almost ensure the reversal toward stock market investment that put us out of that hole once before. This occurred when Powell was made Federal Reserve chairman during President Donald Trump’s dynamic four-year stock market surge.