Eugene David<br>...The One-Minute Pundit

Posted 5:56 PM by Gene

If it's Sunday, it must be Big-Double-A-Scribble Time:

1. Boy I'd love to be an auto dealer these days:

What's more, according to PIN, four out of 10 trade-ins on large pickups in the first 26 days of May were what the industry calls "upside down," where the owner of the vehicle still owes more on it than the retailer will offer for it. There are even dealers refusing to accept big SUVs on trade-ins, an occurrence Mr. Toprak said he's never heard of before. "They don't want to take the risk since they don't know how low values will go," he said.

You can bet they'll go pretty low. Incentives are climbing to near-record levels and roughly averaged $2,400 per unit at the end of May, Mr. Toprak said. The deals are more generous on gas-guzzling SUVs, around $4,500, with some big pickups nearing $8,000 per unit.

Those of us who sneered at the idiots who bought Hummers and other petroleum incinerators are getting the last laugh.

2. MICKEY D's franchisees are up in arms because the dollar menu is feasting on their profits. The MICK is in a bind. It never occurred to Ronny that lots of people would buy solely from the dollar menu in bad times; but it can't take the menu down now because people are clearly in no mood to trade up. DWIGHTS don't help with their psychotic work on food and fuel prices. It would seem the $1.09 Menu is inevitable.

3. Well, if Bud's sold to a Belgian outfit run by Brazilians, there's always soccer.

The one good thing is that InBev sounds like a company that doesn't spend AS MUCH on junk TV, meaning all those prima donnas may have to go elsewhere for their skin graffiti.