Chrysler Sales Up From February

Anyone ever see that old episode of Married With Children where Al starts his own 900 shoe advice line? Despite the fact that he takes out a sizable loan and even buys commercial air time to hawk it, no one calls. When confronted with his failure, he boldly announces his predictions for the next day's business with the immortal line "None today! Tomorrow, TWICE as many!"

I'm forcibly reminded of that old episode when I saw the news that Chrysler's retail sales went up fifty one percent between February and March.

Because while this is true, it has to be balanced against the fact that sales are down ten percent from March of 2009, back when Chrysler was throwing all sorts of rebates at the wall. Plus, there are some suggestions that the sales hikes are part of some accounting skullduggery on Chrysler's part--counting "sales" as "when it shows up at the dealership", not "when some guy shows up and pays money for it".

And even more disconcerting is that, despite the stated hike in sales, it's been said that parent company Fiat just laid off about five thousand people.

So despite the fact that there's some good news coming out of Chrysler for a change, it's enough to make you wonder just what we're NOT hearing on that score.