C'mon Down! We Dealers Are Exceptional
It looks like auto dealers and their powerful lobbying arm, the National Automobile Dealers Association has won another battle for Main Street (insert loud laugh here). After two years (two years) of fighting in Congress, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act passed last week. One of its main provisions is the creation of a consumer protection agency that will try to stop the kind of lending malpractices that where at the root of the financial crisis. Despite outstanding auto loans accounting for almost a trillion dollars (as large as credit car debt), our friendly local dealers managed to carve an exception and will not be overseen by the new agency.
Auto dealers already enjoy one of the most outrageous exceptions in the land of the free enterprise. For decades, state franchise laws have prohibited direct sale of automobiles by manufactures (this document explains it quite well).
