There is a reason we call them Regime Media: their propensity to file stories that protect President Joe Biden from any scrutiny whatsoever, and absolve him from responsibility over the present-day calamities. Case in point: the latest CBS Weekend News report on high car and insurance prices.
Watch as anchor Jericka Duncan introduces correspondent Jeff Nguyen’s report, wherein she assures viewers that Nguyen will explain why car prices are so doggone high:
JERICKA DUNCAN: Drivers are facing the worst sticker shock in a generation. Take used car prices. They now average $25,600. That’s nearly 25% higher than five years ago. From loans to insurance, costs are soaring at every turn. In tonight’s “Weekend journal” CBS’s Jeff Nguyen in Los Angeles explains some of the reasons why.
Alas, Nguyen didn’t really explain the reasons why. Instead, viewers were offered numbers as reasons. For example:
JEFF NGUYEN: Last month the average price of a new car was just under $47,000. And the average new car payment was north of $700. Also in March, the average interest rate for a new car loan was more than 7%. Used, nearly 12%.
Yes, but WHY are average new car prices under 47,000? Was there anything that happened over the past few years that might have affected the cost of raw materials? Say, disruptions in the supply chain and INFLATION? It’s inscrutable. Nguyen offers no answers.
Likewise, WHY are interest rates higher than they were previously? Why did the Fed raise rates over the past few years? What unmentionable phenomenon were they trying to curtail by raising rates? Might this thing that Nguyen refuses to mention rhyme with schminflation? Maybe? Yes?
Really, Nguyen manages to burn 2-plus minutes without saying much. The profiled lesbian couple balks at a new $85,000 car and ends up buying two used cars. The insurance expert proffers that rates are higher because the cost of fixing a bumper increased tenfold due to all the sensors and whatnot. The dealership owner seems hopeful that incentives are coming back. But there is no WHY in all of that.
Nguyen never gives it up, even as he closes his report by mentioning that repossessions are up and citing high prices and interest rates as the primary culprits. But we know the game Nguyen has been playing all along: The Floor is Hot Lava, but with mentioning Biden, inflation, and Bidenomics instead of touching the floor.
This is how the media, in full Protect the Precious mode, manage to pull off a report on high prices and interest rates without ever mentioning inflation, or the president whose policies aggravated inflation and forced Fed rate increases. The title Regime Media is well-earned here.
Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on CBS Weekend News on Sunday, April 21st, 2024:
JERICKA DUNCAN: Drivers are facing the worst sticker shock in a generation. Take used car prices. They now average $25,600. That’s nearly 25% higher than five years ago. From loans to insurance, costs are soaring at every turn. In tonight’s “Weekend journal” CBS’s Jeff Nguyen in Los Angeles explains some of the reasons why.
KAREN HOOD: Here we go.
MARISSA HOOD: What do you think?
KAREN HOOD: There you go.
JEFF NGUYEN: Karen and Marissa Hood and baby Noah have been looking for a new car since January, only to find sticker shock.
KAREN HOOD: Now you’re looking at the payments and it’s just kind of crazy.
NGUYEN: Last month the average price of a new car was just under $47,000. And the average new car payment was north of $700. Also in March, the average interest rate for a new car loan was more than 7%. Used, nearly 12%. As for finding something affordable —
IVAN DRURY: 20,000 vehicles, dead. If you want a $20,000 vehicle, you’re buying a used car.
NGUYEN: What will it take for prices to turn around?
DRURY: In the end, if consumers don’t buy, prices will go down.
NGUYEN: Things may be turning around. Beau Boeckmann owns a car dealership group in Los Angeles where inventory has been sitting longer.
BEAU BOECKMANN: Now we’re getting incentives back. Most of our interest rates are between 2.9% and 0%.
NGUYEN: But then there’s the cost of insurance. The latest Consumer Price Index shows a 22% increase over last year.
Safety features, do they affect insurance rates?
JANET RUIZ: There’s backup cameras, there’s sensors. All these things cost quite a bit more to repair, so a bumper went from being a $1,000 repair to maybe a $10, $20,000 repair.
NGUYEN: The Hoods recently purchased a used Tesla. They’re looking to add a three-year-old Ford Explorer, priced at $40,000.
MARISSA HOOD: We were looking at new cars and we realized that we could get two used cars.
NGUYEN: The New York Fed says auto loan delinquencies are at their highest level since 2008, because of higher prices and ballooning interest rates. Jeff Nguyen, CBS News, Los Angeles.