Welcome Back Toyota

After a two year period of struggling sales in the United States, it appears as though Toyota is back. The Japanese based automakers posted a 12% increase in April, it's highest total in 17 months according to The New York Times. During that time the company suffered through losses and minor gains due to the destruction in Japan from the early 2011 Earthquake/Tsunami. The strongest factor in Toyota's recovery was the doubling in sales of the Prius Hybrid compared to last year. After the price soared and the availability decreased significantly in the aftermath of the disaster; Toyota was finally able to produce enough Prius's to meet equilibrium price.
Toyota could not have picked a better month to pull off a sooner than expected recovery. Besides Chrysler's 20% increase and Volkswagon's incredible 32% increase, nearly every other major automaker suffered losses or minimal gains. Nissan's sales posted neither gain nor loss but other companies weren't so lucky. Honda fell 2% while GM decreased 8%. Overall it appears as though Toyota has recovered from the Tsunami/ Earthquake disaster quicker than most could have imagined.

Consumer Spending Rose slower in March

According to a New York Times online article, Consumer Spening increased 0.3% in March as opposed to 0.9 gain in February. The Commerce Department Suspects this slow down was caused by people's fear that their paychecks weren't growing fast enough or concern over income taxes. Despite this slow down in March, consumer spending rose 2.9% in the first quarter in 2012, the fastest pace in over a year. This increase is key for a few reasons. First, Consumer Spending accounts for roughly 70% of econominc growth. Secondly increased in consumer spending had been minimal in the months leading up to this quarter. In addition, this was not a particulary strong quarter for any other area of economic growth. The government reported that the economy grew 2.2% this quarter, down from 3% in the past few quarters. Also, spending on durble goods continued to fall, this month at 0.3%. Economists are concerned that people will not be able to safely keep spending as much money as they have been. However if Gas Prices are to fall and more jobs created; people will be able to keep spending money and not have to worry about paychecks as much.