Rough Days Ahead for Ford and the Big 3 in General?

[oladub]

^^ So in layman's terms, what does this all mean? Sorry, not well versed in prime and interest rates.

The Fed's rate and reflective prime rate offered by banks are still below historic norms. We don't have much to complain about yet. The Federal Reserve had been electronically printing money to keep interest rates artificially low, quantitative easing, to stimulate the economy. Seniors, who traditionally counted on living, in part, off of the interest of their life savings were hit hard by that policy. Some would argue that increasing the money supply eventually increases inflation. Interest rates, reflecting demand for borrowing, are starting to return to their historic norms. There is no reason to believe that interest rates won't exceed their historic norms. It is a natural brake on a super heated economy. When and if that happens, there will be winners and losers. A huge loser will be the federal budget because it has a $20T debt [[$5T Bush, $10T Obama), and seems to be headed for an additional $1T deficit after Trump's first budget year. Interest on the federal debt will crowd out other federal spending creating the need for some combination of higher taxes, reduced government spending, or Weimar Republic/Venezuela like inflation. When interest rates increase, the stock market suffers.