The Red Tag Sale.

GM is having a red tag sale. That's good. Because there are probably more people who want red tags than GM vehicles.

What is amazing to me is the absolute and utter lack of retail innovation on the part of GM. All they do is the same old asinine (or asieleven) sales tactic,one that, at best, denigrates any price integrity they have left.

Years ago, when I was knee-high to a cockroach, I worked in the advertising department at Bloomingdale's. These were pre-computer days, and the ad you dreaded "writing" above all others was for Levellor blinds--because you had to type the chart of lengths and widths and prices that took a bad typist like myself forever. I bring this up because periodically, when the US had a government, the blind buyer would be sued by the FCC because Levellor blinds are always on sale. Like mattresses and American cars. If you're always on sale, the sale price becomes your regular price and you can't then advertise things at 50% off. So, once or twice a year, usually a day before a holiday where Bloomingdale's was closed, the blind buyer would sell every blind at its regular price, thus averting the long hand of the law. Or avoiding the letter of the law.

GM and other domestics, because of their political influence and heft, don't need such subterfuge. However customers know. The few cars they do buy they buy during a red-tag sale, or president's day sale, or ground-hog's day sale. So, GM can put an MSRP of $20K on a car, but no one in their right mind will ever buy a car at that price.

It's a fire sale in Detroit.Which is fitting. Since most of that once-great city is in ashes.

(Oops. I just check GM's corporate site. It's a red tag EVENT, not a sale.)