2008 may be a good year for whine, but that's all.

When the Big Three went hat-in-hand to Washington to beg for a bailout, one of the dominant ideas coming out of Detroit was that this was an unusual year. 

That is, the problems of Chrysler, General Motors, and Ford were not simply caused by their failure to move from gas guzzlers to to gas sippers (as the latest gasoline shock had set in and consumers demanded cars that didn't require a second mortgage just to go visit Grandma in Peoria), their inability to meet the ridiculously out-of-touch labor deals they'd made years ago with the unions, or anything else specific to Detroit. 

They pointed out that even Toyota was experiencing a 30% slump, and now comes news that Toyota will experience their first loss since 1938, a year after the company was founded. 

And in the same vein (and this is the lead story here) is that Korea's Big Two have dramatically cut their 2008 sales forecasts by one eighth. Per the New York Times:

Two South Korean automakers — the Hyundai Motor Company and the Kia Motors Corporation — cut their joint 2008 sales forecast by 12.5 percent Monday and said they would freeze pay for managers amid slumping vehicle demand.

Separately, a smaller rival, the Ssangyong Motor Company, said it might not be able to meet its December payroll on time.

Hyundai and Kia said in a statement that they now expected total sales to reach 4.2 million vehicles this year, compared with an earlier forecast of 4.8 million. Overseas inventories, meanwhile, are expected to reach 1.06 million vehicles, the statement said.

It's really not a good year for anybody. Unless, of course, you're one of those looking to buy a brand new car, real cheap, with 0% financing.

*KB2 would be Hyundai and Kia, even though Kia is now owned by Hyundai, which makes them the fifth-largest automotive group in the world. Daewoo is another major manufacturer, but right now I don't count them because they're owned by GM, while Samsung is owned by Renault. This is what happened when Korea's economy went into the toilet and didn't have WashingtonSeoul to bail them out.