Apparently there might be real reason for optimism on the auto front. Look at these “leaked” stories: Fox News: President Obama is convinced that a negotiated bankruptcy is the best way for General Motors to restructure and become a competitive automaker, members of Congress and unnamed sources told Bloomberg late Tuesday. Reuters: A possible bankruptcy [...]
Archive for March, 2009
Could This Be True
Posted in Industrial Policy on March 31, 2009 | 1 Comment »
More to Come
Posted in Housing Crisis on March 31, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Case-Shiller reported January real estate today. Here, via Calculated Risk, the SF price history:
Scam, Now With Smoke
Posted in Corruption, Meltdown on March 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Astonishing – seriously, astonishing – email from a guy at AIGFP to ZeroHedge claiming that a significant chunk of bank profitability in 1Q is simply AIG dumping money on its counterparties. They have gone beyond holding themselves hostage; they are actively trying to rob their majority shareholder (also known as the taxpayer) for the benefit [...]
Rare Optimism
Posted in Industrial Policy on March 30, 2009 | 6 Comments »
I guess the Administration just has a blind spot in the financial sector; elsewhere in the world they are able to recognize reality and make the best of a bad situation. With the auto companies, for example, they are able to admit that the current business models and plans simply do not work, and they [...]
Quite Wily, Like His Old Man
Posted in China, Cuba, Foreign Policy, North Korea, Weapons of Mass Destruction on March 29, 2009 | 1 Comment »
So we’re getting down to the wire for the North Korean missile launch. Sorry, satellite launch…as if North Korea has a serious need of a communications network. North Korea has a few things to gain from this: They enjoy tweaking the US, Japan, and South Korea about our impotence. The Western nations jump up and [...]
Sham Wow
Posted in Miscellaneous, Television on March 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Seems the Sham Wow guy should have have just seen what was on the Setai’s TV at 4:00am. Unfortunately – in keeping with Bill Cosby’s comment that nothing good has ever happened between midnight and dawn – Vince Shlomi decided to to get a hooker. There are any number of reasons that could be a [...]
Cool
Posted in Basketball, Golf, Soccer on March 26, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Always liked ‘Bron:
It Will Never Stop
Posted in Foreign Policy, Meltdown on March 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The lack of decisive intervention by the government sends a message: we’re bluffing. Throughout the economy large businesses know that they can defer any serious changes by simply raising the threat of collapse, and we will come running with immediate cash and a vague insistence that things be fixed some time later. The AIG folks, [...]
Good Reading
Posted in Meltdown, Miscellaneous on March 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
One of the bright sides of the current financial crisis is the wealth of good articles on the topic. Guys whose work would have been buried in academic journals are now writing for a general audience. Simon Johnson of Baseline in the Atlantic: In its depth and suddenness, the U.S. economic and financial crisis is [...]
Hotel News
Posted in Housing Crisis on March 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
This holds up, we are going to see hotel bankruptcies left and right – my sense is that most hotels cannot cover their operating costs (let alone their capital costs) below 55% occupancy: The U.S. hotel industry posted declines in all three key performance measurements during the week of 15-21 March, according to data from [...]
