First reports on holiday sales are grimmer than had been expected. You will see reports that say sales fell 8% in December through Christmas Eve and 5.5% in December. Ignore them as they include gasoline sales which skew the numbers The right numbers to look at are a 2.5% drop in November and a 4% […]
Archive for December 25th, 2008
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Chrysler, Cerberus and Real Estate-Nothing Is Quite What It Seems To Be
Posted by Tom Lindmark on December 25th, 2008
This is another story I picked up in the Wall Street journal yesterday. It involves, Chrysler, Cerberus, the city of Auburn Hills, Michigan, Citibank and of course the U.S. taxpayer. In the grand scheme of things these days it is relatively puny in monetary terms but it’s nevertheless interesting to see all of the twists, turns, interlocking relationships and […]
Congress Considers Bailing Out Its Ethanol Mistakes
Posted by Tom Lindmark on December 25th, 2008
From yesterday’s WSJ, here is a foretaste of what’s to come as Congress and the new administration ramp up their stimulus plans next month. The Journal points out that the ethanol industry is on the ropes due to the collapse in the price of oil. Three of the major producers are near bankruptcy despite federal subsidies. So […]
The Twelve Days Of Bailouts
Posted by Tom Lindmark on December 25th, 2008
Well, I wasn’t planning on posting much today, but my Christmas morning golf game got rained out, I have some time I didn’t expect to have and I saw this on Greg Mankiw’s blog and couldn’t resist.
