Archive for January 24th, 2009

Chrysler Says It Can Make It Even In A Rough Market

A brief article on Reuters this afternoon has Chrysler saying that it can be viable at a depressed level of U.S. vehicle sales. Apparently Chrysler believes that with even as few as 10 million vehicles sold per year it can be profitable. There isn’t any detail to speak of in the article. They do reference […]

The Sad History Of Commercial And Investment Bank Mergers

The misfortunes Bank of America suffered in its acquisition of Merrill Lynch are really pretty much par for the course. The history of mergers between investment banks and commercial banks is a sorry one and the loser is inevitably the commercial bank. I have no idea why this should be so. All sorts of theories […]

Arizona Legislature Plans To Axe Speed Cameras

Riddle me this one. Arizona has a fiscal crisis of gigantic proportions. The state just finished installing automatic cameras to detect speeders on a number of the highways surrounding Phoenix, its largest city. The cameras have caught an enormous number of drivers exceeding the speed limit and generated substantial revenues. The cameras were previously tested […]

Democrats Practice Some In Your Face Politics

Politicians, it seems to me, are as a collective lot some of the least intelligent creatures on earth. I’ve held that view for a long time and every now and then objective evidence presents itself to validate my belief. Yesterday’s meeting of the Congressional leadership held to discuss the fiscal stimulus plan provided one of […]

Panic Won’t Solve Our Economic Problems

Marginal Revolution has two excellent posts (here and here) on a subject that keeps nagging at me. Basically, are we overreacting to this recession. I put up a post a couple of days ago that referred to a New York Times article that pointed out this recession was statistically not as bad, so far, as the […]

FDIC Guarantees $12 Billion More Of Citi Debt: Why?

Just a quick thought here and it’s off to bed. Why did the FDIC allow Citi to issue $12 billion of debt today with their guarantee attached? Did they have no choice, is no one watching the store or does this tell us something about the government’s future plans. Best guess here is that Citi […]