Archive for May 5th, 2009

BofA Needs $35 Billion

Well, I guess there was more to the stress tests than we all credited it with. News out tonight from the WSJ is that Bank of America needs a cool $35 billion. Regulators have told Bank of America Corp. that the company needs to take steps to address a roughly $35 billion capital shortfall based on results […]

You Figure Out The Right Way To Handle The Chrysler BK

Keith Hennessey has a nice post about the Chrysler bankruptcy proceedings. He offers his take on the ramifications but then throws in a twist. Hennessey points out that it’s easy to criticize but much tougher to actually come up with an alternative. So he doesn’t let you off the hook. Instead he lays out a […]

No Recovery Expected On Government Loans To Chrysler

Clusterstock has been darkly intimating all day long that the taxpayer is getting royally hosed in the Chrysler bankruptcy. Late this afternoon they published a link to a CNN story confirming just that. Chrysler LLC will not repay U.S. taxpayers more than $7 billion in bailout money it received earlier this year and as part […]

Trucks And Tariffs: Did They Cause GM And Chyrysler To Fail?

  There’s a post on the Economist Free Exchange that talks about America’s love affair with light trucks and how this came to pass. Here are the authors thoughts: Yet in parts of America, it does seem that most vehicles on the road are American-made pick-up trucks. I always figured Americans favoured domestic trucks because […]

Dimon Sees Positive Economic Signs

Warning to perma-bears this is a “green shoot” post. Speaking to the Business Council, Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s CEO, said that the distress across the economy seems to be easing: “The TALF program seems to be working in credit cards, so credit-card, student-loan and other rates are coming down,” Mr. Dimon said. On the recession, […]

Obama’s Tax Plan May Sink Ireland

Good intentions and unintended consequences often go hand in hand. As President Obama’s plans for revamping the country’s corporate tax regime unfolds we’re likely to see that combination played out again and again. Exhibit one comes from the Telegraph.co.uk which points out that the new plan could devastate Ireland. Whatever the eventual impact on companies, the […]

Pimco’s Gross Looks At The New Capitalism

Bill Gross is out with his monthly newsletter and it is a bit of a puzzler. Paul Kedrosky remarked that it had him scratching his head and looking for an embedded code. I took it as a statement that the rules of the free market game have been changed by the government, that those rules are […]