Links: 2009-06-01

Welcome to June. Here are today’s links.

• Susan Boyle, U.K. Talent Show Loser, Rushed to Clinic, Sun Says

  A break from the finance news for a little celebrity culture trivia: “Susan Boyle, who was runner-up in a U.K. television talent show on May 30, was rushed to a health clinic because of exhaustion, the Sun newspaper reported.”

• Honda’s production line restarts

  “Production at Honda’s car factory in Swindon has restarted after a four-month shutdown but at about half its full capacity.”

• Chrysler’s sale to Fiat approved

  “US car group Chrysler has secured court approval to sell most of its assets to a consortium led by Italy’s Fiat.”

• GM enters bankruptcy protection

  “Car giant General Motors (GM) has filed for bankruptcy protection, marking the biggest failure of an industrial company in US history.”

• Nomura staff warm to western contracts – FT Alphaville

  “Nomura has persuaded half of its jobs-for-life Japanese investment bankers to give up their local contracts and adopt more volatile western deals, in the mould of the Lehman Brothers operations it acquired last autumn.”

• Taleb goes long inflation – FT Alphaville

  “Here’s another one to add to the hyperinflation bandwagon: Nassim Nicholas Taleb, of Black Swan fame.”

• FT.com, Niall Ferguson – How economists can misunderstand the crisis

  “Krugman would benefit from a refresher course about that work’s historical context. Having reissued his book The Return of Depression Economics, he clearly has an interest in representing the current crisis as a repeat of the 1930s. But it is not. US real GDP is forecast by the International Monetary Fund to fall by 2.8 per cent this year and to stagnate next year. This is a far cry from the early 1930s, when real output collapsed by 30 per cent.”

• What Is the Point of Anglo Irish Bank? – Gerard O’Neil

  “why invest €4 billion of taxpayers money in an utterly unproductive asset, when it could be invested in a new bank which could then lend the money to businesses with the potential to grow, repay their borrowings and contribute to job and wealth creation? Or simply give the money back to the taxpayer and let them spend it more wisely and productively?”

• Marcus Welby? He’s History, Doctors Don’t Work For You Anymore – Washington Post

  Reading the Sunday Post got me to see this piece and the Clarke piece below. “Of the 15,000 students who will graduate from medical school this year — and the roughly 8,000 physicians and surgeons who will finish their specialty training — more than 93 percent will become employees of large clinics, managed-care companies or hospital systems.”

• The Trauma of 9/11 Is No Excuse – Richard A. Clarke, Washington Post

  “”I’ll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities,” Cheney said in his recent speech. But this defense does not stand up. The Bush administration’s response actually undermined the principles and values America has always stood for in the world, values that should have survived this traumatic event.”

• California Home Prices Rise for 2nd Straight Month – WSJ.com

  “It was the first back-to-back increase in the state’s housing prices in two years, following an increase in the median price of homes in March from February”

• Stock market: ‘We’re in the yin phase’ – Telegraph

  Interesting article highlighting Richard Koo’s theory of a balance sheet recession. I happen to be reading his book right now and will have some comments to make on it.

• McCulley Says No Significant Recovery Until 2010 – Bloomberg

  “A recovery, to be self-sustaining, has to have job creation with it in order to get personal income and therefore consumption.”

• Dow 10,000, Revisited: Paul Kedrosky Sees Stocks "Considerably Higher" by Year-End

  There is a good video on Paul Kedrosky here with Aaron Task. It’s a wide-ranging market discussion. They talk a lot about autos in the video, but also about stocks. Kedrosky is no perma-bull so this is an interesting take – he’s basically making the fake recovery story that I see as likely.