Detroit

Of the five, United Commercial is pretty darn big ($11.2 billion in assets) United Commercial Bank San Francisco, CA As of October 23, 2009, United Commercial Bank had total assets of $11.2 billion and total deposits of…

The banks have been the ones benefitting most from free money via the Federal Government and U.S. taxpayers.  Given 9.8% base unemployment and 17.0% comprehensive unemployment, it is a bit galling for ordinary Americans that these same…

When the stimulus bill was being crafted, I wrote three posts lamenting the protectionist Buy American provision attached to the bill. ‘Buy American’ will translate into a 21st century Smoot-Hawley The U.S. is exporting unemployment…

Apparently, the U.S. auto industry is working off a significant backlog of inventory because I have been hearing that pretty much everyone in North America is planning to ramp up production for the third quarter.  This is prima facie…

As developments in the global auto industry continue apace, it is becoming increasingly evident that Fiat has fashioned itself as a change agent in an industry rife with overcapacity. While eyes in the U.S. are fixed on a Fiat-Chrysler…

It looks like Chrysler is going down for the count. A few piggish bondholders decided to play chicken with the Federal Government. They are going to lose this game and, consequently, lots of money too. Chrysler and the Obama…

I want to make clear the significance of the Treasury's Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan for Chrysler if Fiat pulls out.  It will mean massive job losses and and a huge down-tick in consumer demand.  There will be no second half recovery.…

Apparently the Obama Administration was just bluffing about bankruptcy for the automakers, because when push came to shove, they blinked.  The automakers are to get yet more bailout funds and the dates for restructuring plans hae been…

It is looking like Saab is toast. This comes from Dagens Nyheter, a Swedish daily (note: I originally saw this covered in the Austrian daily Kurier):

I have yet to read what the media has reported on the new Case-Shiller Housing Index numbers for November 2008. However, I have crunched the numbers and they do not look very good. For the Composite-20 list of cities, the index is down…