U.S. auto sales continued their free fall into February, as big rebates and low-interest financing failed to lure people back into car dealerships and showrooms.
Today General Motors reported that its sales slid 53 percent in February compared with the same month a year ago, and Chrysler sales dropped 44 percent.
Ford's sales tumbled 48 percent, despite distinguishing itself from cross-town rivals in recent months by keeping the company afloat without federal aid.
"The economic and competitive environment remains challenging," said Ken Czubay, Ford vice president for sales and marketing, in a statement. "Ironically, these times provide the best opportunity to distance Ford from the competition."
If they are and say private investors in the PPI Investment Fund purchase toxic assets that have a CDS attached then conceivably a private investor can gain a windfall profit. Assuming Treasury allows that but something tells me they would allow it.
Can this be?
Update:
This is The Economic Populist Admin. I am putting the answer to this question in the post so it goes out into the RSS feeds.
The answer to the question of are Credit default swaps are assignable is yes.
Public pension funds across the U.S. are hiding the size of a crisis that’s been looming for years. Retirement plans play accounting games with numbers, giving the illusion that the funds are healthy.
The paper alchemy gives governors and legislators the easy choice to contribute too little or nothing to the funds, year after year.
The misleading numbers posted by retirement fund administrators help mask this reality: Public pensions in the U.S. had total liabilities of $2.9 trillion as of Dec. 16, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Their total assets are about 30 percent less than that, at $2 trillion.
With stock market losses this year, public pensions in the U.S. are now underfunded by more than $1 trillion.
The shock of "Black September", at least on consumer non-durable spending, might be wearing off somewhat. Like Freddy Kreuger, Michael Myers, or Jason Voorhees, it appears that American consumer simply refuses to stay dead, but instead is rising, zombie-like, from the grave to spend another day.
Private retail service Shoppertrak issues weekly bulletins about foot traffic and sales in the nation's malls. While not a perfect indicator, it is both more frequent and also a separate source to compare with the official data. In the past it has provided early indications of the holding up -- or not -- of the consumer. For example, by the end of September it had published a special note on the collapse of foot traffic that month, the first indication of the appearance of the consumer collapse of "Black September."
What ever changes we make to our financial regulations, hopefully we'll ensure that we can never have another AIG putting the entire global financial system at risk. Unfortunately, our track record of building regulations is terrible. In fact, in many ways the last round of regulatory reform helped cause the disaster in AIG. How could AIG's destruction have been caused by banking regulation? Most people wil probably be surprised by the very idea. After all, they've been told that what really happened to AIG involved unregulated credit default swaps, insurance contracts on bonds that AIG sold across the world. They suspect AIG might have been caused by too little regulation.
This article speaks for itself. Yet another Bush regulatory body allowed to run roughshod over rank and file employees.
Exploding pension fund shortfalls are blowing billion-dollar holes in the balance sheets of some of the Chicago area's biggest companies, forcing them to make huge contributions to retirement plans at a time when cash flow and credit are already under stress.
Boeing Co.'s shareholder equity is now $1.2 billion in the hole thanks to an $8.4-billion gap between its pension assets and the projected cost of its obligations for 2008. At the end of 2007, Boeing had a $4.7-billion pension surplus.
Hoffman Estates-based Sears, which announced the closings of 24 stores this year, expects its pension expense to soar as high as $175 million this year from $1 million last year due to the markets' decline.
This worldwide economic crisis is not without its benefits to some.
While Russia’s government said the economy will contract for the first time in a decade and currency reserves are down 36 percent from August, the nation’s relative strength is raising Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s influence over former Soviet states. Ukraine discussed borrowing $5 billion. Kazakhstan wants Russia to buy ailing BTA Bank. Belarus is asking for $3 billion in loans, on top of $2 billion granted last year.
“Russia isn’t looking at a straight-line deterioration into oblivion,” said Kieran Curtis, who helps manage $800 million in emerging-market fixed-income assets in London at Aviva Investors Ltd. “It has enough liquid assets to take stakes in all kinds of things in the former Soviet states.”
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Ken Lewis, Bank of America CEO, continues his public relations campaign to convince people/investors that BofA is not insolvent. He is now claiming that it was a tactical mistake for BofA to take TARP money to purchase Merrill Lynch. What a crock!
The only reason why this guy still has a job is because no one else wants to command a sinking ship.
The DJIA fell to 6825 this morning. That means that the Oct. 2007 - present bear market is the 2nd worst in 138 years.
The second worst, until today, was the loss of 51.51% from the market's 1937 high of 194.14 to 94.13. When the DJIA fell below 6833, we surpassed that percentage loss.
The worst, obviously, was the 1929-32 contraction of almost 90%.
might be wearing off somewhat. Like Freddy Kreuger, Michael Myers, or Jason Voorhees, it appears that American consumer simply refuses to stay dead, but instead is rising, zombie-like, from the grave to spend another day.
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