Pretty soon it adds up to real money.
Just shoot me now please. Watch this video. Three minutes and you will leave with your head hurting!
Does this make you feel comfortable that we know where the money is going?
Tag Archives: The Economy
White House on GM’s Chapter 11 Filing
Here is a release from the White House on GM’s Chapter 11 filing as reported by the Washington Post. According to the release, today is just another day at the office. It is all in the “ordinary course”. Read it by clicking here.
And now GM will only have to sell 10 million cars per year to break even instead of 16 million cars per year. I don’t know about you BUT that sounds like a lot of cars that have to be sold annually just to break even.
Do you think GM will sell 35,000 to 40,000 cars today? That is what they have to do every single work day – including Saturdays – to break even!
A Perfect 11 – Ugh!
The media throws around the term Chapter 11 a lot to discuss bankruptcy and what General Motors will go through starting today. See the Wiki for a good snapshot of Chapter 11 filings. Click here.
True bankruptcy is usually in Chapter 7 where a company is liquidated. Boom. Done. It is over.
Chapter 11 is now being positioned as a big mulligan in the sky - a big reboot - a big whoops, sorry - let us start over – for big companies. This is very troubling to me. Chapter 11 is usually a bad thing for a company but now it is starting to be looked at as a good thing and that is a terrible thing.
Light at the End of the Tunnel
The mainstream media is usually late to the party.
They are NOT a good indicator of what is happening in real time or what may happen in the future. They are a good indicator of what has happened. Many times, it is smart to bet against the mindset of the mainstream media.
Size is the Enemy of Cool
Size is the enemy of being nimble.
Other Shoe to Drop
The biggest issue we have in this economic recession/depression is that no one knows how to declare that we have hit the bottom floor.
Without a bottom being called, we can’t start to inch up and show progress and start to “feel” incrementally better and more positive.
I believe that the core issue around housing and bad toxic mortgages has been overstated as the main issue that has driven our economy to shambles.
That issue affects certain homeowners and banks but mostly BIG banks that made up these esoteric financial instruments that no one truly understood.
The main issue is and will be employment and jobs and wages. If someone is working that person can pay their mortgage; pay their credit card; save money; and stimulate the economy by buying a new car when needed, etc.
If jobs are lost then commercial real estate suffers. This is the next segment to feel the heat. See this article within.
If jobs are lost then credit card charges can’t be paid and kids in college need to get financial aid and universities won’t be able to follow suit. There is an interconnectedness that all flows from employment. No jobs; no cars bought; no vacations taken; no family dinners out; and on and on.
Any stimulus package MUST start from getting people working again. Helping banks to lend money must be done with an eye towards how it helps people keep their jobs or get back to work.
We have new sectors that will report bad news over the next 12 months.
2009 will be a terrible year.
Once we get a positive job report, we can declare the bottom and grow from there.
Other Shoes Begin to Drop: A Scary Thought
If cars don’t sell, dealerships are in trouble. If dealerships get into trouble, they won’t buy more cars coming off the assembly line. Hence manufacturers will stop making cars and there will be even more layoffs. And the layoffs will ripple through the value chain. The suppliers to the auto makers will cut back and layoff employees so more houses will then go into default because mortgages can’t be paid. Cars will be repossessed as car payments will be missed and these cars will come onto the market at a deep discount furthering the car sale issues and the cycle will continue to spiral down. We have been grinding to a halt: No credit and liquidity in the market; no consumer purchases; no more credits cards being issued; no more retail sales; and on and on.
In regards to tonight’s debate, the scary thing is that the only candidate with any true small business management experience is Sarah Palin. She ran a fishing-based company with her husband and she drove a budget for a state. If it is all about the economy now, I always worry about electing politicians that have never really worked in industry or started a company or made a payroll. Let us hope each candidate has smart people surrounding them in these matters. I almost wish that each candidate was forced to introduce the teams that would support them post election so we could meet who would really be running the country and the economy on the go forward.
These problems are deep, systemic and complex. They aren’t handled via sound bite, quip or political showboating. My bet is that most of the politicians voting on these mega bills don’t know the difference between an income statement and a balance sheet; about synthetics and derivatives; short selling; mark to market; and all of the arcane financial instruments that got us into the mess we face today.
When we have real issues with autos; credit cards; mortgages; gas prices and availability; and healthcare costs, how can we ever say our issues are about Wall Street and not Main Street?
Euro vs. the Dollar
Here is another sign things are tough for our economy. Check out the strength of the euro vs. the dollar. This is unacceptable and will at least keep people in the States this summer on vacation. I know we as a family are staying stateside this summer.