Business | Domestic US Auto Industry | Kedrosky

Quote du (Almost) Jour: Auto Industry Stresses

Over the past year, the domestic auto industry has experienced sharply reduced sales and profitability, large indefinite layoffs, and increased market penetration by imports … The shift in consumer preferences towards smaller, more fuel-efficient passenger cars and light trucks … appears to be permanent, and the industry will spend massive amounts of money to retool to produce the motor vehicles that the public now wants.

To improve the overall future prospects for the domestic motor vehicle manufacturers, a quality and price competitive motor vehicle must be produced … If this is not accomplished, the long term outlook for the industry is bleak.

-- Source: THE U.S. AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY, 1980. REPORT TO THE PRESIDENT FROM THE SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION

It's probably necessary to prevent the domestic US auto industry from careening over the cliff and dragging parts suppliers, dealers, and associated business partners with it. However, how we're going to get this dinosaur of manufacturing to change its ways is beyond me. I'm thinking that Chrysler sells-off Jeep and kills-off the rest. GM sells Buick to the Chinese, Saab to the Swedes, Hummer to the Russians, and then just struggles along until the rest crashes and burns. Who needs a $40K Volt? If Ford can restructure fast enough then they may have a chance to survive. Meanwhile the other US auto industry is hurting but capable and makes quality, efficient cars and trucks that Americans want to buy.

Money | Bailout Big Three? Pro vs Con | Kedrosky

The biggest question of the moment ... maybe of the decade. Here's a quick pro vs con blog with a Big Three promo video and lots of feedback. See also the recent articles in the WSJ.

Education | Most College Grads in 25-34 | Biz Week

Well, another sobering statistic. Check out this stat on college grads in the 25-34 demographic:

Money | Real vs Financial Engineering | GE

Immelt of GE announced on Friday the 24th that General Electric Co. is cutting costs, preparing for a new wave of regulation from Washington and embracing manufacturing over financial services as ways out of the economic crisis. I think we've had enough of financial engineering. Time to return to product and system engineering.

Humor | My Sentiments Exactly | Real Life Adventures

Money | Finance Crisis | Schwarzman

Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of Blackstone Group, was part of an impromptu roundtable of roughly 30 finance luminaries hosted by the Yale School of Management and co-sponsored by The Wall Street Journal. Schwarzman kicked off the audience-participation segment with a nearly all-in-one-breath summary of the causes and effects of the credit crisis:

"It's a perfect storm. It started with Congress encouraging lending to lower-income people. You went from subprime loans being 2% of total loans in 2002 to 30% of total loans in 2006. That kind of enormous increase swept into the net people who shouldn't have been borrowing. Those loans were packaged into CDOs rated AAA, which led the investment-banking firms [buying them] to do little to no due diligence, and the securities were distributed throughout the world, where they started defaulting. When they started defaulting, out of bad luck or bad judgment, we implemented fair value accounting….You had wildly different marks for this kind of security, which led to massive write-offs by the commercial banking and investment-banking system. In the face of those losses…you needed to raise new equity…which came from sovereign-wealth funds in part, which then caused political resistance to sovereign-wealth funds, who predictably have withdrawn from putting money into the system….It seemed pretty obvious that would happen. We now find ourselves with a liquidity crisis where fundamentally the cost of money for financial intermediaries [such as investment banks] is significantly in excess of their cost of lending it. So several institutions found themselves in a structurally impossible position. We had a series of bankruptcies, whether Bear Stearns or Lehman, or forced sales like Merrill. Goldman reverted to a banking charter for a lower cost of funds, which today is still not low enough for the business."

Money | Buffett Interview | CNBC

Worthwhile tidbits here from Warren Buffett. If this very sharp and common sense investor says that the government needs to intervene in the credit crisis then I'm sold. Hopefully, Congress will wrap-up venting their collective spleen in the next day and get on with business. They can talk all they want about caps on executive compensation - for this credit crisis, the bad boys and girls who have driven us to the brink have largely already collected their big $$$. Nonetheless, IMHO the train-wreck-causing easy-credit/credit-securitization situation needs to be reined-in hard.

Politics | Bush-Cheney | Oliphant

Money | $0.7T Bailout | US Treasury

Here's a one-page summary of how $0.7T of new US debt will be used. Paulson was asked what if it doesn't work? He responded it must work. More than a little unsettling. I'm thinking that we're looking at a whole new economy down the road. Prudent spending by individuals, businesses and government - if that's where we land - will resonate through the global economy like an 8.0. Cheers!

Money | Bailout or Crisis Avoidance? | Kedrosky

I'll have a longer post soon about my views on the current financial crisis and the $0.7T fund to buy poison mortgages. Meanwhile and for your amusement here's one person's perspective:

Disasters | Hurricane Ike | Boston.com

Some incredible pictures of the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. My wife was in Houston during and after the storm ... we'll be beefing-up our emergency supplies after experiencing that situation.

Education | Mideast Geography |

Think you know the geography of the Mideast? Try this game and see for yourself.

Sports | Beijing 2008 | Boston

Some spectacular high-res photos from the Olympics. Enjoy!

Money | Retirement Planning Case Studies | ESPlanner

There is useful reading in these case studies on retirement financial planning. Retirement living standards, IRA/401k account withdrawals, Social Security, annuitization of assets. This site is from the ESPlanner retirement planning model which is powerful, but a bit pricey for individuals.

Money | Consignment Shopping | SacBee

Here's a great idea, especially for young families. Takes the yard sale & 2nd hand shop concepts to a new level. If they opened one of these for electronics, they'd have to fight the engineers off with slip sticks. Sort of like the MIT and TRW monthly electronics swap meets for amateur radio and computer stuff.

Facts | Pop v Soda | ECU

Big question of the day. Do you call it pop or soda? Or maybe Coke? Something else? Here's the skinny,.

Real Estate | Amish Home Builders | WSJ

These folks are NOT your garden-variety home builder. These Amish contractors have extended their barn-raising skills to custom home building and offer new opportunities (and some unusual challenges) to those looking for a quality home built by a trustworthy firm. Higher quality, lower cost, faster delivery schedule are all hallmarks of their work.

Tech | Favorite How-To Site | Lifehacker

I've found lots of great, time- and frustration-saving tech tips at Lifehacker. Good, free software like SyncBack for backing-up PCs. Excellent tools like Knoppix - a bootable CD with Linux for resurrecting a Windows PC with fatal Blue-Screen-Of-Death. And tech tips on everything from do-it-yourself laptop bags to tips from GTD's David Allen. A great resource.

Biz | Telepresence v Travel | NYTimes

The promise of video teleconferencing has until recently not met the needs for most business meetings. That's changing fast with telepresence systems. Real opportunity here for cost reduction. What with plumetting service levels at airports and airlines, lots of business travelers will welcome some travel relief. Article.

$ | home prices | kedrosky

here's another take on where home prices may be headed. in a nutshell, home prices were very close to a constant multiple of median family income (trending around 2.8 times median family income) during 1977 to about 2001. then prices took off, heading to nearly 4 times. prices still have a ways to drop to get back to a 2.8 factor. and, of course, they may drop through that factor before they bounce back. bottom line is another 17% or more drop in prices before they stabilize. or four years of no price increases while income catches-up.

but, and this is big, national median house prices are interesting but residential real estate is hyper-local.

interesting read, here's the link:

Housing | Regional Price Change |

Amid the media hyperbole about declining housing prices, a bit of granularity in looking at the data is useful. State-by-state gives a somewhat different picture than the headlines.

Work | Monitoring Telecommuters | WSJ

Many new tools are available for employers to monitor folks who work at home. From webcams to keystroke loggers to periodic screen shots. It does seem intrusive. However, if it facilitates more opportunities for telecommuting then that's a plus from the standpoint of improved work flexibility and reduced oil consumption. Here's the article.

Life | Final Farewell |WSJ

Randy Pausch, a 47-year-old college professor, said goodbye to his students and colleagues in a final lecture. This lecture has been seen by millions on the internet. Here is a follow-up article that appeared in the WSJ back in May. Mr. Pausch died on July 25th.

Humor | Quote of the Day | Brilliant

I love this Quotation of the Day: "Try to relax and enjoy the crisis." ...Ashleigh Brilliant

Personal $ | When You Must Sell a House | WSJ

Good advice in this article about selling a home in today's very tricky market. Clean, uncluttered, fresh paint. Set the initial price below asking for comparables in your area (whew!!). Get an aggressive agent. They're not lining-up for condos in Encino anymore, folks.

Read It and Weep

Work | Value of College Degree | WSJ

College degree - necessary but not sufficient these days. Additional and often specialized skills are required. See the article and check out the embedded video for some fields where a college degree is still a hot ticket.

Personal $ | New Social Security Calc | WSJ

I've used the old Social Security calculators that required manual input of your entire earnings history ... and then produce a somewhat complicated output with lots of agency jargon. This new calculator, along with improvements later, should speed the process. Don't rely on the hardcopy report you get, run your own analysis. Article from WSJ.

Personal $ | Medicare Part D | WSJ

Medicare is trying to stop an industry practice that tends to push up costs for folks in Medicare Part D prescription drug plan. Without going into details, insurers often pay pharmacy benefit managers a locked-in price even if that price is much higher than what the drugs really cost at the pharmacy. Guess who is lobbying to keep this practice in place.

This gets really nasty when the person on Part D hits the infamous "donut hole". Part D insured patients pay the first 100% of the first tier of Rx costs to $275, then 25% of the next tier of costs to $2,510 total cost, then 100% of the next tier up to $5,726 total costs, then 5% of everything beyond that tier. The tier between $2,510 and $5,726 is the donut hole. More like a black hole, but whatever.

Best strategy? Shop around. Costco or Wal*Mart may sell Rx drugs for less than the patient's share under Part D. Especially consider paying cash at those places for your lowest cost generics to keep the Part D coverage for more expensive branded meds.

The WSJ article is locked for subscribers only ... let me know if you want a copy.

Energy | Oil Shale | WSJ

Those of us who were living in Colorado back in the late '70s and early '80s remember the oil shale boom in the northwestern part of the state and the crash of Black Sunday (May 2, 1982) that brought it all down. The oil shale didn't go anywhere, of course. However, the price of oil has made it a heckuva lot more interesting (just like Canada's tar sands). Here's a brief article on where things stand today. How much oil is in the US oil shale? How about 800B barrels - or about triple the current proven reserves of Saudi Arabia.