Submitted by A Dash of Insight
Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain was interviewed after today’s market close by CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo.  Thain discussed the recent decision to sell distressed CDO’s for 22 cents on the dollar, raising more capital, his critics, and future prospects.
It is an excellent interview (see it all here),  Maria, as usual, has […]

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Submitted by Businomics Blog
Car sales are in the tank, but I’m optimistic, much more so than I am for housing.  First, here’s the recent bad news on automobile sales:

This is your basic falling-off-a-cliff chart.  What’s the reason for optimism?  Take a look at the long-run history:

I normalized car sales for population to compare past decades […]

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Submitted by The Capital Spectator
This morning’s update on personal income and consumer spending is a complicated beast. On first glance, it looks like the great American income machine has stumbled, and stumbled badly. But looks can be deceiving. Maybe.
The first order of business in digesting today’s report on personal income and outlays is looking at […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

In other words, a windfall is nothing more than a profit earned by a business that some politician dislikes. And a tax on that profit is merely a form of politically motivated expropriation. It’s what politicians do in Venezuela, not in a free country.

~WSJ Editorial

MP: Just wondering about Bill Clinton’s $31 million […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
The chart above shows 2006 income shares from the IRS, and medal shares at the 2004 Summer Olympics. Notice the amazing similarity? For example, the top 5% of U.S. taxpayers earned 36% of all income, and the top 5% of the 74 medal-winning countries (the top three: U.S., Russia, and China; […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
According to these IRS data, the top 50% of U.S. taxpayers earned 87.3% of all income in 2006, and paid 96.89% of all income taxes.

According to these Olympic medal statistics from the 2006 Winter Olympics, the top 50% of the competing countries won 88% of the medals and 88% of the […]

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Submitted by Econbrowser
In my previous post, I discussed how the 2008Q2 advance GDP estimate would be revised, and the possibility that the final figure (after annual revisions) could enter in below zero. One reason that might occur is because the GDP deflator could be revised upward. Suspicion that this might occur is heightened by the […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

FLINT JOURNAL — Gibbs Technologies, a British company, hopes to begin marketing the revolutionary amphibious car, the Aquada (pictured above), as early as late 2009. It has established a temporary tech center in southeast Michigan and recently announced plans to move into a permanent facility in Auburn Hills with the help of […]

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