Pay GM to crash a brand new car into a brand new house. Make sure there is nothing left.

>> I'm sure once she does read the indictment, she will say, no comment ….

Typically, booms last shorter periods than busts. The last boom was extremely profitable and lured a lot of newcomers, who will most likely be crashed during what promises to be at least a typical brutal downturn.

Real estate in Athens will be affected, particularly the most expensive segment. A condominium that in 2000 would be valued at 400,000 euros was sold last summer for 4,000,000 euros. The fall in prices will be spectacular.

Federal Reserve Chairman (General) Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank won’t disclose details of the $2 trillion in emergency loans of taxpayer funds because doing so would stigmatize banks needing the money.

“Some have asked us to reveal the names of the banks that are borrowing, how much they are borrowing, what collateral they are posting,” Bernanke said today to the House Financial Services Committee. “We think that’s counterproductive.”

“We just go in and play crossword puzzles, watch videos that someone brings in or read the newspaper,” he says. “Otherwise, I’ve just sat.”

Pool is one of more than 12,000 American autoworkers who, instead of installing windshields or bending sheet metal, spend their days counting the hours in a jobs bank set up by Detroit automakers and Delphi Corp. as part of an extraordinary job security agreement with the United Auto Workers union.

The jobs bank programs were the price the industry paid in the 1980s to win UAW support for controversial efforts to boost productivity through increased automation and more flexible manufacturing.

This is what we are bailing out.

“You will note the role of western media has been eliminated from the process model… If once upon a time western media coverage, which affects the opinion of western politicians and citizens, mattered to the Chinese people, this is no longer the case.

In the political realm, the Chinese people no longer have to believe in the rhetoric of freedom, liberty, democracy, sovereignty and human rights. The war in Iraq, the Abu Ghraib prison, the Guantanamo camp, hurricane Katrina and other misconduct took care of all that. Why would the Chinese people be interested in what American president George W. Bush have to preach to them about freedom, liberty, democracy, sovereignty and human rights? When the western media invoke those terms, the reaction from the Chinese people is: “Look within yourselves and fix your own problems first!”

In the economic realm, the financial tsunami of 2008 took care of any credibility in the Washington consensus. In its place was an as-yet-undefined Beijing consensus which has less specifics than the general idea of self-determination. Why would the Chinese people be interested in what Alan Greenspan and Henry Paulson have to tell them about how to run their economy when they have failure on their hands?”

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/a_fascinating_document_about_t.php#more

Consumer Prices in U.S. Decline 1%, Most on Record (Update2)

…snip…'Consumer prices plunged 1 percent last month, more than forecast and the most since records began in 1947, after being unchanged the prior month, the Labor Department said in Washington. Excluding food and energy, so-called core prices unexpectedly fell for the first time since 1982.'…snip…

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aEUKE5CH6LeU&refer=home

I’m finally hearing loud anecdotal reports from my Chinese colleagues and friends about severe job losses. They’re heavily concentrated in IT/development. Some companies there have liquidated entirely — well, more disbanded, as they had no assets other than people anyway — and others have summarily fired upwards of 60% of staff.

Many are scared, and indeed, packing it in for the countryside. Life in the countryside there is not nearly so bad as we commonly conceive, and it’s not isolated at all. Frankly, it’s about the same standard as your average underclass city-dweller. but the farmland is fallow. They, like most people in those small towns scattered across the interior countryside, probably just won’t do much of anything.

Also, this bust is heavily concentrated on the coasts and export sectors. The cities that are more isolated, like Chengdu, aren’t suffering at all yet.