In For The Long Haul

The original for this post is at TheTruthAboutCars.com, which in turn draws upon a post by Alexander Dawejko done for my Economics 244 cou...

Mack Stamping, or a Tale of Detroit's Decline

...[Mack] was a six-story structure [from] 1916... Detroit is in bankruptcy for three reasons. One is that a city is a fixed cost enterprise...

The New Romney on GM

...loan guarantees would have given all the gains to Wall Street... David and I blogged in 2009 and then many times since on the so-called a...

GM and the Upcoming Presidential Election

by David Ruggles Amid the political turmoil of election season the rescue of the domestic auto industry by the George W. Bush administration...

Auto Bailout Redux: Warren Buffett

...it was Bush who bailed out GM -- Obama forced it into bankruptcy... Steve Rattner's blog points out a February 27th CNBS interview w...

Auto Bailout Redux and Mitt Romney

See the post on my parallel blog, US and Economics on Mitt Romney's puzzling statements on the government-led bankruptcy of GM and Chry...

The Crisis Yet to Come

The Atlanta Fed's blog from October 27, 2010 has a chilling piece on the source of the downturn in revenue at the state level (and by i...

No Smoking Gun? -- Financial Innovation

Mike Smitka T he appellation "luddite" rings nasty, at least to this economist. I am after all an erstwhile student of the history...

More on Dealers: My Opinion in NYT

Mike Smitka H ere are a series of brief items in the New York Times "Room For Debate" online forum on their Opinion page: Link he...

Chrysler dies; bailout a success

Mike Smitka Q uite frankly, I don't expect Chrysler to last the year. Indeed, I would be surprised if the "new" Chrysler, to b...

In Defense of Dealers

A few years back Michael Dell was quoted as saying he thought the auto industry should adopt elements of his “build to order” PC business m...

Fiat to the Rescue?

C hrysler, heavily dependent on light trucks (jeeps, minivans, pickups), was whipsawed by the spike in gasoline prices in summer 2008. Then ...