Infinite Unknown

Car sales in the US collapse:

November Auto Sales: Porsche sales drop by half (Source: Forbes)

November Auto Sales: Daimler AG’s sales decline (Source: Forbes):
Total sales at Daimler’s U.S. operations fell 29.9 percent to 15,991 from 22,819 in November 2007
Sales of Mercedes-Benz brand vehicles last month declined 38.2 percent to 14,102 while the company sold 1,889 of its two-seater Smart models. Smart was introduced to the North American market in mid-January of this year.
Mercedes-Benz USA said its best-selling model family, the C-Class, had a 36.1 percent drop-off in sales, and E-Class sales fell by 49.3 percent.

November Auto Sales: BMW sales fall 26.8 percent (Source: Forbes)

Volkswagen November U.S. Sales Fall 19% on Economy (Source: Bloomberg)

Audi U.S. November sales fall 25.4% (Source: Market Watch)
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Berlin under fire as German car sales collapse

German car sales have plunged to the lowest level since reunification almost twenty years ago, increasing pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel to abandon budget restraint and back plans for an EU-wide rescue package.

Registrations fell 18pc in November, led by a drop of 36pc in Opel sales. “The crisis has again worsened dramatically,” said Volker Lange, of the VDIK motor vehicle association.

Volkswagen is to suspend production at its Wolfsburg headquarters this month. BMW has cut output in Leipsig to one day a week and Porsche is shuttering its Stuttgart plant for a week. It is just as bad in France where PSA Peugeot Citroen is halting production for a month at Sochaux, the country’s biggest industrial site.

The slump in Germany’s core industry has led to vocal criticism of the Left-Right coalition government. The Handelsbatt newspaper warned this week that the coalition faces a “rebellion” unless it faces up to the gravity of the crisis.

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Tags: Angela Merkel, Audi, BMW, Cars, Daimler, Economy, Germany, Mercedes, Porsche, Recession, VW

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany said on Monday it was ready to help General Motors’ struggling German unit Opel, though it would make sure any aid did not seep over to the U.S. parent or trigger a flood of demands for support.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is due to meet Opel representatives at 1530 GMT on Monday. Opel has asked the federal government and German states to help it through a financial rough patch that has been aggravated by troubles at its parent GM.

“I think the government will do everything that is necessary to help the company but on the other hand, it will of course respect the consequences with regard to dealing with other companies,” government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said.

“This cannot be about taking action that we would then not be able to maintain with regard to similar cases,” he added at a regular government news conference.

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Tags: Angela Merkel, Economy, General Motors, Germany, GM, Opel

Commerzbank, Germany’s second-largest bank, today said it would accept a €8.2bn (£6.44bn) capital injection from the state and a further €15bn in guaranteed funding.

Commerz, which is taking over Dresdner, its smaller rival, said it had agreed to pay no dividends for the next two years. It will also scrap all boardroom bonuses in 2009 and 2010 and cap its chief executive’s salary at €500,000.

The bank made its moves as it reported a net loss of €285m in the third quarter when it was heavily exposed to both Lehman Brothers, the bankrupt US investment bank, and Iceland, the virtually insolvent country.

It said it made a combined operating loss of almost €900m through these two events. In the first nine months its pre-tax earnings of €2.3bn a year ago shrank to €419m.

Germany’s private sector banks have been under considerable pressure from chancellor Angela Merkel to join her government’s €500bn stabilisation package, with the biggest, Deutsche, creating a storm by saying it would be “ashamed” to take part.

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Tags: Angela Merkel, Banks, Commerzbank, Economy, Germany, Government, Politics

Here is an update on the size of the derivatives market with the latest official figures (.pdf) from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Hold your breath, as we are not anymore talking paltry billions but TRILLIONS of whichever fiat currency.

Current emergency meetings on banks and markets are still only in the stage where politicians and central bankers are bickering over how to create a few more hundred billions Euros and FRNs. But toxic MBS pale in comparison to the mushrooming growth of the derivatives market. According to figures released in the quarterly review of the BIS (pp A103) in September the total notional amount of outstanding derivatives in all categories rose 15% to a mindboggling $596 TRILLION as of December 2007.

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Tags: Angela Merkel, BIS, Credit Crisis, credit crunch, Derivatives, Derivatives market, Economy, financial crisis, GDP, Nicolas Sarkozy, Silvio Berlusconi, Stock Market, U.S.

Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Holland and Austria have joined forces to launch the greatest bank bail-out in history, offering over €1.5 trillion in guarantees and fresh capital in a “shock and awe” blitz to halt the credit panic.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy Photo: PHILIPPE WOJAZER

The move - unveiled simultaneously in the six states to maximise the show of unity - throws the full weight of the eurozone behind global efforts to stem the crisis.

The move gave a tremendous boost to bourses across Europe, lifting the Euro Stoxx index by 9.53pc in the biggest one-day rally ever.

The pan-European plan - totalling over $2 trillion, or £1.17 trillion - completes the third leg of a dramatic restructuring of finance across the Western world. Sovereign states have now absorbed the brunt of the credit risk in half the global economy.

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Tags: Angela Merkel, Austria, Beldium, BMW, Economy, EU, financial crisis, France, Germany, Government, Henry Paulson, Holland, IMF, Italy, Politics, Treasury

The plans for a massive bank bailout by European governments differ strikingly from the U.S. approach.

PARIS (Fortune) — First you mess up the world’s financial system. Then you blow the rescue of it. Now let’s show you how to do it properly.

That, in a nutshell, is the less-than-flattering message European governments are sending to the U.S. as they mount their own gigantic bank bailout. The plans, announced Monday after two weeks of dithering, involve Britain, Germany, France and some others recapitalizing national banks that require help, and providing state guarantees and other measures to kick-start the stalled credit market. The details are strikingly different from the U.S. approach adopted by U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and the Federal Reserve Board. And there’s a big reason for that: The Europeans think Paulson got it badly wrong, and have watched aghast as he failed to restore confidence in the world’s financial system.

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Tags: Angela Merkel, bailout, Banks, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, financial crisis, France, Germany, Government, Henry Paulson, Lehman Brothers, Politics, Stock Market, Treasury, U.S.

Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) — France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Austria committed 1.3 trillion euros ($1.8 trillion) to guarantee bank loans and take stakes in lenders, racing to prevent the collapse of the financial system.

The announcements came as Britain took majority stakes today in Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and HBOS Plc. The coordinated steps followed a pledge yesterday by European leaders to bolster market confidence as the global economy slides toward recession.

“What it should do is stabilize the banking system,” said Peter Hahn, a fellow at London’s Cass Business School and former managing director at Citigroup Inc. “Will it stop us from having a recession? No, nothing is going to stop us from having a recession.”

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Tags: Angela Merkel, Austria, bailout, Banks, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Credit Crisis, credit crunch, debt, Economy, EU, France, GDP, Germany, Gordon Brown, HBoS, Holland, mortgage crisis, Mortgages, Nicolas Sarkozy, Politics, RBS, Recession, Spain, Stock Market, Wall Street

BERLIN: Only the state can restore trust to financial markets now, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was quoted as saying on Sunday amid reports that Berlin was about to unveil a huge rescue package for its banks.

“Only action by the state is capable of restoring the necessary trust,” Merkel was quoted as saying by the Bild am Sonntag weekly following talks on Saturday in France with President Nicolas Sarkozy.

“In this it is important that countries do not act unilaterally but that we coordinate at European and international level and then implement the measures within our national responsibilities,” Merkel said.

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Tags: Angela Merkel, Banks, Deutsche Bank, Economy, financial crisis, France, Germany, Government, Nicolas Sarkozy, Politics

Strauss-Kahn said rich nations had so far failed to restore confidence

The world financial system is teetering on the “brink of systemic meltdown”, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned in Washington.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn said rich nations had so far failed to restore confidence, but he endorsed a new action plan by the G7 group.

He also said the IMF was ready to lend to countries in dire need of capital.

The 15 eurozone leaders will meet in Paris later to try to establish a common approach to the markets crisis.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said they would present a number of proposals at the summit to ease the credit freeze that has caused the collapse of several leading international banks.

But after meeting in Paris on Saturday, the two leaders said the summit would not result in a joint financial rescue fund for Europe, in the model of a $700bn rescue by the US government.

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Tags: Angela Merkel, Banks, Economy, financial crisis, G7, George Bush, Gordon Brown, Government, IMF, Meltdown, Nicolas Sarkozy, Politics, Stock Market, U.K., U.S.

BERLIN (AP) - Germany’s governing coalition partners want to change the constitution to allow for military deployment within the country if needed to combat terrorism, officials said Monday.

The proposal would allow use of the military only if police are overwhelmed and cannot properly respond to a situation themselves.

“It is not to be used generally, but only in very specific cases,” Interior Ministry spokeswoman Daniela-Alexandra Pietsch said.

The center-left Social Democratic Party - which makes up half of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition - had been opposed to the proposal but agreed late Sunday after working out an agreement that includes strict guidelines for domestic deployment.

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Tags: Angela Merkel, Germany, Government, Military, New World Order, Politics, terrorism