Infinite Unknown

Tight credit, economic worries and high gasoline prices auto purchases

DETROIT - Tight credit, economic worries and high gasoline prices combined to cut Ford Motor Co.’s U.S. sales once again in September, with the beleaguered automaker reporting a 34 percent decline from the same month last year.

It was Ford’s worst sales month this year, and the results are a strong indication that analysts’ forecasts of another dismal month will come true.

Hyundai Motor Co., whose single-digit sales decline this year has looked like a success against the Detroit automakers’ slide, reported its U.S. sales fell 25 percent. Other automakers are set to release their results later Wednesday.

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Tags: Economy, Ford, General Motors, U.S.

Those carmakers do not deserve a single cent and here is why:
Who Killed The Electric Car? (Documentary)
Documentary about GM killing of the electric car. It has been here since ‘96 but they killed it off. The “gasoline” for operating this car only costs 16 cents per gallon!
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DETROIT - The auto industry moved a step closer to winning the first of two battles it’s been waging in Washington for the past few weeks: A $25 billion direct loan program for automakers and suppliers was attached to a broad government spending bill approved Wednesday by the House of Representatives.

The bill, a “continuing resolution” that would continue to fund the federal government past the start of its new fiscal year on Oct. 1, includes the $7.5 needed to cover costs required to start the loans flowing. Approval by the Senate and the President’s signature are expected in the next few days.

The second battle, however, over rules governing how the loans will be doled out now won’t be decided until after the Presidential elections. That’s a setback for the industry.

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Tags: Chrysler, Congress, Economy, Ford, General Motors, Government, U.S.

Documentary about GM killing of the electric car. It has been here since ‘96 but they killed it off.

The film features interviews with celebrities who drove the electric car, such as Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks, Alexandra Paul, Peter Horton, Ed Begley, Jr., a bi-partisan selection of prominent political figures including Ralph Nader, Frank Gaffney, Alan Lloyd, Jim Boyd, Alan Lowenthal, S. David Freeman, and ex-CIA head James Woolsey, as well as news footage from the development, launch and marketing of EV’s.

Nominated: Best Documentary - Environmental Media Awards (2006)
Won: Special Jury Prize - Mountain Film (Telluride) (2006)
Nominated: Best Documentary - Writers Guild of America
Won: Audience Award - Canberra International Film Festival
Nominated: 2007 Best Documentary Feature - Broadcast Film Critics Association

The “gasoline” for operating this car only costs 16 cents per gallon!

Source: Google Video

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Tags: Documentary, Economy, Electric Car, Environment, General Motors, GM, Health, Science, Technology, U.S.

U.S. one dollar bills are displayed for a photograph in New York, April 15, 2008. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) — Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s plan to end the rout in U.S. financial markets may derail the dollar’s three-month rally as investors weigh the costs of the rescue.

The combination of spending $700 billion on soured mortgage-related assets and providing $400 billion to guarantee money-market mutual funds will boost U.S. borrowing as much as $1 trillion, according to Barclays Capital interest-rate strategist Michael Pond in New York. While the rescue may restore investor confidence to battered financial markets, traders will again focus on the twin budget and current-account deficits and negative real U.S. interest rates.

``As we get to the other side of this, the dollar will get crushed,” said John Taylor, chairman of New York-based International Foreign Exchange Concepts Inc., the world’s biggest currency hedge-fund firm, which manages about $15 billion.

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Tags: AIG, bailout, Bank, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke, Congress, Credit Crisis, credit crunch, Dollar, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, General Motors, GM, Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson, Inflation, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, mortgage crisis, Mortgages, NYSE, Politics, Treasury, Wall Street

A JobCentre office

The true scale of the jobs disaster facing Britain is revealed today as experts issue dire warnings that up to half a million workers will lose their jobs over the next two years, as companies cut costs and scale back investment plans to survive the economic downturn.

Official figures are widely expected to reveal this week that the number of people out of work and claiming benefits increased for a seventh successive month in August.

Finance companies based in London’s Square Mile have already laid off thousands of workers since the US mortgage crisis unleashed chaos in the world’s markets last summer; and the 5,000 UK-based staff at crisis-hit investment bank Lehman Brothers are awaiting news this weekend about how many of them will be made redundant.

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Tags: Bank of England, British Airways, Citigroup, Credit Crisis, credit crunch, Economy, Ford, General Motors, Government, HSBC, Lehman Brothers, Meltdown, Merrill Lynch, mortgage crisis, Mortgages, Politics, Toyota, U.K., Unemployment

Chrysler President Jim Press: “Maybe towards the end of ‘09, going into 2010, there’ll start to be some signs of recovery.” Maybe not.
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The Wall Street Journal is reporting Auto Sales Tumble, But Industry Sees Signs of Hope.

Sales of cars and light trucks fell 15.5% to 1.25 million last month, down from 1.48 million a year earlier, according to Autodata Corp. The closely watched seasonally adjusted annualized selling rate was 13.7 million vehicles, up from 12.55 million in July, but down from 16.3 million in August 2007, Autodata said.

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Tags: bankruptcy, Chrysler, Economy, Ford, General Motors, GM, JPMorgan, U.S., Wall Street

And you know who will pay for all of this.
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Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) — General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., Chrysler LLC and U.S. auto-parts makers are seeking $50 billion in government-backed loans, double their initial request, to develop and build more fuel-efficient vehicles.

The U.S. automakers and the suppliers want Congress to appropriate $3.75 billion needed to back $25 billion in U.S. loans approved in last year’s energy bill and add $25 billion in new loans over subsequent years, according to people familiar with the strategy. The industry is also seeking fewer restrictions on how the funding is used, the people said today.

GM and Ford lost $24.1 billion in the second quarter as consumers, battered by record gasoline prices, abandoned the trucks that provide most of U.S. companies’ profit and embraced cars that benefit overseas competitors such as Honda Motor Co. U.S. auto sales may drop to a 15-year low this year and fall even more in 2009, analysts have said.

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Tags: Chrysler, Congress, Economy, Ford, General Motors, GM, Government, U.S.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Standard & Poor’s on Thursday cut ratings on all three major U.S. automakers deeper into junk status, citing expected losses due to higher gas prices and a weakening U.S. economy.

S&P cut its ratings for General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Ford Motor Co (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Chrysler Automotive LLC to “B-minus,” or six levels below investment grade, from “B.” It also cut to “B-minus” from “B” the finance arms of Ford, Chrysler and GMAC, which is 49 percent owned by GM.

Related article: GM Posts $15.5 Billion Loss; More Job Cuts Possible

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Tags: bankruptcy, Chrysler, Economy, Ford, Gas prices, General Motors, rating, Standard & Poor's, Stock Market, SUV, Wall Street

“As I write this column, Congress has run this country into a $9,498,511,404,143.63 debt. That’s just under $9.5 TRILLION “dollars.”"

I really hope that you will find time to read this article.
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Arthur Henning of the Chicago Tribune said back in 1935, “The New Deal will bring the Communist Party within striking distance of overthrow of the American form of government…” Mark Sullivan of the Buffalo Evening News also expressed alarm in 1935: “The New Deal is to America what the early phase of Nazism was to Germany…”

The nation is awash in fear because they are coming to realize that while they’ve been buying all the hype from the cabal of gangsters in Washington for decades, reality is now setting in as poverty is slamming millions who used to belong to the middle class. From dangerous lending practices to the derivatives time bomb waiting to go off and inflation getting ready to launch into hyper inflation, the situation is more grim by the week. A financial catastrophe so many have been warning about for decades, it’s all coming home to roost. The “perfect storm” as it’s being called. The beast is now devouring itself and we the people are caught in their cross fire.

Unfortunately, most Americans haven’t been listening. They’re either addicted to sports, shopping, porn, drugs or yaking on their cell phones while the world has been heading for financial Armageddon.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, Bill Clinton, Bloomberg, Chrysler, Congress, Constitution, debt, Economy, Facism, Fannie Mae, Fed, Federal Reserve, financial crisis, Freddie Mac, General Motors, George Bush, Gold, Henry Paulson, John McCain, Meltdown, mortgage crisis, Mortgages, NAFTA, Oil, Oil Prices, Ron Paul, Silver, Treasury, U.S.

A subscription to the Wall Street Journal costs several hundred dollars a year, so most people out there don’t get it and DollarCollapse.com rarely posts links to its articles. But everybody should see today’s edition, which probably sets the modern-day record for disturbing headlines. Here’s a sampling of what subscribers read this morning:

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Tags: bankruptcy, Ben Bernanke, Dollar, Fannie Mae, Fed, Federal Reserve, Freddie Mac, General Motors, George Bush, Goldman Sachs, Government, Inflation, JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, mortgage crisis, Mortgages, retirement, Spain, Stock Market, U.S., Wall Street, Wall Street Journal, White House