234-years ago, Adam Smith published the Wealth of Nations. While some see confirmation of Smith’s beliefs in the return of robber barons, others believe Smith did not mean what you think he meant. We see that the Adam Smith we have come to know is actually only 60-years young, and came from Chicago:
…Lost Legacy has never been slow in criticizing the ‘Chicago Adam Smith’, a person with ideas that are far from the ideas of the Adam Smith born in Kirkcaldy in 1723.
It will be very, very interesting to see how the “Government Free Lite Zone” of Colorado Springs, CO plays out. The Denver Post via Sadly, No!:
More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.
One of the more frustrating things about Obama’s economic team and policy has been the use of the same advisors who contributed to the conditions that made the Great Recession possible (Geithner, Summers, etc.).
Some schools, such as the University of Pennsylvania, saw the changing and challenging economic environment and shifted their investments accordingly. An earlier email by Penn President Amy Gutman (via Business Insider) detailed the investment strategy and operating cost-containment measures:
This floor mat issue is one more problem Toyota didn’t need (see Scholars and Rogues). Add to that a story currently below the radar involving a lawsuit and allegations that Toyota withheld evidence regarding roll-overs, a difficult economic environment, and a loss of customer-oriented focus, and you have a brand in-crisis.
Fascinating. I was just talking about this idea today (via the Telegraph):
Local politicians believe [Flint, Michigan] must contract by as much as 40 per cent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.
The radical experiment is the brainchild of Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, which includes Flint.
Having outlined his strategy to Barack Obama during the election campaign, Mr Kildee has now been approached by the US government and a group of charities who want him to apply what he has learnt to the rest of the country.
Lot’s of people linking to this newspaper suicide pact article. Of course, it will fail miserably and will actually result in more of what they are trying to avoid:
Newspapers that are turning to paywall plans today are gambling on a risky revenue stream that even the experts aren’t predicting will provide a replacement to their lost advertising revenues (their biggest financial problem is the rapid decline in advertising rates, not the slow decline in print circulation). It’s a “well, we’ve got to do SOMETHING” solution, not a logical, do-the-math solution. And since since most media companies are owned by shareholders, the resulting loss of confidence could be catastrophic.
The end of the new-car consumption culture is a cyclical problem, not a secular trend. It is also effecting the entire industry, and not just the domestics.
I think (based on first hand observation) that manufacturers “pulled ahead” future sales post-9/11. Combine that with trends away from leasing (indirectly related to unemployment and the loss of residual insurance), the decline in miles driven, the collapse of teen drivers, high gasoline prices, a trend towards longer warranties, longer-term financing, decline in purchases of higher-profit SUVs, and a record existing car-to-driver ratio means a below average sales trend.
It’s official – Chrysler is looking to shed nearly 800 dealers.
The auto dealers have an extremely strong lobbying arm, but mostly at the state level. You can rest assured that if 100 new car dealers (and their promises of campaign contributions) appear before Congress, there will be some sort of common-sense-defying bailout to the dealers with the pretense of “saving Main Street”.
Is Newsweek hoping for a self-fulfilling prophecy by suggesting magazine need to go upmarket? See this article.
Newsweek’s 5-year plan, expected to go live in May, will see it abandon the mass market in favour of a select audience earning an average annual salary of $100,000. This will mean cutting circulation from the 2.6m it currently promises advertisers to just 1.5m by January next year. However, the architects of the plan believe that by introducing higher subscription prices and readjusting advertising rates, they will more than make up for any losses.
Circuit City’s downward spiral was well correlated to the boneheaded firing of their most-senior sales staff (along with several other factors). Is Best Buy’s decision to cut Assistant Managers and demote Senior Sales Staff in stores (via the Consumerist) a prudent financial business move, a case of follow-the-leader payroll cutting, or an indirect admission of increasingly dire straits?
