Bailouts

Looking for your own financial bailout?Well, the unprecedented decline in gasoline prices the past five months is actually giving regular Americans a much-needed boost to their balance sheets possibly greater than what the government is doling out to the financial services and automobile industries.New data just released by the Oil Price Information Service reveals that we're currently spending $…

This is really delicious, and should cheer up the grinchiest of Grinches and the scroogiest of Scrooges:Rumors that Santa Claus may be the latest and most high-profile victim of the worldwide credit crisis sent world stock markets roiling and children's hopes plummeting today as Wall Street analysts warned that Santa's entire production and distribution network could collapse by the end of the…

Is it possible the financial media played a role in facilitating the alleged $50 billion Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme? An interesting theory by Jon Najarian, CNBC analyst and cofounder of optionMONSTER, contends that they very well may have unwittingly done just that. Madoff, he believes, used media publicity to lure investors to his scheme. As Najarian explained on CNBC's Dec. 22 "Fast Money,"…

You would think from reading yesterday afternoon's report by the Associated Press's Tom Murphy that companies like Toyota, Nissan, and Honda are not that far from finding themselves in the situations US taxpayer bailout recipients General Motors and Chrysler are in. Murphy tries mightily to make the foreign-owned companies' situations look serious, at one point even putting out the howler that…

UPDATE AT END OF POST: White House issues statement concerning "Irresponsible Reporting by New York Times."It's official: the housing and financial crisis gripping the nation is President George W. Bush's fault.So said the New York Times Sunday in a 4900-word, front page hit piece entitled "The Reckoning - Bush's Philosophy Stoked Mortgage Bonfire."And what was this heinous, catastrophic…

Feeling a little bailout fatigue? Tired of the assault on the taxpayer from the federal government to pacify those influenced by the United Auto Workers? CNBC's Larry Kudlow feels your pain. Call this red meat for the troubled anti-bailout soul. Kudlow, now performing a role as a co-host on CNBC's mid-morning program "The Call," blasted the Union Auto Worker, President George W. Bush, Treasury…

It's special treatment for automakers, according to a former airline executive. Gordon Bethune, the former CEO of Continental Airlines (NYSE:CAL), now a CNBC contributor, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Dec. 19 the political process is being substituted for what otherwise should be a bankruptcy judge in determining the fate of the big three automakers. "Wow, what makes them exempt from reality?…

Democrats in Congress say the darndest things, don't they?  My favorite recent example -- 10-term Congresswoman Louise Slaughter of New York talking with liberal radio host Ed Schultz on Tuesday about why she voted in favor of bailing out Detroit (click here for audio) -- SCHULTZ: The Big Three, how did you, you voted in favor of that.SLAUGHTER: I did, because one in 10 jobs in the United States…

Full disclosure, you can take the day off. CBS's "The Early Show" included a statement in its Dec. 18 report on the Big 3 bailout from "auto industry analyst," Dan McGinn. Letting the massive car companies fail "would be like 10 Katrinas hitting America at the same time," McGinn asserted. "The American public understands that." What the report didn't say is that McGinn is also an adviser…

In a softball profile of the liberal Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank on Sunday’s CBS 60 Minutes, anchor Lesley Stahl led with: "Barney Frank has been called the smartest guy in Congress, which is lucky for us, since he works on some of the thorniest issues around. The 14-term, 68-year-old Harvard-educated Democratic congressman from Massachusetts is chairman of the House Financial Services…

As media company after media company fall on hard times, the amount of handwringing within the journalistic community is reaching epic proportions. One point not often noticed, however is that there are many similarities between the American media business and our auto manufacturing industry as Tony Hopfinger points out in an excellent Alaska Dispatch post:There are many reasons for the downturn…

As Americans across the fruited plain worry about their jobs and how they're going to make ends meet during the current recession, Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman showed Sunday morning just how separated from reality and the common man he actually is.Appearing on ABC's "This Week," the New York Times columnist said that he wasn't worried about how expensive president-elect Barack Obama's economic…