Times past
Nov. 15th, 2005 08:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksI've been using one of the newer rowing machines in the gym, partly because Fitness First is hopeless and one of the older-style rowing machines has had a busted display for three weeks.
Anyway, this is by-the-by, since its only relevant implication is that I have a different TV in my eyeline, so I am watching BBC1 rather than Channel Four. And yesterday on one of these ghastly mid-morning shows, a vaguely familiar face appeared. After a few moments (I can't hear the sound while I am on the rower) I realized that it was Giles Brandreth. However, in looks he now resembles a cross between John Fortune and John Dodds. Most disconcerting.
++++
Will General Motors go bust? Should this have fun implications for the credit default swap market? We may soon find out. Anyone who sold five years' protection for $10m at the start of the year (price $236,000) is probably feeling pretty sick at the price at the moment ($2m).
It seems obvious that the only way out of the pensions and health insurance morass created by the US motor industry is for the big guys to go broke, just as the full-cost airlines have been doing (in some cases, with monotonous regulatory) for many years. The Chapter 11 laws in the US are far too generous to companies which have, basically, been run by financial morons. They exist for political pork-barrel reasons that belie any claims the US has to be a bastion of "free enterprise" (for which, read, "free enterprise so long as it does not cost my constituency its main provider of jobs"). But, while the laws are there, you might as well use them.
For United Airways read General Motors, and for SouthWest Airlines, read Kia.
Fun times ahead.
Anyway, this is by-the-by, since its only relevant implication is that I have a different TV in my eyeline, so I am watching BBC1 rather than Channel Four. And yesterday on one of these ghastly mid-morning shows, a vaguely familiar face appeared. After a few moments (I can't hear the sound while I am on the rower) I realized that it was Giles Brandreth. However, in looks he now resembles a cross between John Fortune and John Dodds. Most disconcerting.
++++
Will General Motors go bust? Should this have fun implications for the credit default swap market? We may soon find out. Anyone who sold five years' protection for $10m at the start of the year (price $236,000) is probably feeling pretty sick at the price at the moment ($2m).
It seems obvious that the only way out of the pensions and health insurance morass created by the US motor industry is for the big guys to go broke, just as the full-cost airlines have been doing (in some cases, with monotonous regulatory) for many years. The Chapter 11 laws in the US are far too generous to companies which have, basically, been run by financial morons. They exist for political pork-barrel reasons that belie any claims the US has to be a bastion of "free enterprise" (for which, read, "free enterprise so long as it does not cost my constituency its main provider of jobs"). But, while the laws are there, you might as well use them.
For United Airways read General Motors, and for SouthWest Airlines, read Kia.
Fun times ahead.
