Train Keeps Rolling - Evening Edition

Two posts in one day. What a bargain for the price. Keep in mind, however, that you get what you pay for.

A friend of mine (hat tip Chris) clued me into an article in the WSJ on how it might be a good idea for GM to go through Chapter 11. Something along the lines of what I said last Friday. Admittedly, their piece had more details than mine, but I came out with mine first. So take that WSJ.

China, did I mention China?

Troubles continue in China, as they do everywhere.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aOmQD.vNWK_E&refer=home

So much for the old decoupling philosophy. Decoupling, if you do not know, is the general phenomenon in which the interactions between some physical objects (such as elemantary particles) disappear. Okay, that is a physics oriented answer, but it does correlate well to the economics side of things. I know that decoupling, even in economics, means a wide variety of things. In the context I am using it, it means the U.S. can sneeze and Europe will not catch a cold. In other word, despite massive globalization, we remain economically independent. One country fails and the rest do not care. The economist debate is whether the developing countries of the world are decoupled from the U.S., the EU and other developed countries.

For a bit of entertainment value, here is an article from March of this year in The Economist. The article is titled "The Decoupling Debate." The first line is precious - "As America's economy struggles to stay aloft, the developing world is learning to spread its wings." I guess the decoupling debate is over. Unless you have not been reading this blog, The Economist (and the submerging economies, as well as developing economies) had the losing side in that debate.

http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10809267

Yahoooooy

I don't recall the movie but it involved time travel and the guy going back in time was not allowed to say anything that might alter the future. He told his best friend one word before returning to the future and it was "Yahoo." Needless to say, this was before Yahoo existed and his friend was clued into buying into Yahoo when it first came out. The guy in the movie made a fortune. Hopefully he sold...

Yahoo not doing so well these days and their rebuff to the Microsoft offer may have been the proverbial nail in the coffin. Well, at least it was for CEO Yang. Seems he is stepping down. And before you welled up with a tear for the guy, note he is just 40 and a multi-millionaire. For someone who blew a great opportunity for his company, he is doing fine. I wish someone would pay me a lot to make stupid decisions. If my boss is reading this, please note that you do not yet pay me enough for stupid decisions.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aItPLtoIBHW4&refer=home

So where is the market heading tomorrow? If the past few days are any indication on the direction, the answer is BOTH. More ups and downs than, well, I had a non-PG thought in mind but won't go there.

Want to get Depressed?

Of course you do, why else would you be reading this blog. Seriously though, I am looking forward to the day when I can report all is well, full steam ahead. But until then, hey, things could be worse:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/11/16/depression_2009_what_would_it_look_like/


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122670920936930089.html

And with that depressioning thought, good night.