Professor Elam

Big Three Need Big Plan

Teh Big Three Failed their presentation, big time.   Even though Rick Waggoner started out in Treasury he could nto explain how the $25 B would be spent, or how long GM has or, well, they blew it.

On top of that, all three flew in separate private jets, from Detroit. Bad PR guys.  and when grilled, not one volunteered to sell the jets on the spot, the congressman was not impressed.

We have you do presentations in class so you will not blow the deal, like they did. this is going to make it much more difficult to get a bill passsed.

The Trading Room

Larger universities are constructing so called 'trading rooms' for students.  Actually these are not much more than just a computer lab with say two instead of one computer screen. And the idea is that one can access some sort of database as though fundamental analysis will get a correct answer to stock value. Well in the current environment, one can throw the fundamental and technical analysis out the window.

I would suggest an environment where we could access

CNBC

Fox Business News

Bloomberg

stockcharts.com on a real time computer

As I write i am watching a very good discussion of the auto industry that includes the CEO of Autonation and Kekorian's former rep Jerome York on the GM Board. I think students could benefit from watching such discussions. Seems to me that would be a better us of the tv in the first floor than watching ESPN.

Stossel on the Bailout

I might appoint John Stossel as Minister of Common Sense were I Barack.John examines the on and off again TARP plan.  He is certainly right that injecting uncertainty caused the Depression to be ongoing right to WW II.  And we can see that now. One day Paulson is going to buy mortgages, the next inject capital, and the next wait for the next administration.  As noted in the Depression, the government spends lots of money and nothing gets better.  

Housing prices will have to go to the point that people are buying and selling hosues of their own volition. If the govt is promising to 'guarantee' something to someone who cannot pay their mortgage

the house does not get its payments re adjusted

the occupant does not change his or her behavior

the mortgage holder does not know what to expect

no one wants to buy a house not having an idea what the real or artificial value might be.

And so we sit waiting for some clarity.

You Read it Here First True Blood a Hit!

 

August 27, 2008, I    predicted success for True Blood, HBO's series about vampires coming out of the closet. Sure enough it is avearging 6.8M viewers sunday nights. I observed this was a predictable socinomic trend, people turning to the dark side. While some of you have wondered on the blog  if this was true, well click to read about the success of the series.

Meanwhile, the LIBOR lending rates are down but so are bank stock prices. CITI dropped below $9 today. the Treasury is not having much luck improving things. Expect that the markets will get worse, which is a reflection of attitudes.

Sa A & M Holds Fair

 

Laura Pantrano, Student AffairsDirector and Tracy Hurley, Director College of Businss wer among many from the campus at the Fair held on campus. Take a look at the Photo Album we posted on the left hand side of the blog!

GM = British Leyland

Britain tried the same bailout with British Leyland in the 1970s and 1980s that Congress is considering with GM. Leyland  folded after losing that money. Ford did buy surviving Jaguar and lost half its investment and sold to Tata. Land Rover went to someone else and is still an iffy company.

But the French and Italian experience wtih Renault and Fiat has been much better. No one is calling all the tax breaks and free infrastructure extended to foreign automakers in the southern US  a bailout or even an inducement. I think the Dems will extend help to GM, the UAW has just sent too much money to the Dems as they lost presidential elections, now that they have won one, I cannot imagine the UAW not insisting on calling in their marker so to speak.

And we have so many social safety nets, the cost of unemployment payments, etc to all those losing their jobs now right down to Mr. Goodwrench in Anywhere Texas is such that i actually favor a loan at this time.

Recommended - Transsiberian

Okay don't take my word for it, try the Roger Ebert review.

Transsiberian is the story of four people on a train. But this is an unusual train, the longest ride in the world for eight days from Beijing to Moscow. It is what Hitchcock would be making were he still alive and that is high praise indeed. which is to say no car chases or things that go boom, the suspense is mental and induced, not obvious and external.  For me a big part of the movie is literally the experience of being on this train. The Lithuanian Film Group is credited with the work on the movie and it is clear they know their subject. Russia is a land of harsh climate and hard on its people, everyone looks old and tired, the victims of a hard life. The scenes of the train winding through miles of frozen Siberia indeed take us to another place.  And when her husband does not get back on the train, we feel the utter isolation of an ordinary person lost in a very strange land.

At the Chinese Russia border the undercarriages (wheels) of the trains have to be switched. The Russian and Chinese track gauges are three inches different, gee what a difference three inches makes. This lack of coordination required an entire sequence of changing the wheels on the train, and enigines of course, every time the border is crossed.

so for something completely different, try Transsiberain, and be glad we live in San Antonio.

The Real State of the Nation

7:10 AM Sunday Nov 16 Television Ad

If your anti depressant just isn't enough, consider adding ABILIFY!  In cases of suicide thoughts....

Well there you have it, things are already so bad, one anti depressant just won't do!   Worried Americans already on their first anti deprewssant,  are urged to add a second drug to their system!  I used the actual name  of the drug but of course am not suggesting or recommending drugging one self as a solution.

But it says volumes about the mental state of a lot of people that such an ad could be considered much less air, and at 7 AM Sunday morning!  We would suggest a better diet, exercise to relieve stress and a positive mental attitude along with being grateful for good health and a wonderful country to live in. 

Loading your system up with drugs is never a good idea, and the suggestion that additional drugs should be added is well, just nuts to us.

DISD issues Fake Social Security Numbers

We will be studying advanced auditing next  semester. We need go no further than the Dallas Indpenedent School District to see example after example of the failure of good internal control, and the result.

Now we find that DISD has issued fake social security numbers.

DISD did this to put foreign workers on the payroll sort of an instant I 9 I guess. This is after a credit card scandal in which thousands of cards were issued with no subsequent oversight. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were misspent.  Then the district came up short $84 Million this fall, and laid 1200 workers off including over 600 teachers. Texas Education Agency is investigating, they might as well set up a permanent office there.

Amazingly the Superintendent is still on the job.

San Antonio Unemployment

Looks like 15,000 moer unemplolyed since April, the slow down is starting to hit San Antonio.

However that is up from 3.6 to 5.0%, so we are in much better shape than the national stats.