Quotes of the day

I think Bernanke tends to treat [Ron] Paul's questions as if he were a first-year econ student, which is probably correct.--Eddy Elfenbein

Instead of creating a society that harnesses the powerful force of capitalism to benefit us all, which resulted in the development of light bulbs, automobiles and computers, we have created a system in which the spirit of innovation has been hijacked to find better ways to cheat society for personal gain. We have to face the reality that regulators alone can never keep ahead of the cheaters. An unfortunate aspect of human nature is that some people will always try (and succeed) at "gaming" the system, no matter how prescient and attentive our regulators.--Dylan Ratigan

At the end of 1998, GM's market capitalization was $46 billion and Ford's was $71 billion. Today both firms have negligible value, with share prices in the low single digits. Both are facing imminent bankruptcy and delisting from the major stock exchanges. Along with management, the companies' unions and even their regulators in Washington may have their own culpability, a topic that merits its own separate discussion. Yet one can only imagine how the $465 billion [in capital destroyed by F & GM] could have been used better -- for instance, GM and Ford could have closed their own facilities and acquired all of the shares of Honda, Toyota, Nissan and Volkswagen.--Daniel Yermack