There are a lot of threads to tie together in today’s reporting of news in the auto sector.
General Motors has reported a third-quarter loss of $1.15 billion. But all indications are that car sales continue to outpace expectations in the United States.  Meanwhile, there are conflicting stories that GM both plans to pay back [...]

An article in the National Post suggests General Motors may look to divert some of its bailout money to Europe in the wake of a chill in German government support for subsidies. Talk of using taxpayer money to benefit workers in other countries is sure to raise ire, especially in the United States where the [...]

You could see this one coming given the humiliating circumstances under which the German Chancellor learned that GM was pulling out of the Magna deal.
The BBC is now reporting that Germany will give General Motors no aid to restructure it’s business. That’s 4.5 Billion Euros they now need to come up with.
Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle [...]

I have been reading press accounts of the GM decision to back out of the Opel/Vauxhall sale to the Magna/Sberbank consortium from various countries. There are a lot of different perspectives on this event in the U.S., Belgium, Spain, Germany, Russia, the U.K and elsewhere, because a lot of players are involved.
The conclusion I [...]

The sale to Canadian auto parts maker Magna International and its partner, Russian lender Sberbank is off. With bankruptcy now behind it, General Motors now feels confident it can proceed with Opel under the GM umbrella.
From the GM press release:
Given an improving business environment for GM over the past few months, and the importance of [...]

Paul Krugman has noticed that trade has absolutely collapsed with this economic downturn. It is worse than the Great Depression.
Question: is this aiding global re-balancing?
Here are two data points from Europe today which lead to that question.
The BBC reports on Germany:
Germany’s trade surplus fell 43% in August after a drop in exports from Europe’s biggest [...]

Below is a Market Watch video showing what ordinary Germans think heading into the general election.  Right now it’s looking like a right of center government of the CDU/CSU/FDP.  But, it will be down to the wire. Likely, there will be little change in economic policy, regardless of the result.

Related articles
Merkel Votes Scarce in Eastern [...]

Now that it has emerged from bankruptcy and received free money from the Federal Government, General Motors is seriously thinking about keeping Opel by raising capital.  The German government has been urging GM to make a decision about the bids it received for GM Europe from Magna, the Germans’ preferred bidder. But, the company has [...]

The list of countries with deflation is growing by the month.  We have Spain, Switzerland, Britain, Ireland.  Now add Germany.
German consumer prices fell for the first time in 22 years in July, official figures have shown.
Prices fell 0.6% in July from a year earlier – the first fall since March 1987, when they declined by [...]

Alcohol used to seen as a recession-proof good. This downturn is changing that thinking as evidence of cutbacks in spending, consumption, and on-premise drinking abound.  Back in the Spring of 2008, Nielsen conducted a bunch of surveys to see how the economy was affecting the consumption of wine and spirits.  The answer then was it [...]