perki

Drop in Gas Price = $300B Savings

jcrash,

I think the IRS sets the mileage rate for employee personal use. So don't hate the Pharma Co too much.

The IRS increased it, along with the business mileage deduction rate in June, for July through December. perrygambrell.com/news...

The Senate begins a probe into the causes of the financial crisis, with a partial focus on whether 'inherent conflict clouded the judgment' of bond-ratings firms. The bond-ratings industry is also under investigation by the SEC and NY AG.

I wonder, has anything useful ever come out of a "Senate Probe"?

General Electric: Genuine Risk of Collapse?

Your data does not support your conclusions. Granted they blew the earnings target. Granted, refinancing may be more expensive.

The balance sheet shows good liquidity. Looks like a smart company preparing for hard times ahead. As for Gov Guarantees, you have to get them if you can, because you will be competing for capital against companies that have it. Gov guaranteed AAA debt will cost you much less that AAA debt alone. As you correctly pointed out, the ratings are useless now!

WSJ: A Frightening Indictment of Our Society

Well, acting in the best interests of their shareholders is the bank's mission. If this act was not clearly illegal, the banks may have a fudciary responsibility to do this to maximize shareholder value.

A less glaring example of this would be not passing on interest rate reductions and availability of reserves freed by the Fed loaning against marginal mortgages, when that was specifically the intention of the generosity of the Treasury/Fed.

Clearly, the banking system is now a less useful instrument of monetary policy, and congress should investigate the possibility of revoking the guarantee of deposits, which is noting more that a big subsidy for the banking industry.

Yahoo Destroying Shareholder Value, Internet Balance of Power

Though there is some duplication, an AOL + Yahoo ( Yaol? , Yahaol? ) merger would appear to be the only course of action for growth. Absent that, Yahoo has a good technical group, lots of Internet assets and traffic. They just need to identify a few good strategic niche areas from those assets and focus on them, they could remain profitable.

MSFT/Yahoo would have been a disaster from a business point of view, but would have bailed out those shareholders that made an untimely investment in the company.

How Microsoft Could Kill Google on the Web

Well, a radio station in town with a 10% listener market share gives away all of the advertising, but that hasn't changed the income of the top stations in the market. Have you really thought this through?