Car

Today on Ellen, Hillary Clinton was asked by a 5-year-old about not driving a car in nearly two decades.

Two extreme responses to the disrupter known as Uber. In France, the solution is to just say Non.  As David Jolly and Mark Scott of the New York Times report:

As Saudi Arabia undergoes its slow process of change, the matter of women and motor vehicles remains crucial. On October 24, Saudi women were summoned by a social media campaign to take to the roads in cars they own, typically, but do not drive.

As anyone who has visited New York City knows, getting a taxicab in the city can prove very, very difficult. And finding a driver that speaks English, has working air conditioning, will let a visitor pay by credit card, and knows directions to major landmarks can be even harder. That’s why it’s…

Still warm, anyway.  But struggling.  As Tim Higgins of Bloomberg reports, the company:

Two car companies – Toyota and GM – some of whose vehicles are having engineering problems serious enough to be a safety risk and require massive recalls.  One is investigated by Congress and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration while the other is not … until very recently, that is.…

Is to stiff the taxpayers. Not to mention the bondholders. As Todd Spangler of the Detroit Free Press reports:

From the White House pool report:

The American taxpayers stand to lose billions as General Motors today announced a plan to buy back 40 percent of the company owned by the federal government.

Household debt jumped once again to $2.7 trillion, according to the New York Fed. "[T]he Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced that in the third quarter, non-real estate household debt jumped 2.3 percent to $2.7 trillion," reports the fed. "The increase was due to a boost in student loans ($42…

The auto bailout debate, already a triumph of narrative over reality, took another turn for the absurd last week as both presidential campaigns exchanged salvos over what amounted to a misunderstanding about Chrysler's plan to build Jeeps in China. The dust-up began when the Romney campaign…

Bill Clinton revealed at a campaign rally today that President Barack Obama's feeling were hurt over Mitt Romney's ad suggesting Jeep might move some of its production facilities overseas:

The NBC affiliate in Grand Rapids filed this report on the stimulus-receiving battery company, LG Chem: 

Former Obama administration official Steven Rattner said on MSNBC that Jennifer Granholm "must have had some medications or something in her system" when she addressed the Democratic convention last month:

Today is the first day of the Democratic convention in Charlotte. Coincidentally, GM, the embattled car company that was bailed out by the federal government, has some good news to report.

Earlier today on the campaign trail, Vice President Joe Biden said, "I'd trade being vice-president in a heartbeat for having won Daytona." The comment was made to an owner of a stock car that won Daytona. Via the pool report: 

Seems that American's youth's long love affair with the automobile may be over:

The Detroit Free Press reports that “General Motors made $1 billion in the first quarter, beating analysts’ expectations before being dragged down by a special accounting-related $590-million charge in struggling Europe.”

So now they have gone and politicized the Super Bowl ads. Have they no shame?

Just to close the loop on President Obama’s claim that GM is “now making a profit for the first time in decades,” reader D.B. sent along GM profit-loss statements from 1990 to 2000. The tally: GM had mounting net losses in 1990, 1991, and 1992. In 1993 they turned things around, posting a net…

It seems entirely possible that the only thing keeping consumers away from the Chevy Volt is its price point. It’s basically a $41,000 Honda Civic with better mpg, a quieter ride, and an upgraded interior. So the big brains at GM have decided to address the price issue by making a more expensive…