No subject

By JOHN D. STOLL and ALEX P. KELLOGG
Sales by the Big Three U.S. auto makers plunged in January to the lowest 
levels in decades, raising fresh questions about the future of the companies 
and the viability of the government's bailout program.

Chrysler LLC's U.S. sales fell 55% compared with January 2008 to 62,157 
vehicles. General Motors Corp.'s sales slid 49% to 128,198. Ford Motor Co.'s 
dropped 40% to 93,041.

The declines were steeper than anticipated and came against a backdrop of 
sluggish consumer spending for all types of goods. The auto makers blamed 
sharply lower purchases by fleet operators such as car-rental concerns, as 
well as the inability of many consumers to obtain car loans.

Overall, auto makers industrywide sold 656,976 cars and light trucks in 
January, according to Autodata Corp., down 37% from January 2008. It was the 
lowest total since December 1981 -- and the first time U.S. sales were lower 
than in China, where about 790,000 cars were sold last month, according to 
GM.
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Chrysler and GM have a Feb 15 deadline to submit their reorg plans to the 
govt.  Haven't heard anything about any progress in those matters, but 
somehow I don't think the workers are going to roll over on this and accept 
the burden of austerity, given the trillions committed for defense.... 
defense of the bankers.

Beware the ides of February,  Bernanke.
______

Yesterday, WSJ reported auto sales in Spain down 42%; France down 7.9% with 
the French economy shedding 156,000 jobs in the fourth quarter.
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Also of importance, in yesterday's WSJ-- 20 million migrant workers in China 
are estimated to have lost their jobs in the last few months.  This is about 
1/6 of the estimated migrant work force, a mass that really can't return to 
its villages where the avg. farm holding is less than .5 acres.

The Chinese, unofficially since they do not keep official tabs on numbers of 
migrant workers, are worried that this twice-dispossessed force will be a 
source of "volatility" during the current period of economic distress, which 
has been characterized as the most severe since 1989 which led to ..... 
Tiananmen Square.

Anyone interested in the entire article-- if you can't access it, let me 
know and I will email you the link, as I have a subscription.
____

And again yesterday-- Applied Materials,  major supplier of semiconducter 
fabricating equipment,  chip design machinery, will report its first 
quarterly loss since 2003, as sale of its equipment has fallen by about 1/3.

Memory chips, which account for 50% of the overall purchasing of 
semiconductor production machinery, have been slaughtered by massive price 
drops through the continuous oversupply of these chips.

This decline in memory chip profitability, the  price drops, BTW, was not 
originally brought about by a decline in sales, or consumption of the 
cellphones, cameras, etc, but preceded that decline.  For about a year, 
[probably more], prices have been tumbling as the more efficient capacity 
has been brought online has clobbered the rate of profit.