The United States has Attention Deficit Disorder

I'm pretty certain that activists are still protesting (and dying) in the streets of Iran, North Korea is still planning to launch missiles toward Hawaii in less than one week, soldiers are dying in Afghanistan and Iraq, Congress is still arguing about health care reform, etc. but for some reason all of this is ignored because Michael Jackson died. So what? Aside from his success with the Jackson 5 (whose songs I remember listening to on my transistor radio while delivering the Washington Post) and his famously successful "Thriller" (from the early 80's) what did Michael Jackson ever do for the world? Nothing. I cannot believe that our media falling over themselves to give us minute-by-minute coverage of this story. Let's get back to what really impacts our lives.

New Republican Party Motto . . .

"Do as I say, not as I do." (courtesy of Governor Sanford and Senator Ensign [among others]).

New Litmus Test for "Too Big to Fail"

In continuing to question the government's involvement in the General Motors bankruptcy, George Will and others are now using market capitalization in their arguments. In a recent column Will recently asked whether Harley Davidson is now too big to fail given the fact that its market capitalization is higher than that of General Motors. Will is being disingenuous. All you have to do is look at the first quarter Forms 10-Q filed by GM and Harley to see the impact GM has on this (and the world's) economy. Harley employs roughly 9,300 people while GM has about 54,000 employees. Neither employment number includes dealerships but since GM dealerships significantly outnumber Harley's the margin gets much larger if you consider them. GM also disclosed in its 10Q that it makes annual purchases from Delphi (which GM spun off in the late 90's) in the range of $6.5 to $10.2 billion. So, you have to wonder about the impact of GM being liquidated on an already weak Delphi.

Anyone who is not George Will can see that GM has a huge impact on the economy and much more than market cap needs to be considered when deciding whether it is worth saving. That said, I'm not arguing for or against the government's bailout (and now ownership); I'm just saying that the decision should not be oversimplified in order to make a point.