Thursday, October 30, 2008

Devil's Night: Mergers and Acquisitions IV


Devil's Night is here again. The 82nd Airborne is on patrol in Iraq and Afghanistan, not Detroit, though. National Guard volunteers have turned out in civilian clothes (photo above is from 1967, not 2008), apparently sans bayonets, bullets and tear gas.


Latest merger: Delta and Northwest. Northwest will disappear by the end of 2009, with Delta logos taking over at Metro Detroit and elsewhere. Next merger: General Motors and Chrysler. Estimated job loss in Michigan within the next year resulting from this merger -- 25,000-40,000.


But Exxon Mobil again made record profits this year -- isn't that great?


Another sign'o'the times: The Christian Science Monitor will cease its paper edition early in 2009. It will focus exclusively on internet publication.

Happy Devil's Night/Halloween 2008!

Today's Rune: Joy.

6 comments:

JR's Thumbprints said...

I spoke with my brother and he's trying to find work in Michigan before General Motors and Chrysler merge. He's already competing with thousands of other laid-off engineers.

the walking man said...

Erik...it's not that the guard are without uniform or weapon (visible) it is that they volunteered as members of the national guard and have been reported as, not private citizens who happen to belong to the guard, but rather as guard member volunteers. I think that it is a bad precedent. Let them deploy at election sites next week...what would be the difference?

Michigan is on track now to again lead the nation to the upwards of 12% unemployment. I still track it back to fat John Engler...a bush senior clone. What MI goes through because of his policy is what the nation will see because of bush junior's. Compassionate conservatism is coming home to roost.

Johnny Yen said...

I was driving past the Indianapolis airport a few years back (it's on the route to Knoxville, TN, where my parents live), I saw a huge ad for Northwest Airlines, using their current logo, NWA, and I had a huge laugh-- I thought of the band NWA, and what that stood for.

Enemy of the Republic said...

This is ridiculous. Detroit has been getting screwed over since the 70s while new schools are built in Iraq to counter the fact that we killed thousands. What about Michigan? Do you have a lot of guys signing up to the military because there are no jobs?

The guard is in Detroit? I have to check the news.

Look, here's the plan. We capture Bill Gates, convince him to move to Michigan, then I'll move there too. Then we build a new economic structure based on computers with free job training for all laid off workers. Once the state is powerful, we secede from the union and start our own country.

Hey, it's better than the bailout which will screw Michigan and the midwest big.

Charles Gramlich said...

Profits climb
politicians slime
make war not love
death from above

Lana Gramlich said...

I was surprised to learn the other day (although I shouldn't have been,) that the companies who assign our credit ratings typically make 3x the profits of the oil companies. Go figure.