Some new taxi cab services sprung up awhile back in Tampa, Florida. They use electric vehicles and don’t charge for the rides. The cabs are wrapped in ads and they only accept tips. The transportation commission licenses (and limits) vehicles for hire but there rides were free so they escaped regulation. Naturally the taxi drivers for hire didn’t like the competition.

But that’s all changed since the transportation commission recently ruled that the free cabs are actually for hire. So they need licenses. Except, but the way, there aren’t any available. So a new, seemingly well liked, transportation system has been shut down due to artificial limits set by government regulation. Luckily, Hillsborough county seems to be alone with it’s roots in the last century and other nearby counties are accepting the electric cabs.

1. Sweden had only 4 to 6 big banks (big relative to their economy)

2. The government owned 80% of one of the largest banks even before the crisis began.

3. When Sweden poured money into the bank they acted as the owner.

4. The owner of another of those big banks didn’t (or couldn’t) put any more money into it. They literally forced the government to take the bank, the government didn’t want it.

5. These were the only two banks nationalized, the one the government already owned and the one they were forced to take. None of the other big banks were nationalized.

The vide chairman does think nationalizing some banks is a good idea, but Sweden doesn’t provide an example for us to follow.

Planet Money also has a good post about why we can’t have a healthy debate about nationalizing banks.

So, if I can report on NPR that someone told me the government is considering nationalization (I’m not, by the way. Nobody has told me that), then those banks might collapse immediately and the government would have no choice. They’d have to nationalize.

They’ve been devaluing their own newspaper product, cutting back on what their product delivers and removing any unique attributes. They’ve targeted profits as their metric and decided to cut back the product to meet their targets rather then try to build income.

But more importantly, it’s the debt of a leveraged buyout that killed the business. They borrowed money to buy the company and incurred a bunch on debt. Absolutely nothing was added to the product in return for that debt.

Most of the company’s debt comes from the complex transaction in which the company was taken private, with employee ownership, by real estate mogul Sam Zell last year.

And then there’s this…

Tribune’s debt was so outsized and so disproportional to its cash flow compared to these other companies that it can be the sore thumb sticking out rather than an example of the industry…

Seems to be right in line with our current financial predicament. You can only grow through debt for so long, then people realize it’s all fake, with no value was added, and the bill comes due.

Perhaps they need to read Andy Ihnatko and get a clue as to how to differentiate and add value to their product.

Wells Fargo obviously wasn’t shocked, the expect to absorb $74 billion in losses and John Stumpf, Wells Fargo’s chief executive, said:

Wachovia’s third-quarter results were very much in line with our expectations

“Almost no one expected what was coming. It’s not fair to blame us for not predicting the unthinkable.“— Daniel H. Mudd, former chief executive, Fannie Mae

This seems to be a common refrain from or government these days.No one could have predicted 9/11. No one could have predicted the Iraqi insurgency. No one could have foreseen the levies failing during Katrina. Unless there’s someone named “No One” that these people are referring to there are people who could see the potential for all of them. It’s just they were ignored because they were considered idiots.

In the case of the mortgage crisis, the short term profits blinded people to the long term impact. From the article:

Disregarding warnings from his managers that lenders were making too many loans that would never be repaid, he steered Fannie into more treacherous corners of the mortgage market, according to executives.

Sounds like there were people there who saw the problem, but they were ignored because Mr. Mudd was afraid of losing business. The only thing that can be said in his defense is he wasn’y the only one blinded by short term profits.

And they wonder why readership is down? Why would I want a local paper? Local news or a local slant on news seems like an obvious answer. Their website (typically indicating tomorrow’s print paper) lead article is about the bail out. They’ve reprinted the AP feed. They do have a picture of the local representative. Nowhere do they provide how the local reps voted on the bill. They also failed to provide the info for the Senate vote. Seems easy enough to find.

I’ve no reason to go to their website. No local slant, no local facts. I can get more info elsewhere.