You’re being billed for one anyway! That’s right, the $15B auto bailout seems likely to pass and be signed in to law, using funds for the DOE’s energy efficient vehicle program to instead bail out the very non-energy efficient American auto makers. I am personally opposed to assisting any enterprise that cannot sustain itself in a free market. This decision is not going to save the auto industry, but instead it’s as though the US government has bought some time for the auto makers to show us they can fail again.
The markets reacted positively overnight, with Asian equity indexes rallying and US futures shooting up about 1%. The key number of 900 on the S&P 500 has again been flirted with and will be important to watch throughout the day. The traders I’ve spoken to seem to think that the bail out was already priced in so we’ll see if the optimism lasts today.
