Lex On Chrysler.

Clear, concise and correct.  

Thank God Cheney's No Longer the Veep!

He'd probably be making a fool of himself on this swine flu situation.

A Google Killer?

Okay, probably not. A cheap, misleading headline. Still, it got your attention, didn't it? And attention must be paid.  (via Jack Shafer on Twitter, of all things).  More here.

He's Back.

I may be very late to this development, but one of the great columnists in America is back on the job.  His name is Michael Thomas.  He writes for The New York Observer. He's the best.

The Heart of the Matter.

David Leonhardt has a very good column today which I urge you to read in its entirety.  

Basics of the GDP Report.

Zero Hedge provides a concise summary of today's ugly GDP report.  Ellisblog -- aka Mr. Happy -- accentuates the positive, of which there is virtually none, and so points readers to the increase in the personal savings rate.

The E-Book Revolution.

Does Apple have a Kindle-killer? Says here, they might. My assumption is that Microsoft buys Plastic Logic, so we would have four behemoths in the e-book category: Google (which is digitizing every book, which is beginning to attract attention), Amazon (which combines its bookstore with Kindle and now Stanza distribution), Microsoft (assuming it buys the Plastic Logic Reader) and Apple (which has proven with I-Tunes that it knows how to run a vertically-integrated content operation).

What am I missing?

(Thanks to M. McAndrew for the link).

$328,000 

That's the price tag on the Air Force One Photo Op that downtown New Yorkers mistook for a terrorist attack. The Government already owns thousands -- literally, thousands -- of "beauty shots" of Air Force One. Each more beautiful than the next. You can't make this stuff up. No one would believe it.

What Happens When Tax Revenue Collapses?

Like, say, in New York City. Where tax revenues have fallen by 50% so far this month.  Not 5 percent, 50 percent. (via Clusterstock)

More on the E-Book Revolution.

Amazon, which is working on a bigger Kindle (to forestall the threat posed by the Plastic Logic Reader), announced today that it has acquired Lexcycle, the company that makes the Stanza application for the Apple I-phone.  Stanza is one cool application.

And it's free, which is grand. 

It All Adds Up.

U.S. Government guarantees to backstop the US economy now total roughly $10.4 trillion, according to work done by Zero Hedge and CNN. The GDP of the USA is $14 trillion, more or less.  

Portfolio

Conde-Nast's glossy business magazine, Portfolio, closed up shop today, a victim of bad management and a dreadful economic environment.  It's weird that a Conde-Nast publication would be badly managed, as they manage so many other magazines so well. 

Here is my "customer experience" with Portfolio:

One year ago almost to the day, I subscribed on-line, paid with my Amex card, looked forward to reading the magazine.  I finally got my first copy last week.  I have not received any back issues.

In the intervening twelve months, I received any number of email appeals from Conde-Nast, asking me to subscribe to The New Yorker, Conde-Nast Traveler, various fashion and food books. I responded to each and every one of these emails as follows: "I'd be happy to subscribe to (whatever magazine) if you would please send me copies of the magazine I did subscribe to, which I have never received."  

As I am one of the few remaining souls on the planet who enjoys receiving dead-tree product in my home, you would think that the entire executive team at Conde-Nast would have been positively salivating to help me. Yes, Mr. Ellis, we'll get it straight over, would Fedex be acceptable?   

But I never heard back from anyone at Portfolio or Conde-Nast.  Not once.