Category: questions

Help: Why Are SUVs More Profitable?

Many discussions of auto company economics include the assertion that SUVs and pickup trucks are more profitable than small cars, and so a shift from the former to the latter – as discussed by Felix Salmon, for example – will not be good for the auto companies, particularly GM and Chrysler (since they are in the news these days). I accept that as a historical statement, but I don’t understand why that is the case.

Textbook micro tells you that price equals marginal cost, so the gross margin on every product is zero; that’s clearly no help here. Profit margins should be higher in product segments with less competition, but basically every manufacturer makes a small, midsize, and large SUV, so I don’t think that’s the explanation.

Continue reading “Help: Why Are SUVs More Profitable?” →

Economics, Politics, Outrage, and the Media

Warning: This is a post about economics and politics; it is a reader response post; but (here’s the warning), it’s also one of those annoying self-referential posts you only see on the Internet discussing a debate among the commentariat.

Last week went something like this:

  1. We learned about the $165 million in retention bonuses at AIG Financial Products.
  2. A lot of people, up to and including President Obama, got mad.
  3. Various commentators, including Ian Bremmer (on Planet Money, around the 14-minute mark) and Joe Nocera, said, in Nocera’s words, “Can we all just calm down a little?”

Their argument is basically that $165 million is small change, the government should be working on bigger issues, and the demonization of AIG is making it harder to solve the real problems.

Continue reading “Economics, Politics, Outrage, and the Media” →

Reader Questions: Nationalization

If I had infinite time, I would respond to all reader questions and suggestions. Unfortunately, I can’t. But I’m hoping to occasionally post some in-depth responses to some of the tougher questions we get.

Chris Uregian, one of our readers, sent us three questions by email. In summary, he thought that we were overlooking some of the problems with nationalization and the reasons why Treasury might be moving more slowly than we would like. I originally answered him in email but we later decided this would be good to post to everyone, and Chris gave us his permission. I am going to copy his questions here and add a response after each one.

Continue reading “Reader Questions: Nationalization” →

Reader Question Roundup, 10/20/08

Besides the questions we get in comments, we got a bunch in email last week because of our op-ed in the Washington Post. (By the way, I’m behind in responding to comments on the blog, so if you see one you can answer, by all means go for it.)

Here are a few.

1. Is mark-to-market accounting part of the problem? Should it be replaced by discounted cash flow valuation?

Continue reading “Reader Question Roundup, 10/20/08” →

Financial Crisis – Reader Questions, 10/6/08

Since launching a week and a half ago, we’ve gotten far more attention and input than we expected. Thank you for your attention, your participation, and your comments. In addition to some of the comments I answered directly on the post in question, I answered some more below. I’ll try to do this periodically. I apologize if I didn’t get to your question; there are just too many to respond to all of them.

Update: I’m restructuring some of the blog to use fewer pages, so I copied the contents of the old page below. To do this I had to copy-and-paste the comments, but they are all still there.

For reasons of space, I’ll have to paraphrase some of the questions.

1. Why not use the bailout money to buy houses outright, which will also prop up the mortgage-backed securities everyone is worried about?

Continue reading “Financial Crisis – Reader Questions, 10/6/08” →