Day: October 30, 2008

Categories
401k and Personal Finance

American income and spending growth, saving rate

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on October 30, 2008 by stlplace

Happened to see this from CBS evening news today. The story is titled “Credit Crunch Takes New Face”, and it talks about the credit card crunch for average consumer.

“The average American has nine credit cards and owes more than $16,000, not including mortgages…This decade, real wages went up 4 percent while credit card debt jumped more than 75 percent.”

Savings rate
I also saw this from NBR at PBS, regarding the savings rate:
US: 1%
France and Germany: around 12-13%
Japan: 20%
China: 24%

Gas price
Happened to see the regular unlead gas is $2.29 per gallon at Shell station today. Time to get SUV again?

Categories
Business gadgets

GM, China 3G standard

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Last Updated on October 30, 2008 by stlplace

We all know GM is in trouble financially. Its stock (NYSE:GM) is around $6, a 50 years low. A lot pundits made fun of GM and its stock on TV or the web space. But I have a different feeling for GM. Among many reasons, I think of two:

1) In graduate school I worked in project for an automotive supplier (supplier for the Detroit big three GM, Ford and Chrysler). I went to Detroit and the Renaissance center twice because of the project. I still remember the GM engineer always asks tough technical questions.

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