Let’s play Congressional Multiple Choice with Goldman Sachs. This week, helpful members of Congress are going to ask the gentlemen from Goldman, who were shorting the bejesus out of the mortgage market after the company feared the whole house of subprime cards was coming down. It will be something like: Tell us Goldman CEO Lloyd …
The prospect of a merger between United Airlines and US Airways sent share prices of both airlines up this morning. Investors are reasoning that the combined carrier will be able to reduce capacity—3% nationally according to one analyst—and thus raise prices. There’s too much capacity in the U.S., so none of the carriers can charge …
Yesterday, in writing about Spirit Air’s plan to charge a fee for carry-on bags, I concluded by joking that pay toilets were next. Ha-ha. But then I got an email from SmarterTravel alerting me that Ryanair, the king of cheapo European carriers, was already working on exactly that. The carrier actually plans to install pay toilets on …
In its seemingly unending quest to tick off as many of its customers as often as possible, the airline industry has added another chapter: Spirit Air announced it will charge passengers for CARRY-ON bags. You get the first one on board for free, assuming it fits under the seat in front of you. The fee for the second will be as high as …
“How did you like it?” Bob Lutz asks me. It, in this case, is Chevrolet’s Volt, the electric –drive vehicle that the company is introducing this year. And this is a loaded question, since Lutz is GM’s soon-to-retire vice chairman, a Detroit design deity who put style back into GM’s line, and the ultimate car nut. Volt is …
It’s a snow day here in New York City, with a foot and a half of the white stuff muffling the traffic noise and frosting the trees in my uptown neighborhood. Downtown on Wall Street there’s snow too, but a slightly different story: Greece is being buried by traders. They have been betting big money that the Aegean nation, familiar to …
The big deal of the day, at least around Curious Capitalist HQ, is Walgreens proposed $1.08 billion buyout of Duane Reade, which is the home town pharmacy chain. It’s another lesson in real estate. Duane Reade was a ratty little downtown cut-price operation until management decided that the key to drug retailing isn’t …
