One of the ways that Chrysler and GM have set about to recover is by taking the opportunity afforded to them by their bankruptcies to shrink the number of car dealerships to a managable level.  Before the bankruptcy, this reduction in dealerships could only have been managed on a dealer-by-dealer basis through painstaking renegotiations of contracts and would have proven a very expensive undertaking.  In response, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would make it illegal for these bailed out giants to sever those ties.  Should the bill become law, the auto companies will be forced to re-up contracts which they can no longer afford to maintain.  Essentially, Congress is telling the automotive industry how to conduct its business with an eye to keeping voters happy and without acknowledging the very real threat of this legislation: that it could force Chrysler and GM  into bankruptcy again.

Like others, I believe that the people responsible for running America’s automotive industry are also responsible for their companies’ bankruptcies.  Furthermore, I am not overly confident that they can do what it takes to turn the industry around now. However, I have no doubt than they know more about their particular business than Congress does. 

I’ve been criticizing the Obama administration’s healthcare plan recently without really offering an alternative solution.  Rather than continuing to point out the faults within the plan currently being offered up, I’d like to lay out my vision of what a comprehensive, national healthcare plan should look like.  This is a plan that I think will work, particularly because it is driven by the fundamentals that shape any successful free market economy.

The healthcare system I am proposing is designed to fix the elements of our current system that don’t work, and leave the elements that do work with relative effectiveness as they are.  One rarely hears complaints about the quality of U.S. healthcare; rather the complaints are centered around coverage and cost.  And so, I feel that if a healthcare system is to work, it should strive to maintain the level of quality we currently enjoy, while at the same time driving down costs and increasing coverage. 

The end of an industry is always the beginning of its replacement. When the typewriter went out, it was replaced by the personal computer which could do everything the typewriter could do, and more.  The replacement is supposed to improve on the original. 

We are now losing the industry of print journalism to its replacements: the online newspaper, the talk show, the entertainment news industry, and the blogs.  Whereas, print journalism held itself to a high standard of objectivity, investigation, and fact checking, the vast majority of internet writers self-publish their opinion (and sometimes their solicited opinion).  Their views are not expert, nor are they generally supported by interviews with experts.  Instead, what passes for news is either the author’s views unmediated by an editorial staff or even a publishing company, or a biased entertainment news industry whose main concerns are spectacle and the money that spectacle brings. The collapse of print journalism has started a race to the bottom for news reportage.

Ever had a retail experience that made you grind your teeth? The worst part isn’t necessarily the money lost in a bad deal, but the overwhelming feeling of powerlessness that goes along with it. There are, however, many ways to regain the upper hand. Here are a few options.

The Better Business Bureau: The national BBB has an online presence where you can submit consumer complaints. You enter your Zip code onto the home page and they route you to your local BBB. The site is easy to use and yes, it garners results. I had a bad experience with a cellular carrier and submitted a complaint through the Web site. Then I forgot about it. Within two weeks, though, I received phone calls from the office of the president of my cellular phone provider. When they didn’t reach me at home, they called my cell phone (I’d provided both numbers on my BBB complaint). They handled my complaint expediently and I feel much better about the process.

Last year, for the first time, spending on VISA debit cards surpassed spending on VISA credit cards – not just by the total number of transactions, but also by the total number of dollars spent.   With the ubiquity of debit card use and given that there are certain misconceptions about fraud coverage on both debit and credit cards , we, at Wallet Blog, thought consumers should be offered a comparison centered around the level of protection and convenience both types of accounts provide to consumers who have been exposed to fraud.

According to the FTC, consumer liability for fraudulent debit and credit card charges is limited to $50.  VISA and MasterCard, who control 100 percent of the U.S. debit card market, as well as most of the major credit card networks, have gone beyond what the law requires, and mandated that all of their card issuers adhere to a zero percent liability rate for their customers, and that they grant immediate refunds on disputed charges.

Given the recent economic upheavals, as well as the unprecedented manner by which the government is handling these dilemmas, a lot of people are worried about what inflation will do to our savings and investments.  One option that investors have to safeguard against inflation is to put money into Treasure Inflation-Protected Securities or TIPS.

Basically, the principal investment for TIPS is adjusted by the Consumer Price Index (measures inflation) + A Fixed Yield that is unique for each TIPS (recently it has been around 2%).  This means that your investment primarily rises or falls along with inflation.   To use a simplified example, if you put in $100 in a TIPS that has a 2% ‘Fixed Yield’ and the nation goes through 5% of inflation in a year, then the value of the TIPS will raise from $100 to $105 over that year (as a result of the 5% inflation)+ 2% of $105 to a total value of  $107.1. 

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 316-109 Friday to augment the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) program by $2 billion. The additional funding will be transfered from energy stimulus funds.

Fears that the “Cash-for-Clunkers” program would die within days of its initial approval spurred the House to call a vote, an action that came within hours of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s report that the program would soon run out of funding.