Business

Senior man using magnifying glass while reading document at wooden table indoors, closeup

The ChatGPT Consumer Protection Agency

The focus on AI is overwhelmingly how artificial intelligence will change work. Virtually no attention has been paid to the technology’s potential to become the most powerful consumer protection tool ever created.
Thank you ChatGPT for sparing me a $720 subscription headache.

Read More
The traditional Chinese game Dou Shu Qi is a Chess Jungle

SAIC, China’s Humiliation of GM & Capitalist Greed

Ignorance is bliss. Otherwise, more Americans might be alarmed to learn how General Motors became dependent on the state-controlled Chinese automaker it once taught to build world-class vehicles.

Read More
Crushed Small Car Damaged in Traffic Accident

Class Privilege and America’s Auto Safety Divide 

For decades, federal regulators and elected officials have known that vehicle weight and crash incompatibility can determine who lives and who dies. Yet they have allowed the automotive arms race to escalate, permitting manufacturers to sell increasingly massive vehicles without adequately accounting for the danger those vehicles impose on everyone else.

Read More
Woman destroying house of playing cards on black background, closeup

Ken Griffin and the AI Greater Fool Theory

Today’s “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” Wall Street Journal story: The guy who openly called AI-generated market analysis “garbage” just stepped in to buy the leveraged stock portfolio of Silicon Valley’s favorite AI oracle after margin calls forced a sale.

Read More
Presidential Seal on podium in front of the South Portico of the White House, the Truman Balcony, in Washington, DC on May 7, 2007, in preparation for the visit of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and President George W. Bush

GM: Where U.S. Presidents Go to Sully Themselves

Perhaps Mary Barra deserves her nearly $30 million annual compensation after all. Name another CEO who has successfully played two U.S. presidents to her company’s advantage.

Read More
Friends roasting tasty marshmallows over bonfire outdoors, closeup

The CEO Marshmallow Test

Nearly 60 years ago, Stanford researchers asked children to choose between one marshmallow now or two later.
Indications are that most CEOs of American companies would have grabbed the first marshmallow.
Tesla’s Elon Musk, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, and Amazon’s Andy Jassy are among the rare U.S. business leaders managing their companies with long-term horizons.

Read More
BUsinessman stealing metal safe from bank

CEOs and the $4.8T Looting of Corporate America

Corporate America has spent more than $4.8 trillion buying back its own stock since 2018.
CEOs say buybacks signal confidence because they believe their companies’ shares are undervalued.
Then why are so many executives selling their own stock while their companies are buying it?

Read More
Indianapolis - Circa August 2021: Ford F-Series Truck display at a dealership. Ford sells traditional gasoline, electric and hybrid SUV models.

Ford, the UAW, and a ‘Stolen’ $1.95 Cookie

Veteran automotive journalist Phoebe Wall Howard recently uncovered the disheartening story of an experienced Ford factory electrician who was fired after being falsely accused of stealing a $1.95 cookie from the plant commissary. Howard’s reporting burst my bubble about Ford’s leadership and reaffirmed my dim view of the UAW.
Howard’s prodigious reporting deserves amplification.

Read More
Plainfield - October 1, 2023: Ford Mach-E Mustang SUV display. Ford offers the Mach-E in Select, Premium, or GT models.

The Marketing Tragedy of Ford’s Mustang Mach-E

Ford’s Mexican-made Mustang Mach-E has muscled its way big time onto the roads of my west Los Angeles neighborhood. For years I rarely saw the vehicle, which first went on sale in December 2020, but these days they’re everywhere, in some pretty sweet color schemes, I must add. I saw…

Read More