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Footnoted points out that GM says it straight in simple in a latest SEC filing: Don't buy GM shares, it is going to zero.

GM management has noticed the continuing high trading volume in GM’s common stock at prices in excess of $1. GM management continues to remind investors of its strong belief that there will be no value for the common stockholders in the bankruptcy liquidation process, even under the most optimistic of scenarios. Stockholders of a company in chapter 11 generally receive value only if all claims of the company’s secured and unsecured creditors are fully satisfied. In this case, GM management strongly believes all such claims will not be fully satisfied, leading to its conclusion that GM common stock will have no value.

As Footnoted points out, it is nice to see honesty, but it's funny when you tell the shareholders you work for that their stake is worthless. I guess that's akin to saying "We don't work for you anymore". Which, fair enough, is true.

Great article in Wired Magazine on Google's internal economics. Worth a read for those who wish to learn what Googlenomics is. But hidden in the end of the article, we found an interesting idea for solving current gluts in autos or housing. Keep in mind Google's core genius, after its search technology, is its auction technlogy for ads, which is extremely efficient at getting adspace sold at the best price.

Can the rest of the world be far behind? Although Eric Schmidt doesn't think it will happen as quickly as some believe, he does think that Google-style auctions are applicable to all sorts of transactions. The solution to the glut in auto inventory? Put the entire supply of unsold cars up for bid. That'll clear out the lot. Housing, too: "People use auctions now in cases of distress, like auctioning a house when there are no buyers," Schmidt says. "But you can imagine a situation in which it was a normal and routine way of doing things."

Problem is, homeowners and automakers are likely to balk at the prices they might receive if a sudden, giant auction were held. The truth can hurt. But clearing the glut of housing and arguably autos (there is also the problem of production capacity here), could set a nice floor for prices, even if it's a floor at a much sharper, lower pricing level than we can even imagine right now.

Interesting Economist article regarding Fiat's CEO Sergio Marchionne and his audacious attempt to take advantage of US automakers' troubles and create a cross-border automotive powerhouse, Fiat-Chrysler-Opel. Why? After turning around Fiat, his main concern is that in the future, he believes, any high volume auto maker will need to be selling 5.5m or more vehicles per year. Thus while Fiat is in good shape, going forward it's a question of either growing fast or being eaten.

Mr Marchionne thinks that even if what he is trying to do appears risky, it beats the alternatives. The corporate troubleshooter, who, since 2004, has been responsible for a highly successful turnaround at Fiat, has reached the conclusion that volume carmakers will in future need to sell at least 5.5m vehicles a year to be viable. He reckons that only those firms, such as Volkswagen and Toyota, which can extract sales of around a million a year from each of a handful of expensively-developed platforms (these are a car’s architectural underpinnings, on which a variety of models can be based) can hope to be consistently profitable. With just over 2m sales last year, Fiat is too small to get there on its own. The choice, he believes, is a stark one: Fiat must be either a nimble hunter or wait to be gobbled up by someone else.