York was called many things during those times

Moody's said GM's current stash of $24 billion in cash and $7 billion more in quickly accessible credit "affords the company with ample flexibility to contend with market downturns and other operational stress."Good thing, because the past decade showed how rapidly a huge auto company can burn through cash when it becomes too smug about its own rosy projections and too slow to respond when the house is on fire.In January 2006, the late Jerry York — who was then stirring the pot at GM on behalf of activist investor Kirk Kerkorian — said GM was burning through cash at the rate of $24 million a day and predicted it would run out in about 1,000 days.

York was called many things during those times, but nobody ever accused him of being bad at counting. GM collapsed into the arms of U.S. government 1,074 days later.York had urged several moves to stem the bleeding,Fashion Dresses including cutting the shareholder dividend in half. Unbelievably in retrospect, GM had the highest ratio of dividend to stock price of any company in the Standard & Poor's 500 index, until it finally did slash the dividend a month after York's big 2006 speech.Ominous warnings about GM's financial assumptions had come years earlier from others, including my Free Press colleague Susan Tompor.

In a 2002 column, two years after the dot-com bust had ushered in a bear market for stocks, Tompor pointed out that GM was still assuming a rosy 10% return on its pension fund assets — even though investment guru Warren Buffett had publicly raised a red flag about such high expectations.General Electric had already cut its pension fund return forecast to 8.5%, but GM didn't budge until long after most other companies got more conservative.I resurrect this unpleasant history not to throw cold water on the new GM's impressive comeback, but merely to caution about the devious way success has of going to one's head.

This is my favorite article:The Great Unknown

Chrysler prepares for IPO

Product recalls also harm our reputation and may cause consumers to question the safety or reliability of our products. For example, we estimate that we will incur costs of $151 million in connection with a voluntary safety recall for the 1993-1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee and the 2002-2007 Jeep Liberty and a customer satisfaction action for the 1999-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee, both of which we initiated following a recall request from NHTSA related to the risk of fuel tank fire from rear impact collisions.

Chrysler shares haven't been publicly traded since 1998, when the company merged with Daimler. The automaker, based in Auburn Hills, Mich., is majority owned by Italian automaker Fiat.The shares that would be sold are owned by a United Auto Workers-run trust that pays the health-care costs for about 130,000 blue-collar Chrysler retirees. The trust owns a 41.5 percent stake in Chrysler and would get all of the proceeds from an IPO.

Sergio Marchionne, chief executive of both Fiat and Chrysler, has said he wants to buy up the UAW's shares and combine Fiat and Chrysler. But Fiat and the trust have been unable to agree on a price. The trust has set the value of the stake at $4.27 billion, while Fiat says it's worth $1.75 billion.At the trust's request, Chrysler filed the IPO paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Monday. But Chrysler emphasized that the shares may never be publicly sold. The two sides could still reach an agreement on the price of the shares without an IPO.

The trust did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment. But it probably calculated that its shares are growing in value as Chrysler's sales and profits improve with the economy. Chrysler reported its eighth-straight quarterly profit in the April-June period, with net income up 16 percent to $507 million.In its filing, the company also warned that the IPO could hurt Fiat's alliance with Chrysler. Fiat owns 58.5 percent of Chrysler.

This is my favorite article:Braava the new floor-mopping robot from iRobot

Summers' exit a change of seasons for EM currencies

The surprise withdrawal of Federal Reserve Chairman candidate Lawrence Summers will likely give risk-on trades, such as battered emerging market currencies, a boost, analysts say."Summers' removal means Janet Yellen is a near certainty. Her dovish-ness will be highly supportive to emerging market currencies and you can already see that in early trade," said Evan Lucas, market strategist at IG. The rupee strengthened on the news in early Asian trade on Monday opening over 1 percent higher from Friday's levels.

Summers, who had been seen as President Barack Obama's preferred choice, officially withdrew his name for consideration to succeed Fed chair Ben Bernanke, on Sunday. Many industry watchers had been nervous about the prospect of Summers taking the role due to his hawkish economic views and fiery temperament. With dovish Fed vice-chair Janet Yellen back in the running, risk-on trades are likely to get a boost, analysts say. And indeed, the world's largest fixed income investor PIMCO, tweeted on Monday that According to Steven Englander, global head of G10 FX Strategy at CitiFX, currencies from countries with larger current account deficits are in line for a boost now Summers has been removed from the running.

"The main buying opportunities are probably high current account deficit emerging markets, Aussie dollar and the yen," he said."In that vein, Lawrence Summers' withdrawal from next Fed Chairperson race leaves the field open for Fed Vice-Chair Yellen and USD on the back foot," said Vishnu Varathan, market economist, at Mizuho bank. "Overall, it looks like a 'risk on' bet with the AUD's knee-jerk jump as proof of the pudding," he added, referring to strength in the Aussie dollar, which rallied roughly 0.8 percent by mid-morning in Australia on Monday.

This is my favorite article:Uni-cycling bikers are prone

Samuel Adams Beer Creator Becomes Billionaire

The companies may also target diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, Crooke and Scangos said. Biogen had been developing a drug for ALS, dexpramipexole, that failed to show any benefit earlier this year in the last stage of clinical trials."Biogen has a pretty aggressive program to understand more about the genetic causes of ALS," Scangos said. One part of that, an academic group, is "already generating interesting insights into the biology and some potential targets we would hope to be able to take forward."

The partnership is the first for Isis around an entire therapeutic area, Crooke said. The company doesn't have a sales force, preferring to make partnerships with larger drugmakers to run late-stage clinical studies and to market its medicines. Its first approved drug, Kynamro, for a rare cholesterol disorder, is marketed by Sanofi (SAN)'s Genzyme unit."This is the next step in the evolution of our partnering strategy," Crooke said. "It makes a lot of sense for us; what we need is to make sure our partners understand our technology, are ready for the drugs when they're ready for them, and that there are people in the organizations we can trust to do a good job with our assets."

Samuel Adams beer creator Jim Koch has reportedly become a billionaire, as sales of the popular beer have helpe Boston Beer Co. shares double in the past year. According to Bloomberg, shares of the company reached a record high on Friday, while overall beer sales have become stale.Sam Adams is one of the bright spots of the U.S. beer market. Reports said total American beer sales fell 2 percent in the first half of 2013, while the craft brew segment grew 15 percent. Boston Beer's sales increased more than 17 percent during the same period.

This is my favorite article:Stricter visa rules driving away medical tourism from India

In Hawaii, firms like longtime employer mandate

"For most employers, it really isn't worth it," said Andy Anderson, who leads the health division at the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius in Chicago. "They want to keep their employees."UPS announced this summer that it would no longer offer coverage to workers' better halves who could get insurance through their own employers. UPS blamed the move in part on increased costs under Obamacare. Whether it's driven by the health care law or just an effort to cut health costs, it's a move that some other firms have made or are considering as well.If you don't like your insurance, can you change it?

If your employer doesn't offer decent, affordable insurance, you may have new options.The basic standard for good insurance under Obamacare is that the health plan will pay at least 60 percent of medical expenses. Most large employer plans now more than meet that measure, but there are notable exceptions among big businesses, too, especially in the restaurant, hospitality and retail industries.And insurance is "affordable," according to the Affordable Care Act, if you can buy it for less than 9.5 percent of your taxable income. But what's affordable under the ACA may not be affordable by other lights. A person with adjustable income of $40,000 could pay up to $3,800 a year, or about $315 per month.

Next year, people who don't have access to affordable insurance can go into the exchanges and seek an income-based subsidy. Employers have to send out a notice this fall that will help workers know whether that's an option.Unlike its 49 counterparts, Hawaii has been living with a strict employer mandate for nearly 40 years. And as businesses nationwide celebrate a one-year delay in the similar Obamacare requirement that they cover workers, supporters of Hawaii's law say theirs is proof that the rest of the country could adjust — and even learn to like it.

This is my favorite article:Rats and Machines Enlisted to Test Sweeteners for Us

Not making more loans

JPMorgan, which already restricted student loans to existing Chase bank customers, will stop accepting applications for private student loans on October 12, at the end of the peak borrowing season for this school year, according to a memo from the company to colleges that was reviewed by Reuters on Thursday. Final loan disbursements are expected before March 15, 2014."We just don't see this as a market that we can significantly grow," said Thasunda Duckett, chief executive for auto and student loans at Chase, in an interview.

Not making more loans "puts us in a position to redeploy those resources, as well as focus on our No. 1 priority, which is getting the regulatory control environment strengthened," Duckett said.JPMorgan's decision comes after Congress acted in mid-2010 to bypass the banks and have the government lend directly to students. The federal government now issues 93 percent of student loans. Banks and other private lenders have also come under pressure from regulators and politicians to offer more flexible repayment terms on student loans.

JPMorgan's portfolio has been shrinking by roughly $1 billion to $2 billion a year since then, and is a small fraction of its assets. The company's student loan portfolio at the end of June held $11 billion - less than 0.5 percent - of its $2.44 trillion of assets. Last year, Chase made education loans to 12,500 people for a total of about $200 million.Hundreds of thousands of students, however, still look to private lenders when they have exhausted their federal borrowing limit. Richard Hunt, president of the Consumer Bankers Association, said decisions like JPMorgan's show that the government's direct lending policies are leading to "less competition in the marketplace."

This is my favorite article:Are These Weird Kitchen Gadgets Worth

The euro-dollar traded at 1.316

In the US, the Dow gave up much of a 120 points intra-day rally as Syrian fears escalated and markets still squeezed out small gains supported by positive economic data on Tuesday. European shares closed down in choppy trade and back home, our market got clobbered yesterday as the four-day rally came to a grinding halt wiping out USD 25 billion in market cap.Meanwhile, Asian markets slipped in early trade today.In the currency space, the dollar hit a six week high after stronger-than-expected US economic data bolstered expectations the Federal Reserve will start scaling back stimulus this month.

The euro-dollar traded at 1.316 and the yen stood at 99.5/USD. The rupee lost ground breaching the 68-per-dollar mark on Tuesday, before RBI intervention lifted the currency off the day's lows.In commodities, crude prices rose as lawmakers voiced support for military action against Syria, raising new fears about an armed conflict that could crimp supply. Brent traded at USD 115.7/barrel while Nymex rose above USD 108/barrel giving up some gains towards closeFrom precious metals space, gold prices rose as much as 1.4 percent intra-day to within striking distance of a 3.5-year high as the consensus against Syria developed before giving up some gains.

Watch for strength in Strides Arcolab as the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has given the final nod for the USD 1.6 billion Mylan deal. Mylan says that the transaction is expected to close in Q4 of 2013.Jet Airways will be in focus as the government has recommended the over Rs 2000 crore Etihad deal to the cabinet committee for approval. The deal is likely to be completed by September 20 as all regulatory clearances are expected to be in place by then.

This is my favorite articles:Robots: not human

Health law prompts confusion in Allamakee County

For Candy Seibert, a self-employed property manager from northeast Iowa, getting by without health insurance is just a way of life.Her experience isn't unusual in Allamakee County, where the 44-year-old Seibert lives. According to 2010 Census data, the bucolic county has the highest percentage of people without insurance in Iowa. A total of 18.2 percent of the population here lacks insurance, compared with a statewide average of 10.7 percent, based on the Small Area Health Insurance Estimates survey.

The onset of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul could bring down the number of uninsured in this region, with an expansion of state-run low income health coverage and new insurance marketplaces where people can buy plans. But there is both confusion and skepticism about the program in this area. Seibert, who has never had health insurance as an adult, said she didn't know much about the new law and wasn't sure if it would have an impact on her life."I feel a little strange that this is the first time we're forced to do something by our government," said Seibert, who said she'd be taking a wait and see approach.

Currently, she pays doctor bills off in installments, though she admits she's been lucky to have had relatively good health.Like Seibert, people without insurance in Allamakee, a county of about 14,000 people, said they manage in a variety of ways — visiting a free clinic in a neighboring county, seeking charity care at the hospital, putting medical bills on a payment plan, or just not going to see a doctor. Most who said they didn't have insurance, or had limited insurance access, said they knew little about the health care overhaul — officially the Affordable Care Act, but often referred to as "Obamacare" —and were not sure it would solve their problems.

This is my favorite articles:The hose did have one other useful purpose