GM works to hold off bankruptcy

Last week General Motors sold 78% of its commercial mortgage business, part of GMAC, bringing in $1.5 billion in cash and the repayment of $7.3 billion in intercompany loans. The company is also negotiating the sale of a controlling interest in the rest of GMAC. for about $11 billion. Meanwhile, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, the federal agency that insures private companies' pension plans, is calling for outside legal advice on handling a G.M. bankruptcy. In 2005, GM's pension plan assets fell behind its obligations by $10.9 billion.

Personal bankruptcies

Federal court bankruptcy filings hit a record 2.039 million in 2005. Chapter 7 filings gained 46% to 1.61 million, and Chapter 13 filings fell 8% to 407,322.

Google on the S&P 500

Standard & Poor's announced last week Google will be added to its large-cap index on March 31.

Existing home sales vs. new home sales

Existing home sales jumped 5.2% in February to an annualized 6.91 million, the best monthly gain in two years. However, new home sales in February took a dive for the largest one-month drop in nine years.

Silver up

Silver peaked last week at $10.74 a troy ounce, its highest level in 22 years.

Poverty, qualified

Using about $20,000 for a family of four, America's poverty level captured 12.7% of the population in 2004. In 1968, 12.8% were below the poverty level. Among today's poor, 46% own their own homes, and 93% have color television.

Wal-Mart hits high and hits low

Wal-Mart opened a demonstration store in Plano, Tex., replete with $500 wine, high-end electronics, tony toys, and a sushi bar. Wal-Mart won't duplicate the demonstration store, but it might stock the upgraded items inside its existing system of 3,700 stores. New appeal at the other end of the market includes civil rights leader Andrew Young as a paid corporate cheerleader.

"Les Miserables"

France has a youth (26 and under) unemployment rate of 23% - over 50% in the minority suburbs. Overall unemployment has run about 10% for the past 20 years. In an effort to generate youth employment, the national government made it more attractive to hire the 26 and under crowd because it became easier to fire them if things didn't work out. With better access to jobs, the young people are still rioting.

Not mag-lev, not this time

With a magnetic-levitation train connecting Shanghai and its airport, China is about to extend the mag-lev tracks to Hangzhou. Between Shanghai and Beijing, however, the new train connection is planned as high-speed wheel-on-rail technology. Top speed should hit 220 mph. Albeit a bit cheaper than mag-lev, the new 820-mile rail line is expected to cost $17.4 billion.

If it works in Greenville,

it should work in Columbia

Last week, the S.C. Senate finance subcommittee approved legislation that would grant banks tax incentives for new jobs. The tax-incentive package was similar to that already in effect for other industries. Greenville-based South Financial Group, parent of Carolina First, plans on a new headquarters complex next to I-85, and the headquarters plans on hiring 600 new people.

House appreciation

Saturday morning television money maven Jim Rogers, who started the Quantum Fund with George Soros, paid about $105,000 for a NYC town house in 1977. He recently listed the 26-foot-wide town house for sale: $15 million. It sits on Riverside Drive at 107th Street, and it has views of the Hudson River.

Slaves and why their owners fought

By 1820, 8.7 million slaves were sold in Africa for work in the Americas, mostly the West Indies and Brazil. Only 6% came to British North America. Even so, that 6% by 1860 grew to be worth more than all the farms in the South, or, put differently, three times the values of all the American railroads at the time. Then the American slaves were valued at $3.5 billion, or $68.4 billion today. In his book Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World , author David Brion Davis gave the slaves a different value: "A more revealing figure is the fact that the nation's gross national product in 1860 was only about 20% above the value of slaves, which means that as a share of today's gross national product, the slaves' value would come to an estimated $9.75 trillion."