Mid-Week Market Rag: Chrysler Losses, California Sues Automakers, Sony's Mylo, Motorola Makes a Move

Hello out there in PR land. This is the mid-week market rag.

You know you've had a bad day when this is on the headline that CNN/Money gives you:

The automaker's failure to use simple good sense raises questions about company management.

That's the situation at Chrysler right now. First they announced the possibility of a $600 million loss for the 3rd quarter. As it turns out, that loss is going to be around $1.5 billion.

I simply can't write it better than Alex Taylor at CNN/Money in his article:

Either the top executives at DaimlerChrysler are operating with their eyes shut, or somebody isn't telling them the truth. All year long, Chrysler has been operating with bloated inventories that sometimes stretched out to 100 days or more.

But I guess I can try.

Dieter Zetsche should spend less time making television commercials and more time saving his company, which has not profited by the value of a World War II-era German Mark since he took over nine months ago. Inventories are high; sales are low; advertising expenses are high. You know that layoffs are coming soon.

Compound that with this breaking news: the State of California is suing DaimlerChrysler/Chrysler Motors Corp., General Motors, Ford, Toyota Honda and Nissan for damages caused by global warming.

Let that one sink in for a moment.

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said today, in a statement, that it was time "to hold these companies responsible for their contribution" to the Global Warming crisis. The suit alleges the state suffered millions of dollars in damages due to the effects of and costs of dealing with global warming.

Thus we know who the true spinsters are. There isn't a PR guy or girl in the world who would concoct the sort of malarkey politicians and lawyers do for a living. How original is it for a government to sue private business for something that the government has been unable to deal with itself. Sure cars and trucks pollute, but cars and trucks are legal, and the pollution caused by cars and trucks is legal. Governments will not and should not receive a dime from private enterprise until government itself takes responsibility for the environment.

Article Author: John Guilfoil

John Guilfoil is the editor of Blast Magazine. He is the former editor and founder of The Review Center. He currently maintains the blog PRrag: All the news that's fit to spin.

Visit John Guilfoil's author page — John Guilfoil's Blog