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Halftime in America
During the recent Super Bowl, Chrysler aired an extended 2-minute commercial starring Clint Eastwood, with the tagline “Halftime in America.” The ad paid homage to generations of resilient Americans, and drew a parallel between the U.S. auto industry’s recent resurgence and that of the broader American economy and society. Cynics saw the commercial as a form of covert electioneering by a company which benefited from a government bailout just two years ago, but recent macroeconomic data do support the case that the U.S. economy is improving.
To start with, January U.S. auto sales were up 11% over the prior year, to the highest annualized level since May 2008 (WSJ, 2/2/12). General Motors, only two years removed from bankruptcy restructuring, is expected to report 2011 net income in excess of $8 billion. The company has added 13,000 jobs since emerging from bankruptcy and now hopes to be earning as much as $10 billion annually by 2013 (WSJ, 2/6/12). Read the rest of this entry »
