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There are other parties in the merger hunt. The French automaker Renault is also interested in Chrysler, according to several industry sources. But corporate merger would just be a step-up from the collaboration already going on among rivals in the industry. The sheer cost of developing new, more fuel-efficient vehicles is driving companies together, observes another executive, who notes that GM has already collaborated with Ford on building new transmission and has worked with Chrysler and BMW in developing hybrid vehicles. Chrysler spokeswoman Lori McTavish said that Chrysler entered into a partnership with Nissan earlier this year...
...from 2004. In the developing world, the situation will be even worse. At the United Nations Global Assembly last month, the global-hunger charity Oxfam warned of disastrous consequences for poor countries if the financial crisis affects international aid - which was already down in 2007. Yet at that meeting, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner underlined an uncomfortable reality. "To talk about development or Millennium Goals in the middle of such a crisis is unfair," he said...
...markets have gone completely crazy and are reacting in fear to a bad situation in a way guaranteed to make it far worse," says Marc Touati, deputy executive manager of the French economic- and finance-research group Global Equities. "We once had 'irrational exuberance' pushing markets ever higher; now we have irrational pessimism running them into the ground. People have to calm down, or we're in for big trouble...
...Meanwhile, there's evidence that the disconnect between traders and macroeconomic realities is matched by a divide over how market movers and their publics see things. After the French government pledged to guarantee all money in private savings funds, a poll published Friday by the daily Le Figaro showed 79% of the public expressing confidence in the stability of the banks. A similar poll in Germany found 57% feeling protected by government promises to cover private savings...
That difference may be a reflection of Germany's relative tardiness in addressing the crisis and high-profile $68 billion bailout of its Hypo Real Estate mortgage group. It could also reflect the French public's belief that its national penchant for state intervention into private-sector economics will not prove lacking this time around...