Big 3 and ECB

●WSJ
Auto Chiefs Admit Mistakes as They Make Case to Congress
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122840102318379327.html
WASHINGTON -- The chiefs of the Big Three auto makers conceded they made mistakes in their management as they returned to Congress with renewed pleas for a government bailout.
The leaders of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC told lawmakers they were unprepared for congressional hearings last month, when Congress criticized them as lacking credible plans to turn around their companies.
The executives came back Thursday with detailed plans that they said would return their companies to sound financial footing. But they presented a bleaker picture for the industry than they did just weeks ago, increasing their request to $34 billion from $25 billion in emergency aid.

●Wasington Post
Automakers Return to Hill to Seek Federal Aid
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/04/AR2008120401541.html?hpid=topnews
Speaking to reporters before today's hearing opened, GM Chairman G. Richard Wagoner Jr. said, "We're sorry to be asking for this support. We wish the market conditions were better. They're not, so this is what we need to do."
Asked if the automakers have a "Plan B" if they do not receive the federal loans they seek, Wagoner said, "We want to focus on Plan A today." He said his cash-strapped company needs financing by the end of this month.

●NY Times
Back on Capitol Hill, Auto Executives Still Find Skeptics
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/business/05auto.html?hp
WASHINGTON ― The head of the Senate Banking Committee said on Thursday that the Big Three automakers had convinced him that they deserved federal aid, but another prominent member of the panel remained steadfast in his opposition.
“Not perfect by any means,” Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the committee, said of the Big Three’s detailed plans to turn their companies around. Nevertheless, Mr. Dodd said, the companies had demonstrated “a commitment to that kind of necessary reform” needed to keep American carmakers viable in the 21st century.

●FT
ECB slashes rates to 2.5%
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b1492782-c1e7-11dd-a350-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
Jean-Claude Trichet on Thursday cut the euozone growth forecast after the European Central Bank slashed interest rates by the most in its 10-year history.
Mr Trichet followed the historic rate cut by reducing growth forecasts for the eurozone economy as the threat of inflation receded. The central bank president predicted that the eurozone economy would contract next year by up to 1 percentage point, against an earlier forecast for growth of between 0.6 per cent and 1.8 per cent.
”The outlook remains surrounded by an exceptionally high degree of uncertainty. Risks to growth lie on the downside,” Mr Trichet said at a press conference after the interest rate announcement.

●FT
Bank of England cuts rates to 2%
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/07ee3a02-c1eb-11dd-a350-000077b07658.html
Explaining its move, the Bank said in a statement that it believed demand was now so weak that “there remained a substantial risk of undershooting the 2 per cent CPI inflation target in the medium term.”
The rate cut, while much larger than the Bank is accustomed to, is smaller than the 1.5 percentage point reduction made at the MPC’s last meeting in November and smaller than the money markets had begun to expect.

●The Times
Bank cuts rate by 1% to historic low
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article5284570.ece

●The Guardian
Interest rates cut to 2%
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/04/interestrates-interestrates