Captain Ginger's link goes to a pretty good article, but I'd urge people not to believe that the Chrysler "economist" speaks for the majority, or that in fact he speaks for anyone in the US. He's a "european executive" who happens to be working for a company with headquarters in the US.

The comment about GM's economist predicting lower oil prices is given a little more emphasis than justified, since the majority of economists, in all industries, are predicting lower oil prices for the immediate future. If he's wrong, a lot of others are too (which is not at all unlikely).

An article that I saw within the last couple of days and unfortunately didn't bookmark indicates that new limits on "pounds of carbon per mile" are being proposed for the Euro Common Market countries that most european auto makers are predicting may drive them all out of business. The proposed limits actually may be in the "sounds good but can't be done" class of things, although it will be a while before anyone knows. (The specific limits appear to be tailored to the much greater use of diesel personal vehicles in europe?)

In better news(?) US Congress to consider carbon caps proposes to impose better regulation on industrial and generating plants' emissions. Too soon to tell whether anything will happen; but at least there's an overdue interest.

John