On today's Planet Money:
-- Chrysler went to bankruptcy court in New York City today. At issue was the question of whether Chrysler can sell a significant portion of itself to the Italian automaker Fiat. As Frank Langfitt tells us, there's much more at stake, not just for Chrysler, but for GM and the future of American capitalism.
-- Jim Higgins has a lot to lose from Chrysler's bankruptcy. The Chrysler dealership he works for, in Fairfax, Virginia, learned this month that it's among the 789 the company plans to close.
-- Think your elders are more frugal than you? Listener Jean Jakab commented on the blog that her son, Steve Jakab, had just lost his job and was floundering, and that all you really needed to do was be careful with his money like Mom and Dad. We got Jean and Steve on the phone, and lo and behold, Steve was already following their advice — and had been for a while.
Bonus: A indicator from academia.
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Brooks Miner writes from Seattle:
Here's my indicator: 96. This is the number of TA positions that we will have in the University of Washington Department of Biology next year (2009-2010, over three academic terms — autumn, winter, and spring). Last year our same department, with a similar number of undergraduate majors and courses offered, had 140 TA positions.
There are a whole bunch of ways this will affect the way we teach biology and the experience of being a student here.
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