Harold Maass of The Week The Best of Today's Business

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Chrysler plugs in

Chrysler LLC, the smallest of Detroit's Big Three automakers, unexpectedly unveiled three functioning battery-powered vehicles, jumping headlong into the race to build a mass-produced electric car. "I didn't think they were a player," said Jim Hossack at consultancy AutoPacific. "I'm impressed. This suggests a lot of bravado." The three vehicles -- a minivan, a Jeep, and a sports car -- are slated to hit the market by late 2010. (Los Angeles Times) The cars were introduced as Congress is mulling over $25 billion in government-backed loans, possibly tied to increasing fuel efficiency. (BusinessWeek.com) The parent of Indian automaker Tata, meanwhile, said the credit crisis is making the U.S. and Europe ripe for acquisitions. (Bloomberg)

Buffett bets $5 billion on Goldman

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs, in a key vote of support during a time of financial chaos. The deal gives Buffett perpetual preferred shares with a 10 percent annual dividend. Goldman had a market value of $53 billion yesterday, giving Buffett about 10 percent of the firm. (The New York Times) Goldman said it will raise an additional $2.5 billion in a public stock offering. And Buffett, along with his $5 billion stake, also gets warrants to buy $5 billion worth of shares at $115 a share for five years. (AP in Yahoo! Finance) Goldman closed at $125 yesterday, then jumped 11 percent in extended trading. "It's a hell of a deal for Buffett," said analyst Brad Hintz at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. (Bloomberg)

EDF buys British Energy for $23 billion

French nuclear-power giant Electricite de France agreed to buy British Energy Group at a sweetened price of $23.2 billion. The sale price is 35 percent higher than British Energy's stock price in March, before talks started. EDF has already secured the agreement of the British government, which owns about 36 percent of British Energy, and other big investors. (MarketWatch) Centrica, the U.K.'s largest energy provider, is in talks with EDF to buy 25 percent of British Energy after the deal closes. EDF gets eight sites in Britain on which it will build four nuclear reactors. "British Energy's existing assets are aging," said analyst Tina Cook at Charles Stanley & Co. "EDF will contribute its expertise, as well as replacing those assets." (Bloomberg)

Down, maybe not out, on Wall Street

More than 120,000 jobs have been cut across the finance industry this year, and that number will probably jump by 10 to 20 percent with the fall of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. Most of these jobs weren't held by Porsche-driving traders will million-dollar paychecks. Still, for bank employees, both high-pay and low, the sudden change is a shock. Some of these workers have found new jobs in the industry, unable to give up the still-higher-than-elsewhere paycheck. Others have used the change to take stock. "It's really not comfortable, it's disorienting,” said former Bear Stearns analyst Andy Neff, who opted to study Jewish sacred texts. "But I find it unfortunate that people tend to focus on how much they lost." (The New York Times)

BEST COLUMNS OF THE DAY

The bailout big picture

Congress has a real challenge in trying to "improve the bare-bones $700 billion" Wall Street bailout plan, says David Leonhardt in The New York Times, largely because most legislators have little or no "expertise in the byzantine details of mortgage finance." But if they get it right, the final cost won't be anywhere near $700 billion. Their best shot is to focus tightly on two questions: "What steps are most likely to solve the immediate crisis? And how can the long-term cost to taxpayers be minimized?" Everything else is a distraction or a detail that, with the credit markets "nearly dysfunctional," we don't have time for. Congress should demand a stake in participating firms, and leave executive pay and other issues for later.

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow

So should you stop contributing to your 401(k) until the markets settle down? says Money's Walter Updegrave in CNNMoney.com. Certainly not if you're in your 20s or 30s, and probably not if you're 60 or 65. That's not to say that the Wall Street bailout will suddenly shift the economy into "cruising speed," just that "it would be foolish in the extreme to write off the long-term prospects for stocks." Investing for retirement is investing for the long haul, and historically, some of the best long-term gains have gone to those who bought "stocks when they're reviled." Up through your 40s, consider keeping 80 percent or more of your investment in stocks; if you're 60, maybe 55 percent. Then, mostly, sit back and wait.

GOOD DAY FOR: Riding low, after U.S. scooter sales rose 66 percent in the first half of the year, in step with gas prices, even as car sales slumped and motorcycle sales were flat. Sales of Piaggio's scooters, including Vespas, more than doubled each month this summer. Americans used to buy scooters for weekend fun, says Piaggio's Paolo Timoni, but now it's an "an alternative transportation vehicle." (CNNMoney.com)

BAD DAY FOR: T. Boone Pickens, after the 80-year-old Texas oilman-turned-energy-independence spokesman's hedge funds lost about $1 billion this year, mostly because he was blindsided by the mid-summer downturn in the energy market. His personal losses total $270 million. "It's my toughest run in 10 years," Pickens said. "There's nothing fun about it." (The Wall Street Journal)

NOTED: The FBI is investigating Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, AIG, and 22 other companies and their executives for possible malfeasance in the subprime mortgage collapse. The investigation will look for accounting misstatements and other signs of fraud. (Bloomberg)

This column was written by Peter Weber and edited by Harold Maass of TheWeek.com.