"GM" is for "good morning"

And what better way for a true-blue FOCE to start his or her day than by reading a post about your favorite struggling Detroit automaker and mine.

The latest news to be had from Reuters via Yahoo! is that GM is mulling the sale of the commercial mortgage business in its GMAC lending subsidiary.

I admit it -- the Cranky Economist's first instict was to think, "Hey now. It's profitable. So why are you selling it?" At first blush this deal struck me as a bad idea. But now I'm coming around. After all, what business does an auto manufacturer have sticking its thumb in the mortgage-lending pie to begin with? Better to try to scrounge up a little capital (and that $1 billion, while not insignificant, is only "a little capital" when you compare it to the rest of GM's balance sheet) by selling off a successful but distracting asset.

So the Cranky Economist is officially agnostic on the question. Que Sierra, Sierra, they say as they drive their GMC SUVs. But I figured it was worth mentioning anyway, since I've been following GM's travails somewhat over the past week.