There is an interesting line at the bottom of the New York Times story about Merrill Lynch and John Thain, its new chief executive, this morning. Mr Thain, you will recall, used to be the co-president of Goldman Sachs, before he joined the NYSE Group as chief executive.

For his part, Mr Thain appears to enjoy the job. He praised the company’s culture, and he was quick with an answer as to how that culture differed from that of Goldman Sachs, where he built his career. “The biggest single difference is the focus on clients,” he said. “Merrill does truly put clients first.”

Ouch. That sounds to me like Mr Thain saying that Goldman does not truly put its clients first. It is rather hard to interpret that remark any other way. Some other Goldman alumni say similar things, although not for quotation: that Goldman’s focus on trading and investing for itself has tilted the balance of the bank away from looking after its customers first.

I have written about this topic before in examining quite why Goldman’s recent financial results have been so good, putting the rest of Wall Street to shame.

In Mr Thain’s case, we should perhaps aim off for the fact that he now runs a rival to Goldman and so is talking up his own institution. But it is a striking remark, especially since Mr Thain has talked openly before of wanting to bring some of Goldman’s famed teamwork to Merrill.

Unsurprisingly, I have written about Detroit in my Financial Times column this week. Blog readers may notice that I have reprised and expanded on some of the material in posts this week. Regard it as the director’s cut. You can read it here and post comments below.

With a little time to spare in Detroit, I have been taking a tour of the Chinese-made cars on display at the auto show. They are not easy to find, since they are located in the basement of the Cobo conference centre in a secondary hall also occupied by satellite radio companies and custom-car makers.

But, after asking a security guard the way, I managed to find the stands of the Chinese manufacturers including Geely, the biggest Chinese car manufacturer, BYD Auto of Shenzen (the initials stand for Build Your Dreams) and Changfeng Group, originally a spin-off of a People’s Liberation Army factory.

My impression from sitting in the cars, fiddling with the knobs and peering at the door seals is that the Chinese makers are advancing but that Daimler and BMW need not panic yet.

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I went for a drive in Toyota’s prototype plug-in hybrid electric car in Detroit yesterday. I was with John Reed, the FT’s motor industry correspondent, who describes our journey and gives some background on electric cars here.

The auto companies need to do a lot of work to comply with the new US federal fuel economy standards - known as Cafe - which require US vehicles to drive average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

One of their biggest challenges is getting hold of batteries that are more efficient, smaller and can power a vehicle for longer distances before running out of energy. The sad truth is that battery technology has not obeyed Moore’s Law for semiconductors by rapidly more efficient and powerful.

The importance the industry now places on the emergence of a new generation of batteries was brought home to me in a conversation yesterday with Jon Lauckner, who heads product development at General Motors. That, among other things, puts him in charge of the Chevrolet Volt electric car, which GM is hoping to start producing by 2010.

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The pivotal question at the Detroit motor show is just how badly the industry is going to suffer from the US economic downturn or recession.

Most industry analysts are getting gloomier about the prospects. Sales in 2007 came in at a shade over 16m, which was well below the 17m peak of previous years. PricewaterhouseCoopers, the consultants, has predicted predicts sales of 15.6m this year and 15.2m in 2009 if there is a recession.

Today, I came across an optimist: Bob Carter, the head of Toyota’s US marketing and sales organisation. He thinks sales will recover in the second half of this year to reach 16m again. Somehow, I cannot quite believe things will turn out as he hopes.

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I went to a media breakfast in Detroit this morning hosted by Katsuaki Watanabe, Toyota’s president. He is an engaging character: extremely cheerful, with a mischievous sense of humour. But it also struck me that Toyota must be a tough company for which to work.

That is not because it is dysfunctional but exactly the opposite: it is so relentless and self-critical in its pursuit of higher quality and lower costs that I felt tired just listening to him. A gleam came into his eye as explained how he has tried to eradicate Toyota’s recent quality problems with vehicles including its new Texas-made Tundra pick-up truck.

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I am visiting Detroit for the motor show (or the North American International Auto Show, as we should call it)

The thing that impressed me most on the first media day yesterday, apart from the herd of cattle that Chrysler hired to amble down the road in front of the Cobo conference centre to mark its launch of the latest Dodge Ram pick-up truck, was that the most talked-about car was not actually on display.

Tata’s new small car for the Indian market, called the Nano, has intrigued lots of industry executives. It was even on the mind of my Nigerian-born taxi driver this evening. I know that quoting your taxi driver is one of the worst cliches in the journalist’s lexicon, but bear with me.

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Greg Mankiw is right about this. I can’t remember much from my university philosophical logic classes but I do know that minus A implies minus B does not prove that A implies B.

There are lots of theories about why Hillary Clinton unexpectedly won the New Hampshire primary. I don’t know which is right, since I am not a political expert (and even if I were, I wouldn’t). But there is clearly significance to the fact that many women voters turned out to support her.

Maybe it was because they resented John Edwards and Barack Obama attacking her in the televised debate. Mrs Clinton seems to think so since she has since pounded away at the point that the male "buddies" teamed up against her.

Anyway, there is an fascinating demographic point here that has as much relevance for business as for politics. It is the rise in influence - and sheer numbers - of American college-educated women.

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