Today Monday 20051121 in the News

GM reports that they will be cutting 30,000 jobs over the next 3 years. This will result in a 1,000,000 car drop in production capacity.

Does it matter that GM is going to lose 1,000,000 car capacity? Not really. They fell in love with the American ideal of bigger is better and made lots of profit. Now they laughably have commercials about the great mileage they get in their cars. Talking about the remade Cavalier/Cobalt getting 34 mpg.

I have two very important points on this...No, three

1) When my wife owned a Chevy Corsice (1989) hatchback - she loved the power in the car. It had a nice six cylinder engine. But the brakes were constantly not quite right, I changed the battery in the car - and we had to take it to the dealer so they could reset the computer (apparently you can't do something as simple as change the battery yourself) and the electrical system was beginning to act - well weird.

2) Every American car has left me stranded on the road and helpless. It is not a good feeling - and living in New Jersey not every area is a place where you can walk to a house and ask for help.

3) My Honda Civic - 1992 - which I have since donated had 222,222 miles over 9 years. Its sticker (stick shift/manual trans) had 36/40 MPG. Sometimes you get better and sometimes you get worse mileage than the sticker. That car for the life of the car when I owned it - got 40MPG. The car broke down once - because the distributer finally crapped out at 160,000 miles. And Chevy wants to laud the Cobalt (similar car) getting 34 MPG! What a bunch of idiots - is the kindest way I can put it. And you know what - my parents had a 1986 Cavalier - and it was a piece of crap. In fact, it was the car that turned my family from American Manufacturers to - well Honda.

I could really go on a lot about this stuff. Really this is a case of macroeconomics and microeconomics.

On the Microeconomic side you have comfort, reliability and fuel-efficiency. This are all factors in favor of Honda vs GM.

On the Macroeconomics side you have jobs, GNP and global perception of Americans. These are things that if you lose the Microeconomics side - guess what you lose the Macroeconomic side.

Guess what, people in general are what you might call selfish. We don't want to be victims of being left on the side of the road. We don't want to be victimized by garages that charge lots of money to do repairs or dealers that charge even more to do repairs. We like it even if there is just a perception that by the things we do on a daily basis we are saving money.

So, people buy what is best for them - meaning foreign cars in general and my family - Honda in specific. My wife's Honda CR-V has 202,000 miles on it. Never broke down. Although once it wouldn't start because the 6-year old battery finally died. My newer Honda Accord Coupe that I replaced my Honda Civic with has 37,000 miles on it (my driving habits have changed a lot) and it needed the transmission replaced. It was on warranty and the new warranty on the new transmission is 10 years. So, I am relatively unconcerned about that.

So, nearly 500,000 miles in cars my wife have owned and one break-down. And I'm not even including the hundreds of thousands of miles my parents have put on their three Hondas that they have owned over time. A Honda Wagovan (great car, but butt ugly), their newer Honda CR-V and their 1996 Honda Accord which has 137,000 miles on it.

Sp, anyway, read this article for more information - including a little note from an analyst saying 'Clearly, they eventually need to make better products that are more competitive with their foreign competitors, but that's a long-term proposition'. The main problem is that GM does not have a long term proposition anymore. They need to make better cars, more fuel efficient cars - now, not next year and certainly not three years from now.

http://www.thestreet.com/_googlen/markets/natworden/10253826.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA

Sorry folks. I went on a rand there. Nothing upsets me more than blatant stupidity. Yeah yeah - buy American and get stranded on the road. You know what - I'm in to limiting my risks. When you break down you could get in to a car accident, you could have a bad element come and rob or worse you and your car, and you could be trying to fix it on the side of the road and get hit by a drunk driver.

No thanks. I prefer to not break down in the first place.

RIAA Backs Rootkits
People are auctioning your privacy all the time. Apparently this guy thinks that anything on your computer is something that he has the right to take a look and see if everything is working just the way he wants it.
Everyone needs to send letters to these people and tell them they are allowed to make fair profit - but charging $15 an Audio CD, when everyone knows they can go to a store and buy CDs for less than 30 cents a pop, 50 cents a pop if you want a case just isn't going to float.

We just don't care enough about their profit margin. They should replace all these record stores with little machines that let you preview music and say 'burn it' and burns a quality CD. There would be no over supply or under supply of disks. People could conceivably know every track that they are purchasing and the entire disk should cost no more than $2.

Apparently stupidity is not exclusively an American trait:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/11/21/australia.tourist.ap/index.html

From the 'I want to torture people and my government won't let me. Waaaa' group:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/21/cia.prisoners.ap/index.html

Something nice to see - but maybe not so nice to smell.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/11/21/stinky.plant.ap/index.html

I have to say - if there was one that was 11 feet tall (or so) it would be neat to see in person. Hard to imagine a 11 foot tall dandelion...

So, if you have been up on the headlines lately - you may understand that there is a Darwin exhibit in a New York area museum. Due to the recent ID/Evolution debate - it attacted - $0 in businesses to fund the exhibit. Incredible. Stupidity spreads from individuals to large identities. It will be remarkable indeed if the United States will be able to keep up with other countries in science when we are apparently averse to what the science actually means and impacts life.

You know... Mazda went for a few years without the RX7 - its hot car. They noticed something - their sales slumped. Part of the reason they brought the car back as the RX8 - is that they needed something to attract people to the showroom.

Well, the United States of America's business is much like a car manufacturer. We have in the past had a lot to offer other countries. Our technical abilities attract people to do business here.

But, in this rapidly changing world - the United States of America in general is rejecting science. And our rate of scientific progress is slowing while places like South Korea are outstripping us in biology - once one of our main points of scientific progress. Science is no longer respected in the United States and we will not be attracting employers. Large companies like Intel are actually shipping high-technology jobs out of the country. Will India be the next powerhouse economy, South Korea or maybe perhaps China? It could well be.

Anyway, more than enough typing for now.

Alex