Thursday, August 28, 2008

BUDGET: podcasts@dictionary.com



Hello, this is Venus from dictionary.com with this week's World Explore and this week's feature word is budget spelled b-u-d-g-e-t. Budget is derived from old French budgét, meaning "leather bag" and in English originally described a pouch or wallet and later its contents.
There’s also an archaic definition of a quantity of material especially written or printed. Formally the budget was literally a sack full of money with sums appropriated to specific purposes being sorted into little bags.
Only in 1733 it is recorded as meaning “statement” of the probable revenue and expenditure for the upcoming year. A budget is an important concept in microeconomics which illustrates the trade-offs with between two or more goods, or said differently, a budget is an organization plan stated in monetary terms.
There are corporate budgets which assess corporate financial plans for a coming period of time such as a quarter of a calendar year. Event budgets assist in calculating and meeting costs associated with an specific event. Government budgets like the name suggests are a projection of anticipated revenues and expenditures of a state, local or federal government.
I have a personal budget where I identify all my expenses such as rent utility bills, food and clothing; I balance these expenses with my income to make ends meet. My personal budget constraint restricts me from spending more than I make.

Thanks for downloading World Explore brought to you by Audible.com, the internet leading provider of Spoken Word Entertainment. Get a free audio book download of your choice when you sign up today. For more details log on today to audiblepodcast.com/explore
If you’d like to send us feedback or suggest a word to be featured on future podcasts please send us an email to podcasts@dictionary.com
You can subscribe to our podcast for free through Apple iTunes or at podcasts.com
Until next time, this is Venus and thanks for listening. Remember to visit us at dictionary.com, thesaurus.com and reference.com


Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Honda Stays True to Efficient Driving


By BILL VLASIC from http://www.nytimes.com/
Published: August 25, 2008

TORRANCE, Calif. — During the glory days of big pickups and sport utility vehicles, one automaker steadfastly refused to join the party.

Despite the huge profits that its competitors were minting by making larger vehicles, Honda Motor never veered from its mission of building fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly cars like its Accord sedan.

“I remember being at the Tokyo Motor Show in the mid-1990s and talking about the environment,” said Ben Knight, head of engineering at Honda’s North American division. “The reaction was there’s no return on that.”

But in today’s fuel-conscious automotive market, Honda is reaping the rewards for its commitment.

No major automaker in America is doing better than Honda, whose sales are up 3 percent for the first seven months of this year in a market that has fallen 11 percent. By comparison, General Motors is down nearly 18 percent, Ford Motor has dropped 14 percent, and Toyota has slid 7 percent.

While competitors are scrambling to shift their product lineups to build more small vehicles and slash their bloated inventories of trucks, Honda can barely keep up with demand, particularly in the subcompact category.

Sales of its tiny Fit have soared 79 percent so far this year, and interest in the vehicle is so strong that Honda accelerated the introduction of the 2009 model, which will go on sale Tuesday.

The Fit’s four-cylinder engine gets 34 miles per gallon in highway driving, but the quirky little hatchback does not scrimp on creature comforts. The base model — which sells for $15,200, including delivery charges — has a satellite-linked navigation system and safety features like side-curtain airbags.


Honda’s focus on fuel efficiency is paying off on the bottom line as well. The Japanese automaker reported a record profit of 179.61 billion yen ($1.68 billion), during its fiscal first quarter that ended in June, an 8.1 percent jump from the previous year.

By comparison, G.M. and Ford have lost billions this year as the market has moved away from the big vehicles that once generated the bulk of their profits. Detroit is moving radically to downsize its vehicle lineups and, in Ford’s case, to convert assembly plants from making trucks to small cars.

Even Honda’s larger Japanese rival, Toyota, is hustling to adjust to the rapidly changing United States market.

Toyota dedicated its latest American assembly plant in Texas to building full-size pickups. Honda’s newest factory, in southern Indiana, is set to begin production of Civic compact cars this fall.

Honda’s focus on fuel efficiency and the environmental impact of its vehicles dates back to the Clean Air legislation of the 1960s and 1970s. Mr. Knight, the head of Honda engineering in North America, recalled how Honda adopted an internal motto — “Blue skies for our children” — as a guideline for future vehicle development.

“The discussions inside the company have always been consistent,” said Mr. Knight, who joined the company in 1976.

Honda has posted the highest corporate average fuel economy of any automaker for its overall fleet of vehicles over the last 15 years, according to federal statistics.

The fuel economy of its cars is comparable to Toyota, but Honda has never aspired to build a full line of trucks and S.U.V.’s.

Its lineup includes the midsize Ridgeline pickup, as well as lighter weight, car-based crossover vehicles like the CR-V, Element and Pilot.

“Honda is a philosophy-driven company,” said Tetsuo Iwamura, president of Honda North America. “Even when the large S.U.V.’s and trucks were big sellers, they did not fit with our philosophy.”

Honda’s dealers pressed the company in recent years to build a full-size pickup and introduce a V-8 engine, said Dan Bonawitz, head of corporate planning in the United States.

“We kept asking ourselves what value Honda would bring to the customer in that category,” he said. “There was just no benefit for us to get in it.”

Sales of Honda’s crossovers, minivans and pickups have dropped this year along with the overall market. But the surge in sales of its cars has more than made up for the shortfall.

Unlike many other automakers, Honda has been able to capitalize on the switch in demand to cars because of the flexibility of its assembly plants.

At Honda’s plant in East Liberty, Ohio, for example, the assembly line can switch almost seamlessly from Civics to CR-Vs.

When the new plant goes into production in Indiana, Honda’s North American production capacity will increase to 1.4 million vehicles a year to meet the growing demand for its small cars.

“We had a very good May and June with sales of the Civic, but July and August have been terrible because of a shortage of stock,” Mr. Iwamura said. “But by October, the supply situation will be improved a great deal.”

Other automakers are also increasing production of their small cars, but Honda is cashing in on its reputation for the reliability, fuel efficiency and handling of its vehicles.

“Honda’s cars seem to have more personality than Toyota’s,” said Aaron Bragman, an analyst with the research firm Global Insight in Troy, Mich. “Their cars are enjoyable to drive, and not just appliances.”

Meghan Bohnert of Festus, Mo., recently traded in her Toyota Corolla for a Fit because it “stood out” from other cars in the subcompact segment. “People I know think the car is cute and it surprises them with its pep,” said Ms. Bohnert, a 24-year-old analyst for AT&T. “People are also surprised at the amount of interior space.”

Even with the success of its smallest cars, Honda executives concede that the company has some catching up to do with Toyota in hybrid vehicles.

While Honda offers a hybrid version of the Civic, Toyota’s Prius model is the runaway leader in the category.

But Honda recently announced plans to introduce a five-door, hybrid-only model in North America next year to compete with the Prius. Honda is expected to price the vehicle lower than the Prius to attract younger buyers.

Honda is also planning a two-door, sporty hybrid and a hybrid version of the Fit.

At its headquarters here in Torrance, the vehicle that draws the most attention these days is the company’s hydrogen-powered, fuel-cell vehicle dubbed the FCX Clarity.

The company recently began a program to lease the fuel-cell car to a small number of consumers in California. Executives declined to predict when the car will be available for the mass market, but said it represents the next step for a company committed to clean technology.

“We have a saying that we want to make Honda the company that society wants to exist,” Mr. Iwamura said.
Perublogs Tags:

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

CELEBRATE THE 4th BlogDay ON AUGUST 31st

Blog Day 2008

What is BlogDay?

BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. On that day Bloggers will recommend other blogs to their blog visitors.
With the goal in mind, on this day every blogger will post a recommendation of 5 new blogs. This way, all blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, previously unknown blogs.

What will happen on BlogDay?
one long moment on August 31st, bloggers from all over the world will post recommendations of 5 new Blogs, preferably Blogs that are different from their own culture, point of view and attitude. On this day, blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, unknown Blogs, celebrating the discovery of new people and new bloggers.

BlogDay posting instructions:
Find 5 new Blogs that you find interesting
Notify the 5 bloggers that you are recommending them as part of BlogDay 2008
Write a short description of the Blogs and place a link to the recommended Blogs
Post the BlogDay Post (on August 31st) and

Add the BlogDay tag using this link:

http://technorati.com/tag/BlogDay2008 and a link to the BlogDay web site at http://www.blogday.org

Celebrate!

Monday, August 25, 2008

OTHER & ANOTHER

Other and another refer to something different, remaining, or additional. They go before the noun. Another is used with singular nouns. Other is used with singular or plural nouns.

There are other jobs you could try.

Where's the other packet of cereals?

Is there any other bread?

Have another cup of tea.


DAILY ROUTINE



I wake up at 6 o’clock
I get up and take a shower
I get dressed
After that I have breakfast at 6:30
I go to work at 6:45
I get to work at 7 o'clock
I have a coffee at 7:15
I work from 7:30 to 12:30
I have lunch at 1 o'clock
I work from 2 to 7
I go home at 7:15
I go to the gym at 8pm
I have dinner at 9:30
Then I watch TV from 10 to 11
Finally I go to bed at 11:30

Thursday, August 21, 2008

state-of-the-art

(adjective) Very modern and sophisticated, using the most recent ideas and methods in technology, art or science.

A state-of-the-art computer. The control panel uses all the newest technology and is considered state-of-the-art.

A state-of-the-art technology.

State of the Art: From Snapshots a 3-D View

(from http://www.nytimes.com/)
By DAVID POGUE
Published: August 21, 2008

How do you describe a place? How do you express its essence to people who aren’t there?
Photosynth technology from Microsoft turns Parthenon photos into a three-dimensional world. You use the best technology you have available.

In the beginning, there was the printed word (“Dear Queen Isabella: You gotta see this place!”). Then there was audio (“My God, it’s full of stars!”). Eventually, photos (“That’s us in Hawaii. Or is it Cape Cod?”).

Wednesday, Microsoft introduced yet another way to represent a place: Photosynth. This sophisticated technology does a simple thing. It turns a bunch of overlapping photos into a 3-D panorama.

The result, called a photosynth, is a little bit like a virtual world. You can move sideways, up or down into neighboring photos. You can turn around to look behind you. And at any time, you can zoom forward incredibly far into a photo, since it retains all of its original, multi-megapixel resolution.

Creating a photosynth is free and automatic. You visit www.photosynth.com, click to install the necessary Web browser plug-in, and start uploading your photos. (You need a Windows PC and either Internet Explorer or Firefox 3. A Mac version is under development.)

Photosynth is brought to you by a 15-person team at Microsoft Research, a division of Microsoft whose projects aren’t expected to generate income. This team hopes that the popularity of Photosynth will explode and that it will actually become a new medium. In fact, someday Microsoft hopes to design a way to connect these photosynths, eventually building a complete photographic, navigable, digital version of our real world.

In the meantime, Photosynth is a great way to visit a place before you go there, to remember a place after you’ve been there, or to show your inner sanctum to the whole world.

It’s also great for museums, galleries and anyplace else where extremely close-up inspection by the masses would be desirable, but not otherwise practical. And it doesn’t take much imagination to see how Photosynth might appeal to real-estate agents. In a Photosynth demonstration at the annual TED conference last year, the presenter blew the crowd’s mind with a photosynth of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, made up of photos mined from Flickr.com. In other words, Microsoft had created a seamless, successful photosynth using hundreds of existing photos, taken by different people at different times using all kinds of cameras.

That, frankly, is a far more amazing prospect than what Photosynth is today. If using existing Web photos were an option, you could have a substantial amount of the world photosynthed already.

But for technical and legal reasons, Microsoft has backed away from that approach. Now you have to take the pictures yourself, expressly for the purpose of photosynthing.

You have to take lots and lots of overlapping pictures. Ideally, every inch of the room or space should be included in at least three photos. You stand at each corner of the room and sweep the interior, snapping away; then repeat while standing against the wall. Stand on chairs, walk to a new spot, walk up close to interesting objects.

Eventually, your photosynth is given a “synthiness” score, meaning the degree of recognizable overlap. The synthiness determines how seamlessly your 3-D panorama flows from view to view.

You can also walk completely around a stationary object, taking at least 24 photos during your circumnavigation. Later, you can rotate that object online using a doughnut-shaped scroll bar.

Once you’ve transferred the photos to your PC, you sign in to Photosynth; bizarrely, you need both a Microsoft Passport account and a Photosynth account, both free. Then you click the Create Photosynth button. Technically, your PC, not the Web site, does the analysis to knit all of those photos together, so the speed of the analysis-and-uploading process depends on your computer’s horsepower.

When it’s all over, your photosynth is live on the Web, visible for all to see. (In this version, you can’t create private photosynths.)

Amazingly, the software figures out how your photos relate, even though they’re taken at different angles, zoom amounts, exposures and so on.

It’s also amazing how, when you’re exploring the resulting photosynth, the full resolution of the original photos is available. You can zoom in, and in, and in, revealing more and more detail along the way, without ever waiting for even the biggest photo files to “load.” In one example on the Photosynth site, you start in the marbled gallery of the National Archives building in Washington — and you can zoom all the way in to the words “We the People” on the Constitution in its display case.

(This is one crucial difference between Photosynth and Apple’s QuickTime VR, which has been around for years. You can zoom in slightly in a QuickTime scene, but you can’t fly nearly infinitely into one of the component photos. Other differences: Making a QuickTime VR scene requires a special, 360-degree tripod apparatus and commercial software. And a QuickTime VR scene is rooted to one spot; you can’t freely walk through a space, as you can with Photosynth.)

So yes, it’s amazing. But in its current version (“call it beta, call it 1.0, call it whatever you want,” as the Web site puts it), Photosynth is also very frustrating.

First, synthing takes practice and patience. There’s no easy way to track whether you’ve taken enough photos to cover your space. You don’t know that you’ve failed until you’ve uploaded all the pictures and discovered blank spots or clumps of detached photos.

It’s also incredibly frustrating to navigate a photosynth. There are three ways to move around in your 3-D space: the mouse, the arrow keys or the letter keys. But what you press may not be what you get. If you press the up-arrow key, hoping to look upward, you may suddenly be teleported to a totally different part of the room. That can happen, Microsoft explains, if that other photo is the only one showing a patch of ceiling. Well, fine, but it’s totally disorienting.

At other times, you might want to scroll onto an adjoining photo — but all you get is black space and a bunch of white, dusty pixels known as the “point cloud.” That’s because Microsoft has decided that once you’ve magnified a photo enough to fill the screen, you can’t scroll to any other photo until you zoom back out. Frustrating.

These annoyances add up to the most frustrating thing of all: Photosynth’s photo-centric nature. I’ve probably made it sound like a photosynth gives you a seamless virtual environment, but it’s really not that; the component photos very much retain their “photoness.” You see their outlines flicker into view as you move your mouse around a scene. When you scroll between photos, Photosynth makes no effort to make them appear as a single image; one just fades into the next.

Finally, only one photo is ever in sharp focus at a time; neighboring photos are blurred and dimmed, which destroys the illusion of being in a virtual space.

In other words, Microsoft has designed Photosynth to be less a virtual-reality tool than a glorified slideshow, a clever way to arrange a bunch of discrete photos in space. That’s fine, but it does make photosynths less magical than they could be. Compare Photosynth’s one-photo-at-a-time focus with, say, the seamless views of a QuickTime VR scene (Google “QuickTime VR gallery” to see some), where everything is in focus as you look up, down, left, right, forward or back, as if you’re inside a giant wraparound photo.

Even so, Photosynth is wicked cool, and it will find all kinds of new uses. At the very least, it represents another milestone in the evolution of place-description technologies. Until someone comes up with brain-to-brain image sharing, that will have to do.
NOTE FROM THE BLOGGER: Phrasal verbs are highlighted in red. You can find their definitons and examples in the "Phrasal Verbs" section of this blog.

A look at the new GM Volt with designer Bob Lutz

Halle Berry



This conversation between Halle Berry and Charlie Rose took place in February 2002. They talked about her role in "Monster's Ball" in which she plays a single mother involved in an unlikely romance.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Donald Trump On Letterman August 8, 2008 (Part 2)

Donald Trump On Letterman August 8, 2008 (Part I)

David Letterman: Now we’re going to get to the bottom of things…our first guest is America’s favorite cut-throat billionaire, real estate mogul, and the star of the popular television program The Apprentice…Please welcome Donald Trump, ladies and gentlemen…

David Letterman: Welcome back…thank you for being here Mr Trump...Donald…How’s your family?
Donald Trump: Family’s good...
DL: You have a little baby boy…
DT: Correct…
DL: How old is he?
DT: Two and a half...
DL: Two and a half?...And you have a beautiful grown daughter, lovely woman...
DT: Ivanka…
DL: And you have a son, grown son…
DT: That’s right…
DL: Am I leaving somebody else?
DT: Well you left out two…I have a Tiffany and I have an Eric and all great kids…
DL: Wow…so that’s four kids, five kids all together?
DT: Five kids…
DL: Wow! That’s great, good for you…

DT: Last count...

DL: And is that it for the family or you wan to keep going?
DT: Well, stranger things have happened; you know that stuff does happen right?...So I don’t know...we’ll see what happens…
DL: You never know, well that’s all good…isn’t it…
DT: I have a wonderful wife who’s very capable and…who knows…maybe we’ll have a surprise for you…you’ll be the first to know…
DL: I’ll be the first to know!...Well!!...Thank you very much…Ahhh...Thank you!...You imagine that at some point in their early lives, in their formative years the kids all get together and say to one another: ”Oh my god! ...you know who dad is?"
DT: I would think it is a little bit strange…They really are good kids…
DL: Yeah they’re good kids…And when it's everything... one day your fortune would pass on to them I assume…
DT: Sure, I will kick the bucket and we’ll see what happens…if they behave themselves…they’ll be very happy probably you know…pretty sad isn’t it?
DL: They do pretty well on their own from what I understand…
DT: They’re doing pretty well. They really are…They’re in the business with me...the three elder children are in the business with me…They’re really doing a good job…Don, Ivanka, Eric… They’re very talented…
DL: I really was impressed by your daughter the night that she was here…But do you remember Leona Helmsley?...when she died she left all her money to a poodle?
DT: The Queen of Mean…I knew her very well…Actually, you know...they did a story on her, a television story and I think...Suzanne Pleshette, do you remember Suzanne?
DL: Sure…
DT: She did a great job, she played Leona and all she did is...she screamed and rant and rave to a bunch of people…And they called me up the next day and they said…”What do you think of her performance?”...And I said it was ok but not tough enough…See I knew Leona…
DL: She was really that difficult
DT: She was a mean woman…this was a very mean...
DL: Yeah…Touching memories of the departed
DT: Wonderful person!…
DL: Let’s…ahhh…the economy…I don’t recall it being worst…I know nothing about the economy but people tell me it’s never been worst… Have you noticed that?...or we’re looking at a different data?
DT: The economy is just absolutely…you know...New York real estate as you know has held up pretty well
DL: Right…
DT: I think that’s because of the weak dollar which doesn’t sound good but from the real estate standpoint at least here is good…
DL: Now that means that foreign money can come here and buy New York?...
DT: Places like Palm Beach Florida have been very strong, New York’s been very strong…houses are selling in Florida for 60, 70, 80 million dollars in Palm Beach for a house…
DL: I’m sorry say that again…a house?
DT: A house…

DL: 60, 70 million dollars
DT: 60 or 70 million…
DT: Holly Molly!...Now...who’s buying a 60 million-dollar house?
DT: Lots of people that are not Americans…Pretty sad isn’t it folks?...
DL: But you sold a piece of property down there for like 70,80, 90 million…
DT: I sold a house for a hundred…A hundred million…
DL: ohhh…Two-bedroom…
DT: Two weeks ago…Even worst!...I think it’s a Dear Dead…you know I think it’s a Dear Dead? …To a very nice Russian…And I think he’s going to probably rip it down and start all over again…But I sold the house, I bought it from somebody who suffered great financial reverses…I bought it to a bankruptcy court and put it on the market and sold it for a hundred million dollars and it’s really telling you where the world is going…and the buyers were mostly…potential buyers were mostly from outside of this country…
DL: Now let’s take a look a little bit…First of all, why is a guy willing to pay what I think it’s clearly an inflated price?
DT: Well, I think…
DL: Let’s just say…60 million…that’s inflated, that’s in my opinion…
DT: Well, I think he actually probably made a good deal... in five years I’ll look back and I’ll say…”I probably shouldn’t have sold it for that”... but he’s a smart sophisticated guy, loves Palm Beach Florida, but Palm Beach is doing well, New York City is doing well, I don’t know how long New York is going to keep doing well frankly…and the rest of the country for the most part is not doing well…
DL: Is it...was it Alex Trebek…did he buy it?
DT: Alex Trebek…I’d love to do that…
DL: Now where does a guy get that kind of dough…you said that he was Russian…Where does he get 100 million dollars to spend?
DT: He’s known as the king of fertilizer…ok? Can you blame him? He’s the king of fertilizer…Actually, he’s supposed to be a very very highly respected guy, nice guy…and I love him, personally…
DL: yeah yeah, and the house? Big house? 20,000 square feet?
DT: Big, it’s about 68 thousand feet, it’s on five acres of soil, right on the ocean, and it just worked out and I always had my eye on it but I never thought I had the opportunity to…but I did it as a real estate deal, I bought it and I sold it...
DL: You flipped it
DT: I flipped it, I did a flip…
DL: And you made about a 60 million dollar profit...
DT: I made a lot of money on it…you know I live in MonteLago…MonteLago is better...I like it...so what are you going to do?
DL: But now listen…You’re a man of the world, tell me about this…ahhh…I know some people who tell me with that kind of money, a hundred million dollars, if right now...to feed everybody in the world, not …everybody in the world, 6 billion …right here we’re sitting on a hundred million...Why are things so screwed up like that? Why can’t we get Mr Fertilizer to take his hundred million and help the poor people?
DT: Well, this country…if they stopped doing things they shouldn’t be doing…This country has the potential to be so rich…but we do things that we shouldn’t be doing…We’re spending hundreds of billions of dollar on a war and we have...you know... places in our country, New Orleans, places...that are dying...I was in New Orleans…You know we’re building bridges, we’re building buildings, we’re building everything in Iraq and other places…And you go down and they can’t even build a road in places like New Orleans so it’s a very very serious situation...
DL: It’s...of course it’s leadership now…
DT: We have had horrible leadership…
DL: We’re in trouble we need somebody to lead us out now…
DT: Well, I personally, I think we’ve had the worst leadership this country has ever had and it’s a really serious problem and we do need somebody to lead us out, we’re not respected like we were, as we say in Palm Beach it’s all foreign buyers looking, everybody was foreign, and you know…that shouldn’t be, frankly, and it doesn’t make me happy but we need somebody to take us, to lead us properly...and certainly that has not happened over the last eight years...
DL: And...and...you think, looking in the future and I’m not asking you to be a visionary but you have a vision about this, that the United States and their position of greatness would be observed…China perhaps?
DT: I’m not sure that it already isn’t...you’re looking at the Olympics, you’re looking at the way things are going throughout the world whether it’s China, Russia, India and the United States is not in the position that it was in 6 or 8 years ago...United States is really not thought of the same way, we’re not respected around the world...it’s a very serious problem...we really need somebody that take the bull by the horn, we need somebody to lead, we don’t have that right now…
DL: No it doesn’t seem to be…All right, I tell you what, we’ll be right back with Donald Trump ladies and gentlemen…

NOTE FROM THE BLOGGER: Hightlighted words and phrases are explained more in detail in separate posts: phrasal verbs, idioms, etc. Phrases in blue are present perfect phrases.

Perublogs Tags:

rain or shine

If you say "rain or shine", it means you will do something for sure.

Whatever the weather is, he runs every morning, rain or shine.

"Come rain or shine." "I'll be there, I promise."

I'll be at the party. Rain or shine. I'll see you on Saturday.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Future cars: small, sleek, smart



It's time for the all-new Chevrolet Camaro...A 21st century face on that 60's sport car, the Chevy Camaro boasting 26 miles per gallon, it reflects what designers say will characterize all cars 10 years from now...Eficiency: vehicles from all types they say, will shrink to make them more fuel efficient. General Motors Vice-President of Global Design Ed Welburn: "We have techologies (...) development that will take away that dependency on oil from other countries, the Volt is a very good example of it, Volt would be a mainstream technology..."

He's referring to Chevy's concept car, the all-electric Volt, cars that also look sleeker and more aerodynamic, as seen in the models assembled by students here at California's prestigious Art Center College of Design, the emphasis on the environment will haste the use of new material, that could give a new look to cars inside and out... Steward Rich shares the college transportation design department: "If you look at the production processes, the raw material extraction, materials that are truly sustainable, maybe even interior finishings for example that are changeable, so a car may have a wardrobe and you may be able to swap up different kinds of materials..."

And with advancements of those materials, electronic and lightning, voters would be able to customize their car more, even changing the ..., those seem to be leading the way toward the same sort of reconfigurability, the opportunity of maybe change the color of something, as you choose or by mood, ah...it seems to be possible now, or or artificial muscle that changes you know the way seat forms and arm rests of the interior shapes might feel so you actually might have a different posture in your eight o'clock drive versus three in the afternoon drives"...

New camera technologies could eliminate side and rear view mirrors streamlining the look...in ten years from now you'll be able to park of voice-command...now that's really sitting in the driver's seat...

Fred Cortale, Reuters, New York.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

LOVE TEST



You're walking to your boyfriend/girlfriend's house. There are two roads to get there. One is straight path which takes you there quickly but is very plain and boring. The other is curvy and full of wonderful sights on the way but takes quite a while to reach your loved one's house.

  • WHICH PATH DO YOU CHOOSE?

On the way, you see two rose bushes. One is full of white roses. One is full of red roses. You decide to pick 20 roses for your boyfriend/girlfriend.

  • WHAT COLOR COMBINATION DO YOU CHOOSE? (Any combination including all one color is fine)
You finally get to your boyfriend/girlfriend's house. You ring the bell and the maid answers. You can ask the maid to pleaswe get your loved one, or you may go get him/her yourself.

  • WHICH ACTION DO YOU TAKE?
Ask the maid or do it yourself?


Now you go up to your boyfriend/girlfriend's room. No one is there. You can leave the roses by the windowsill or on the bed.

  • WHERE DO YOU PUT THE ROSES?
Later, it's time for bed. You and your loved one go to sleep, in separate rooms. You wake up in the morning and go to your boyfriend/girlfriend's room to check up on him/her. You enter the room.

  • IS HE/SHE AWAKE OR SLEEPING?
It's time to go home now, and you start to head back. You can take either road home now. The plain, boring one that gets you home fast, or the curvy, sight-filled road that you can casually take your time with.


-------------------------- --------------------------

  • WHICH ROAD DID YOU CHOOSE TO TAKE TO YOUR LOVE'S HOUSE?

The road represents yout attitude towards falling in love. If you chose the short one, you fall in love quickly and easily. If you chose the long one, you take your time and do not fall in love easily.

  • WHAT COMBINATION OF ROSES DID YOU CHOOSE TO GIVE YOUR LOVE?
The number of red roses represent how much you expect to give in a relationship. The number of white roses represent how much you expect in a relationship. Therefore, if a person chose all red with one white, he/she gives 90% in the relationship but expects to receive only 10% back.

  • DID YOU ASK THE MAID TO GET YOUR LOVE, OR DID YOU DO IT YOURSELF?
This question shows your attitude in handling relationship problems. If you asked the maid to get your loved one, then you may bear around the bush, maybe asking a third party to invervene. Avoidance of problems runs high.

If you went and got your loved one yourself, then you are pretty direct. If there is a problem, you confront it and deal with it. You want to work it out right away.

  • WHERE DID YOU PUT THE ROSES? ON THE WINDOWSILL OR ON THE BED?
The placement of the roses indicate how often you'd like to see your boyfriend/girlfriend. Placing the roses on the bed means you need lots of reassurance in the relationship, and you'd want to see your loved one every day if possible.

Placing the roses by the window show that you don't expect or need to see your loved one that often; seeing him/her just once in a while is OK
.
  • DID YOU FIND YOUR LOVED ONE ASLEEP OR AWAKE?
Finding your boyfriend/girlfriend asleep: You accept your loved one the way they are.

Finding your boyfriend/girlfriend awake: You expect him/her to change for you.

  • WHICH ROAD DID YOU CHOSE TO GO HOME?
The short and long roads now represent how long you stay in love. If you chose the short one, you fall out of love easily. If you chose the long one, you tend to stay in love for a long time.

An S.U.V. Traffic Jam



By NICK BUNKLEY
Published: August 12, 2008


DETROIT — The market for sport utility vehicles is starting to look a lot like the housing market, spreading pain to consumers, automakers and dealers.
Even the vocabulary is sadly familiar. Bloated inventories? Days spent on the market?
Well, in July, General Motors dealers had a 174-day supply of the Yukon XL/Suburban on hand, on average, up from a 92-day supply a year earlier. Inventory of the Chevrolet C/K Suburban nearly doubled over the same period, to 116 days from 63 days.
Just like hapless homeowners, countless car owners are now “underwater,” driving vehicles that are worth less than the balance on their car loans. And just like desperate homeowners, the sellers of S.U.V.’s are having to painfully cut asking prices.
For instance, Michael Kohan, a recent graduate of Hofstra University’s law school, decided that hundreds of dollars a month filling up his 2006 Land Rover LR3 would be better spent paying down his student loans. He calculated that his vehicle — loaded with luxuries like a navigation system, xenon lights, parking assist sensors, heated leather seats and three sunroofs — should be worth at least $31,000, according to the Kelley Blue Book.
But with a V-8 engine that gets only about 14 miles per gallon, Mr. Kohan, 24, decided to list his LR3 on eBay and Craigslist for $18,000. And yet, he told a reporter this week, “As low as I set the price, you’re the first person to call.”
Dealers are going through the same pain, only multiplied. They normally spend this time of year raking in some of their biggest profits and breathlessly promoting Detroit’s newest models. Instead, they almost cannot give S.U.V.’s away.
“There’s never been discounts this big before on them, but people are still shying away,” said Kevin Fortman, a sales manager at Wolf Chevrolet in Naperville, Ill.
Mr. Fortman said his dealership had dozens more sport utility vehicles left from the 2008 model year than it needed, even as factories began rolling out newer versions. “We’re not going to order any ’09s for a while,” he said.
Automakers are offering discounts of $10,000 or more on some S.U.V.’s just to get rid of them, so dealers have space to stock more of the fuel-efficient cars consumers are clamoring for. On average, new sport utility vehicles sold for 20 percent below sticker price in July, according to Edmunds.com, a Web site that gives car-buying advice to consumers.
That, in turn, has decimated prices for used S.U.V.’s.
Ultimately, car companies are the ones that will pay, because they will have the new S.U.V.’s on their hands as well as the used and leased ones.
The sudden collapse of the S.U.V. market has cost Detroit dearly. As part of its $8.7 billion second-quarter loss, Ford took a charge of $2.1 billion to cover the rapidly declining value of used sport utility vehicles coming off lease.
G.M. also took a big hit on its quarterly earnings. GMAC Financial Services, which is jointly owned by G.M. and Cerberus Capital Management, reported a $2.5 billion loss in the second quarter, which included a $716 million impairment charge from lower S.U.V. residual values. G.M., which lost $15.5 billion in the quarter, was also forced to contribute about $1.5 billion in lease support payments to GMAC.
Chrysler, which is privately owned by Cerberus and does not report financial results, stunned the industry by pulling out of leasing altogether on Aug. 1 because of the falling values of its used vehicles.
In their heyday, sport utility vehicles brought hefty profits to automakers. But today those companies are slashing output and closing plants amid plummeting demand — only they cannot act fast enough to prevent a logjam of the vehicles already produced and in the pipeline.
Sales of S.U.V.’s are down 32 percent so far this year, and were off 43 percent for July.
Ford logged just 5,404 sales last month of its Explorer, the best-selling sport utility vehicle in history, and is on pace to sell fewer than 100,000 Explorers this year for the first time since introducing the model nearly two decades ago.
The Expedition, the Explorer’s bigger sibling, has suffered even more.
Bob Creech, who sells semi tractors in Moorestown, N.J., found a buyer for his meticulously maintained 2004 Eddie Bauer Edition Expedition this week only after he knocked a few hundred dollars off the asking price. The vehicle, which he bought five years ago for about $44,000 and drove for 106,000 miles, sold for $8,600.
“I took a little bit of a beating,” Mr. Creech, 52, said. “I really enjoyed driving it, I liked the ride of it and the visibility, but it just wasn’t practical.”
Last month, Automotive Lease Guide, the company whose estimates of vehicle value, after several years of depreciation, are used to calculate lease payments, made unprecedented downward adjustments to many sport utility vehicles’ residual values. The company now says a Ford Expedition will retain 32 percent of its value after three years and that a Chevrolet Suburban will be worth just 30 percent of its original price. A few years ago, such vehicles were estimated to keep about half their value after three years.
“These big trucks and S.U.V.’s are really dinosaurs at this point,” said John Blair, chief executive of Automotive Lease Guide. “Consumers like S.U.V.’s. They haven’t fallen out of love with the things that made them popular, but it’s just become an issue of economics. When you look at paying several hundred dollars a month more in fuel, that becomes a big deal for most households.”
High gas prices have hurt S.U.V.’s more than pickup trucks because a large proportion of the people who have been driving S.U.V.’s were more attracted to their style than their capabilities, whereas pickups are popular among contractors and other workers who haul supplies. Many commuters and couples without young children have abandoned S.U.V.’s for vehicles that are less costly to drive.
Additionally, many shoppers interested in buying S.U.V.’s already own an S.U.V., and end up walking away from dealerships after learning how little their current vehicles are worth.
“Everybody thinks you’re lying to them,” said Mr. Fortman, the Chevrolet sales manager in Illinois. “Nobody wants to take that big of a hit.”
Because the S.U.V.’s decline is largely owing to high gas prices, experts say the only way that the segment could rebound significantly is for gas prices to decline. Edmunds.com said the number of visitors researching S.U.V.’s has increased slightly in recent weeks as gas prices have retreated.
Given how much the automakers and dealers are willing to knock off an S.U.V.’s price, this is not a bad time to buy one, said Jesse Toprak, the director of industry analysis at Edmunds. Yet so many consumers are eager to avoid weekly $100 fill-ups that they are more focused on saving money at the gas pump than at the dealership.
“It’s a very psychological decision,” Mr. Toprak said. “You pay for the car just once, but you go to the pump every week, so that almost seems more important to you. Every time you go to the pump, you just want to feel good about it.”
And so thousands of Americans have been exchanging their sport utility vehicles for fuel-efficient cars, despite low trade-in values for the larger vehicles and a scarcity of small cars that has allowed dealers to charge sticker price or more for them.
“When you trade in a large S.U.V. for a compact car, you’re selling low and buying high,” Mr. Toprak said. “For a lot of people that’s not really logical, but they’re not really running the numbers.”


Tuesday, August 12, 2008

prescient

(formal adjective) When you know or suggest correctly what will happen in the future.

A prescient warning.

SUGGESTION: Go to "Listening" and listen to Bill Vlasic's report on General Motors reporting a second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion.

foresight

noun. The ability to judge correctly what is going to happen in the future and plan your actions based on this knowledge.

She had had the foresight to sell her apartment just before house prices came down.

SUGGESTION: Go to "Listening" and listen to Bill Vlasic's report on General Motors reporting a second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion.

hold out

(phrasal verb) To last. If a supply of something such as food or money holds out, there is enough of it to last for a particular period of time.

NOTE FROM THE BLOGGER: Go to "Listening" and listen to Bill Vlasic's report on General Motors reporting a second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion.

to be in the same boat

To be in the same unpleasant situation as other people.

She's always complaining that she doesn't have enough money, but we're all in the same boat.

SUGGESTION: Go to "Listening" and listen to Bill Vlasic's report on General Motors reporting a second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion.

turn out

(phrasal verb) To happen in a particular way or to have a particular result, especially an unexpected one.

As events turned out, we were right to have decided to leave early.

How did the recipe turn out?

The truth turned out to be stranger than we had expected.

It turns out that she had known him when they were children.


NOTE FROM THE BLOGGER: Go to "Listening" and listen to Bill Vlasic's report on General Motors reporting a second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion.

run out

(phrasal verb) To finish, use or sell all of something, so that there is nothing left.

I've run out of milk/money/ideas/patience.

"Do you have any milk?" "Sorry, I've run out."

The milk has run out.

My patience is beginning to run out.

Metaphor: The scuba diver who’s under water hoping his oxygen doesn’t run out before he can get to the surface.

NOTE FROM THE BLOGGER: Go to "Listening" and listen to Bill Vlasic's report on General Motors reporting a second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion.

blue-collar jobs / white collar jobs

  • blue-collar jobs. Employees performing a type of work that often requires wearing a uniform, and often involve manual labor.
  • white-collar jobs. Workers who usually don't do manual labor and wear formal clothes. Managerial, clerical, sales job s are usually white-collar jobs.

SUGGESTION: Go to "Listening" and listen to Bill Vlasic's report on General Motors reporting a second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion.

turn (something) around

phrasal verb. Turn something around. To change an unsuccessful business, plan or system so that it becomes successful.

The new management team turned the agonizing company around in less than six months.

SUGGESTION: Go to "Listening" and listen to Bill Vlasic's report on General Motors reporting a second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion.

downturn

A reduction in the amount or success of something, for example an economic activity.

The continuing economic downturn.

There is evidence of a downturn in the housing market.

SUGGESTION: Go to "Listening" and listen to Bill Vlasic's report on General Motors reporting a second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion.

disposable income

The amount of income after taxes have been paid, available for spending and saving.

SUGGESTION: Go to "Listening" and listen to Bill Vlasic's report on General Motors reporting a second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion.

to flee

To escape by running away, especially because of danger or fear.

She fled (from) the room in tears.

In order to escape capture, he fled to the mountains.

SUGGESTION: Go to "Listening" and listen to Bill Vlasic's report on General Motors reporting a second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion.

hair-splitting

To argue about if some details that are not important are exactly correct.

I didn’t have very much patience with all this legal hair-splitting.

SUGGESTION: Go to "Listening" and listen to Bill Vlasic's report on General Motors reporting a second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion.

demise

Death (formal). The end of something that was previously considered to be powerful (a business, industry or system).

The demise of the company was sudden and unexpected.

SUGGESTION: Go to "Listening" and listen to Bill Vlasic's report on General Motors reporting a second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion.

revenue

The income the government or a company receives regularly. The amount of income before any deductions are made.

Taxes provide most of the government's revenue.

SUGGESTION: Go to "Listening" and listen to Bill Vlasic's report on General Motors reporting a second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion.

go bankrupt

You go bankrupt when you can't pay what you owe or when you don't have any money.

He went bankrupt after only a year in business.

The recession has made many small businesses go bankrupt.

SUGGESTION: Go to "Listening" and listen to Bill Vlasic's report on General Motors reporting a second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion.

lay off

To lay somebody off. phrasal verb. To stop employing someone, usually because there is no work for them to do.

Because of the oil crisis, the company has been forced to lay off several hundred workers.

SUGGESTION: Go to "Listening" and listen to Bill Vlasic's report on General Motors reporting a second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion.



between & among

  • Between (AMONG). preposition. Among two or more people or things.

The money was divided equally between several worthy causes.

We drank two bottles of wine between four of us.

Trade between the two countries has increased sharply in the past year.

There is a great deal of similarity between Caroline and her mother.

You'll have to choose between (= choose either) a holiday or a new washing machine.

  • Among. preposition. Part of a group of people or things.

I saw a few familiar faces among the crowd.

Rescue teams searched among the wreckage for survivors.

A decision that has caused a lot of anger among women.

Relax, you're among friends.

She has worked as an estate agent among other things.

SUGGESTION: Go to "Listening" and listen to Bill Vlasic's report on General Motors reporting a second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion.

Charlie Rose: a conversation with Orhan Pamuk



A one-hour conversation with Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk about his new essay collection: Other Colors.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Don't mess with them!

(from www.livingingperu.com)

The FBI had an opening for an assassin. After all the background checks, interviews and testing were done, there were 3 finalists: two men and a woman. For the final test, the FBI agents took one of the men to a large metal door and handed him a gun. 'We must know that you will follow your instructions no matter what the circumstances.' Inside the room you will find your wife sitting in a chair . . . Kill her!!' The man said, 'You can't be serious. I could never shoot my wife.' The agent said, 'Then you're not the right man for this job. Take your wife and go home.'

The second man was given the same instructions. He took the gun and went into the room. All was quiet for about 5 minutes. The man came out with tears in his eyes, 'I tried, but I can't kill my wife.' The agent said, 'You don't have what it takes. Take your wife home.'

Finally, it was the woman's turn...She was given the same instructions, to kill her husband. She took the gun and went into the room. Shots were heard, one after another. They heard screaming, crashing, banging on the walls. After a few minutes, all was quiet. The door opened slowly and there stood the woman, wiping the sweat from her brow. 'This gun is loaded with blanks' she said. ' I had to beat him to death with the chair.
MORAL: Don't mess with women.

NUMBERS

13- 30 - 14 - 40 - 15 -50 - 16 - 60 - 17 - 70 - 18 - 80 - 19 - 90

55 - 81 - 100 - 250 - 376 - 499 - 783 - 977 - 1000 - 2500


10,000 - 25,000 - 100,000 - 250,000 - 1,000,000 - 2, 500,000


numbers.mp3

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Bench Strength: Grooming Your Next CEO

(An excerpt from Harvard Business Review)
By Jay A. Conger & Robert M. Fulmer


Finding a new CEO goes beyond maintaining a roster of talent. Smart companies link succession planning with leadership development.

What could be more vital to a company's long-term health than the choice and cultivation of its future leaders? And yet, while companies maintain meticulous lists of candidates who could at a moment's notice step into the shoes of a key executive, an alarming number of newly minted leaders fail spectacularly, ill prepared to do the jobs for which they supposedly have been groomed.

Look at Coca-Cola's M. Douglas Ivester, longtime CFO and Robert Goizueta's second in command, who became CEO after Goizueta's death. Ivester was forced to resign in two and a half years, thanks to a serious slide in the company's share price, some bad public-relations moves, and the poor handling of a product contamination scare in Europe. Or consider Mattel's Jill Barad, whose winning track record in marketing catapulted her into the top job—but didn't give her insight into the financial and strategic aspects of running a large corporation.

Ivester and Barad failed, in part, because although each was accomplished in at least one area of management, neither had mastered more general competencies such as public relations, designing and managing acquisitions, building consensus, and supporting multiple constituencies. They're not alone. The problem is not just that the shoes of the departed are too big; it's that succession planning, as traditionally conceived and executed, is too narrow and hidebound to uncover and correct skill gaps that can derail even the most promising young executives.

By marrying succession planning and leadership development, you get the best of both.
However, in our research into the factors that contribute to a leader's success or failure, we've found that certain companies do succeed in developing deep and enduring bench strength by approaching succession planning as more than the mechanical process of updating a list. Indeed, they've combined two practices—succession planning and leadership development—to create a long-term process for managing the talent roster across their organizations. In most companies, the two practices reside in separate functional silos, but they are natural allies because they share a vital and fundamental goal: getting the right skills in the right place. ...

Focus on development
The fundamental rule—the one on which the other four rest—is that succession management must be a flexible system oriented toward developmental activities, not a rigid list of high-potential employees and the slots they might fill. By marrying succession planning and leadership development, you get the best of both: attention to the skills required for senior management positions along with an educational system that can help managers develop those skills.

It's a lesson that might have helped Coca-Cola and Mattel. Coke's Ivester was given the top job largely as a reward for his financial savvy and years of loyalty to Goizueta and the company; but not enough attention was paid to how his particular skills might apply to the broader role. And as for Barad, she had grown Mattel's Barbie brand nearly tenfold in less than a decade, yet her controlling management style and lack of experience in finance, strategy, and the handling of Wall Street—essential capabilities for any CEO—proved to be her downfall. Early intervention might have exposed her limitations and provided an opportunity to develop these skills—and perhaps would have kept her career on track. And indeed, Robert Eckert, who became CEO at Mattel after Barad, links succession directly to development efforts.

It's not just about training. Leadership development, as traditionally practiced, focuses on one-off educational events, but research at the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina, has shown that participants often return to the office from such events energized and enthusiastic only to be stifled by the reality of corporate life. It's far more effective to pair classroom training with real-life exposure to a variety of jobs and bosses—using techniques like job rotation, special assignments such as establishing a regional office in a new country, and "action learning," which pulls together a group of high-potential employees to study and make recommendations on a pressing topic, such as whether to enter a new geographical area or experiment with a new business model.

Leadership development, as traditionally practiced, focuses on one-off educational events.
Eli Lilly, for example, has a biannual action-learning program that brings together potential leaders, selected by line managers and the human resources department, to focus on a strategic business issue chosen by the CEO. Eighteen employees identified as having at least executive-director potential, representing a mix of functions and regions, participate in a six-week session in which they meet with subject matter experts, best-practice organizations, customers, and thought leaders, and then analyze what they've learned. In 2000, one such team was charged with developing an e-business strategy as a new avenue of growth—an issue that was a pressing concern at the time. The group interviewed more than 150 people over five weeks and in the final week developed a set of recommendations to present to senior managers—who took their ideas quite seriously. For example, the group recommended naming an e-executive and providing a certain level of funding to the initiative. Without hesitation, the CEO responded, "We will appoint an e-executive within two weeks, and he or she will report to me…appropriate funding will be made available." And he followed through on those promises.

Learning in action
Action-learning programs such as Lilly's serve a dual purpose: They provide developmental experiences for employees—who are forced to look beyond functional silos to solve major strategic problems and thus learn something of what it takes to be a general manager—and they result in a useful work product for the company. Such programs have increased in importance because many companies, in downsizing and creating economies of scale, have eliminated a number of the roles that used to be prime training grounds for top management.

Look at Dow Chemical. Under its old organizational structure, some sixty countries had country managers—who were, in essence, country presidents—to whom all the business units and functions reported. These roles served as excellent opportunities for developing general management skills. In 1995, the company consolidated into thirty global business units built around business and functional specialties like the manufacture of a specific set of chemicals. Under this structure, all functions report to the global business-unit leaders, and the country manager is essentially an integrator. The new structure allows Dow to enjoy the economies of scale now permitted by the relaxing of trade barriers, but it reduces the number of developmental opportunities by half. In addition, about ten years ago an employee might have been a country manager in his or her late thirties to mid-forties. Today the average age of those heading the global lines of business is mid-forties to early fifties, which means that people wait longer to step into the role.

One way to provide general management experience in this environment is to launch small joint ventures or internal enterprises. Managers can also make lateral moves across functions and business units. For example, one of Dow's global business-unit heads served for a time as president of operations in the Asia-Pacific region to gain a cross-functional perspective. And a future leader in the research organization was named vice president for purchasing, to broaden her expertise.

Opportunities like these should be incorporated into individuals' development plans, with mechanisms to trigger associated developmental activities as needed. Lilly's group development review (GDR) is mandatory for the approximately 500 employees who are identified through the company's talent assessment process as having executive potential. The GDR is a periodic, in-depth review of a single person, involving input from both past and present supervisors (the employee is not present for the meeting). In a facilitated ninety-minute discussion, the group identifies the next steps the employee should take, gathering input from others in the organization if necessary. The immediate supervisor then shares a summary of the results with the employee, who, with the supervisor, is responsible for incorporating the feedback into his or her development plan.

One way to provide general management experience ... is to launch small joint ventures or internal enterprises.
A marketing manager we'll call Bob was the subject of a recent GDR session. During the review his current and previous supervisors concluded that he was overly dependent on his strategic-thinking skills and needed more operational experience before he could be promoted to the executive level. Bob's supervisor shared this information with his peers during the marketing function's next succession management meeting, and the team agreed to help Bob round out his skills by placing him in a key sales role in Europe. When an employee goes through a significant transition such as Bob's—taking on an important role without the experience usually required—Lilly generally mitigates the risk by placing the person with employees who are already strong contributors. Company leaders also make periodic progress checks and may send the employee to a training program or appoint a mentor (not the employee's boss) to give hands-on guidance.


Jay A. Conger is a professor of organizational behavior at the London Business School and a senior research scientist at the University of Southern California's Center for Effective Organizations in Los Angeles.

Robert M. Fulmer is the academic director at Duke Corporate Education in Durham, North Carolina, and a distinguished visiting professor at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.

Monday, August 4, 2008

New York Times Podcast (Backstory): Bill Vlasic on General Motors reporting a second-quarter loss of $15.5 billion





JB: This is Backstory, a daily conversation with New York Times reporters on the stories they’re covering. I’m Jane Bornemeier, editor of New York Times radio.

Today I’m talking to Jim Vlasic in Detroit about enormous losses reported by General Motors in their 2nd quarter. Bill thanks for talking to me today.


BV: Oh I’m glad to be on, thanks.

JB: So General Motors has had some historic losses in the 2nd quarter, give us some other details I mean how big are these losses and put them in perspective with the other US carmakers…

BV: Well, General Motors announced a 15.5 billion dollar loss for the 2nd quarter which I believe it’s among their largest quarterly losses ever. It’s significant there’s no question about it, some of this was attributed to charges that they took for a variety of issues: job cuts, factory closings, continued payments for their Delphi part subsidiary that’s in bankruptcy...but they lost over 6 billion dollars on operations alone…and that’s a large number and it goes to how difficult their 2nd quarter has been in the US market for GM and the other automakers…

JB: And is this largely a result of falling sales or what can you attribute these losses to exactly…

BV: Ah...the sales are down substantially, GM US sales for the three-month period were down 20%...this is a big number and not just sales but revenues were down almost 33% which means not only they’re selling a lot less vehicles, they’re not making money on them either…and this has to do with just absolute demise of the big SUV market and the weakness in the pickup truck market which are the two traditional profit centers for GM, Ford and Chrysler…

JB: This may be a little of hair-splitting but is it clear that people aren’t just buying cars at all…or that they’re not buying that kind of cars, the big cars that General Motors makes and they’ve actually switched to smaller cars and therefore are benefitting different automakers than GM…

BV: Well,both…the economy is clearly…keeping…people out of the car market…that had been a new year’s path…through June… first half of the year overall sales for all manufacturers were down 10%...The projections are that 2008 will be one of the lowest levels of overall sales of the industry in about 15 years…So yes…people are not going to buy new cars like they have in years past…Secondly, they’re fleeing from big trucks with their 15 miles per gallon engines into smaller vehicles, particularly in the May-time period, May and June, their drop off in sales of bigger vehicles was unprecedented really, and people are just stampeding to smaller cars...unfortunately for the Detroit automakers while their small car sales are going up, they really weren’t prepared for the kind of demand they’re seeing so ironically they’re short on inventories…

JB: What do the latest sales figures up-to-date tell you overall about the health of the US car market?

BV: Earlier in the year automakers thought that the 2nd half of the year would be better and there would be a recovery…It’s not looking that way, it’s looking like the economy and the continued pressures in the mortgages and credit and just …disposable income in general…are keeping people out of the car market and they’re not necessarily going to come back in the second half of 08. This may be a downturn that stretches well into 2009.

JB: Is it your sense that the carmakers are in a complete panic or that there are some calm processes going on to try to change production or to do something positive besides cutting costs and laying off workers to turn this situation around…?

BV: Well, we’ve been in a huge restructuring process for all the Detroit automakers for the last three years, I mean… between the three of them they have already cut more than a hundred thousand blue-collar jobs since 2006, there have been more cuts, there’s a ten thousand white-collar jobs being cut right now between GM, Ford and Chrysler …so they’re cutting costs dramatically… but it’s almost like the scuba diver who’s under water and hoping his oxygen doesn’t run out before he can get to the surface… I mean these companies are burning through their cash reserves and… yes they can cut costs but you can only go so far on that regard, they’re hoping that their cash and their liquidity will hold out while they’re making very dramatic shifts in production from the trucks and SUV’s that were stable to smaller cars…

JB: Who turns out to have had the more foresight about what was about to happen among American companies and among companies overall, who was the most prescient?

The three American companies are all pretty much in the same boat, in the sense that they have been very heavily weighted toward the bigger vehicles and of course those vehicles generated incredible profits in the 90’s and earlier this decade so I would say that General Motors is further ahead in globalizing their product development which allows them to spread their costs around the world but on the other hand to look at the profit and loss statements GM is hurting the worst there so it’s a mixed blessing…Clearly the one company that has done the best in this market so far’s been Honda…Honda never built a V8 engine, never built a pickup truck, never built a full size SUV…That was their strategy for many years and they never deviated from it but on top of that they have put their resources and their efforts into fuel efficient cars that have very high quality and this is exactly what consumers are looking for today.

JB: Bill thanks so much for your time…

BV: Oh sure no problem, thank you.

That was Times’ reporter Bill Vlasic on the Quarterly Losses reported by GM. For New York Times radio I’m Jane Bonnemeier and I’ll be back next week with another edition of Backstory. To subscribe with the Backstory Podcast go to nytimes.com /backstory. July 31st, 2008

NOTE FROM THE BLOGGER: Words and phrases highlighted in red are defined individually in separate posts.
Phrases highlited in black and brown are present perfect tenses.

Friday, August 1, 2008

The Alphabet

A B C D E F G H I

J K L M N O P Q

R S T U V W X Y Z


alphabet.mp3