Thursday, July 14, 2005

Rehnquist to stay for now

Bad news for conservatives who were hoping to have a shot at getting two new conservative Supreme Court justices this term, Chief Justice William Rehnquist is not planning to retire. You can read the article, from AP via Yahoo, at the link below for the full story. Even though he is battling thyroid cancer, he is staying on. I suppose that could change if his condition gets materially worse but he stays for now.

Read it here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050715/ap_on_go_su_co/rehnquist_health;_ylt=AvBCLV5XiLYRn1ANoHZE0jWs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Do the auto discounts by the big 3 make sense?

By now we are inundated by commercials from Ford, GM and Chrysler dealers hyping up their new promotions offering employee discount pricing to everyone. The move, first by GM, then Chrysler and finally Ford, has definitely helped sales for all 3 companies, especially GM. It also has helped move excess inventory of 05 models, which is also good, since they would have to discount them more later to move them when the 06 models arrive shortly. However, I wonder how much these discounts really help the bottom line of these companies. Undoubtedly they are good for sales now, but those sales come at a considerably reduced profit margin, which is especially an issue for GM. Also, while the Big 3 have had great sales, companies like Honda, Toyota and Nissan are doing well without the discounts. Toyota had its best June ever this year, and that is while up against the big 3 and their discounts. It was no where near GM's increase, but they can sustain it month after month without gimmicks and discounts where as GM will see its sales plummet once the discount is over.

One often overlooked fact of these promotions is that while they may lure some people away from buying a used car because the new cars/trucks are not much more expensive, in many cases people are just buying a car now to take advantage of the great price instead of buying a car six months or a year from now. While this helps a great deal in the short term, and it may be enough to make this years numbers look good, they likely will give a good chunk of that big in later months and even the following year.

The cold, hard facts here are that the Big 3 have to heavily discount their vehicles to move them, while companies like Honda and Toyota offer either no rebates or fairly small ones on their comparable vehicles. They don't have to do that to move their vehicles. Until the Big 3 can fix that (if they can), they will continue to lose market share.

Go figure

Wow, this is a shocker, according to a recent study conducted in Australia, people using cell phones while driving are more likely to have accidents than those who are not. I hope they got some kind of government grant for that study. I am actually surprised there are not more such accidents. I see unbelievievably stupid things on the road virtually every day (and not just on the bible thumpin Kansas side either) and a good chunk of the time that driver is on their cell. That is bad news in the KC area since the average person is a bad driver to begin with, this is not going to help.

I use my phone on occasion while driving, but i actually put the phone down while entering or exiting the freeway, or changing lanes, especially if I need to go to my left (I hold the phone in my left hand most of the time, making it hard to see out that side of the window). But most people are not that careful.

Here is the link to the story:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8545779/

Homeland Insecurity?

I am still trying to figure out the whole Homeland Security system. I have read numerous times about small towns that would likely never be any kind of terrorist target (because they have small populations and nothing really vital there) get big grants from the government, allegedly in the name of homeland security. Then you read an article like the one from MSNBC that I have linked below, concerning the number of chemical plants in the United States near or in major cities. As someone who grew up with a moderately sized chemical plant about 8 miles away, I wonder why we waste homeland security money where it is not needed instead of spending it on safeguarding vital areas (or dangerous potential targets) such as ports, chemical plants, nuke plants oil refineries, etc.

One scenario listed in the article describes a possible attack with up to a million casualties. You would think that would move these chemical plants up the list quite a ways. Apparently there are over 10000 chemical plants of varying sizes in the US, and no we may not be able to protect all of them. But one would think the government would make a real effort to at least protect the ones that are the most potentially dangerous and/or in large population centers.

I am glad we are spending money on homeland security, but I think we need to spend a little less money and effort trying to prevent what has already happened and spend more trying to think creatively about how the next attack might come.

Here is the link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8477697/