Recent comments

  • First, you need to read the MIT study that became a best selling book two decades ago, [The Machine That Changed the World]. It was the largest and most thorough study ever undertaken of any industry -- MIT's five-year, fourteen-country International Motor Vehicle Program -- this book describes the entire managerial system of lean production. It was just released again in March of last year. Not sure if it was updated.

    Track down the authors - one or more of them went to a sort of think tank that focuses entirely on the auto industry.

    Brock Yates, who has been writing about cars since I was a kid 40 years ago, wrote a book in 1996, [The Critical Path: Inventing an Automobile and Reinventing a Corporation] that provides the details of how the second generation minivan was designed, prototyped, tested, and put into production.

    The 1994 book [Comeback: The Fall & Rise of the American Automobile Industry] by Paul Ingrassia and Joseph B. White is also good.

    Former Ford CEO Donald Peterson wrote a book about ten years ago. I mention this because Jon. Larson, author of Elegant Technology (an excellent book itself!), wrote that Peterson was one of the last U.S. auto CEOs who not only did not come from a financial predators background, but actually understood industrial production.

    The most recent book on auto I would recommend is expensive, [High Noon in the Automotive Industry] was written in 2006 by Dr. Helmut Becker who was Chief Economist at BMW.

    For the most current info, track down the authors of [The Machine That Changed the World].

    Reply to: labor and manufacturing process for autos   15 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • Great piece. It is just unbelievable and the GDP contraction is no comparison to the contractions going on in the past which they didn't even come close to spending what they are now.

    What I find amazing is how passive America is on this phenomenal spending. $8.5 trillion, > 60% of this years entire economy.

    I also like the references to some of the best blog pieces of the week you are reviewing.

    Reply to: Economic and Financial News - Nov 28, 2008 - World War 2 was a relative bargain   15 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • We seriously need to get on with the business of becoming energy independent. While we are doing the happy dance around the pumps with the lower prices OPEC is planning yet more production cuts and will not quit until they achieve their desired price per barrel. The record high prices this past year have done serious damage to our economy and society. WE must move forward with energy independence. We have the knowledge, we have the technology, what America lacks is a plan. Jeff Wilson has a new book out that is beyond awesome. The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence NOW. He walks you through every aspect of oil, what it is used for besides gas, our depletion of it. The worlds increased need ie 3rd world countries becoming more modernized and consuming more. He explains EVERY alternative energy source and what role they can play to replace oil. His research is backed up with hard data and even includes a time frame and proposed legislative agendas to wean America off oil. www.themanhattanprojectof2009.com

    Reply to: Obama Promises to Create 2.5 Million Jobs, but in What Countries?   15 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • I wonder if they created that median projection by simply taking the states and dividing by 50!

    Reply to: Economists Expect a 6.8% Unemployment Rate, Data on Dec. 5th   15 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • MI and RI tied for first place with CA breathing down our necks.

    Alabama 5.6%
    Alaska 7.4%
    Arizona 6.1
    Arkansas 5.4
    California 8.2%
    Colorado 5.7%
    Connecticut 6.5%
    Delaware 5.4%
    D.C. 7.4%
    Florida 7.0%
    Georgia 7.0%
    Hawaii 4.5%
    Idaho 5.3%
    Illinois 7.3%
    Indiana 6.4%
    Iowa 4.4%
    Kansas 4.9%
    Kentucky 6.8%
    Louisiana 5.5%
    Maine 5.7%
    Maryland 5.0%
    Massachusetts 5.5%
    Michigan 9.3%
    Minnesota 6.0%
    Mississippi 7.2%
    Missouri 6.5%
    Montana 4.8%
    Nebraska 3.6%
    Nevada 7.6%
    New Hampshire 4.1%
    New Jersey 6.0%
    New Mexico 4.4%
    New York 5.7%
    North Carolina 7.0%
    North Dakota 3.4%
    Ohio 7.3%
    Oklahoma 4.3%
    Oregon 7.3%
    Pennsylvania 5.8%
    Puerto Rico 12.0%
    Rhode Island 9.3%
    South Carolina 8.0%
    South Dakota 3.3%
    Tennessee 7.0%
    Texas 5.6%
    Utah 3.5%
    Vermont 5.2%
    Virginia 4.4%
    Washington6.3%
    West Virginia 4.7%
    Wisconsin 5.1%
    Wyoming 3.3%
    (preliminary data for Oct 2008)

    They're asking for another four years -- in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20 ~~ Dennis Kucinich

    Reply to: Economists Expect a 6.8% Unemployment Rate, Data on Dec. 5th   15 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • Citigroup just signed a contract with Tata Consulting to outsource their Information Technology work for 1.2 billion. Guess American IT workers and programmers are not good enough for them. AIG is in the same process they are also negotiating with Tata.

    Why bailout these greedy Anti-American companies?

    Reply to: Manufacturing Monday: Week of 11.24.08   15 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • The figures are even better if you consider the fact that Black Friday shopping is normally lower in a election year.

    Reply to: Black Friday Shopping Data   15 years 12 months ago
  • Just how much money is in the business of manipulation of the primitive brain. LIke right now, we have information overload on the bail out but very few are pointing out the total amount of money pledged is not only 60^ of our GDP but could pay for almost every single mortgage in the United States. How much of a disconnect is that one and it's like the American people have been barraged with bullshit instead of that basic fact.

    Reply to: Wal-Mart Worker Dies in Black Friday Stampede   16 years 17 hours ago
    EPer:
  • So funny and would make a great blog title. I hope you write it. I for one has extremely not impressed by team Obama. It sure seems like they intend on pushing the corporate agenda regardless of fact of consequence.

    Reply to: Wal-Mart Worker Dies in Black Friday Stampede   16 years 18 hours ago
    EPer:
  • ...modern media campaign. The conscious decision to strip away 'modern man' by bypassing the cortex and bringing to bear our knowledge of how the medulla oblongata works and using it to control behavior. We will see more of this especially in the political arena.

    Watch for giant sound arrays at upcoming 'speeches'. And....

    ...be very worried.

    Reply to: Wal-Mart Worker Dies in Black Friday Stampede   16 years 19 hours ago
    EPer:
  • being sold...nothing more.

    *sigh*

    Reply to: Wal-Mart Worker Dies in Black Friday Stampede   16 years 19 hours ago
    EPer:
  • I deprogrammed myself but I can remember when the gift, type of gift was critical to get perceived affection. What crap. I really have a hard time with marketing, sales people who use psychology, mass psychology and sociology to manipulate people into these beliefs. I really do, it's unethical to me and very powerful.

    I actually had a really rough time with the Obama campaign because I saw these same techniques. The entire change motif, using an ill defined term, not defined which psychologically enabled the consumer (voter) to project what they believed change meant onto the campaign, now thinking that is what Obama meant.

    Of course as we are seeing from the Economic team and we assuredly saw from votes, advisers, policy positions in the campaign, what was really going on but unfortunately most people get caught up on the PR of a campaign and don't even read real position papers (white papers).

    Reply to: Wal-Mart Worker Dies in Black Friday Stampede   16 years 20 hours ago
    EPer:
  • back in 2000 or so when the Playstation 2 came out. Some kid got trampled in the Akikabara district mall. A few years ago, one of my relative who was a cop in Pittsburgh arrested two mothers during that Elmo toy craze. They were fighting in the middle of a story over one friggin' toy.

    Reply to: Wal-Mart Worker Dies in Black Friday Stampede   16 years 20 hours ago
    EPer:
  • of the consumer society, perpetuated by marketing and sales techniques. They are out of control with this to the point people are getting injured and now death on Black Friday.

    I can't find it but I could swear a few died two years ago too.

    I won't step out of the house personally on Friday, absolute hysteria.

    Reply to: Wal-Mart Worker Dies in Black Friday Stampede   16 years 21 hours ago
    EPer:
  • of waiting until today to do holiday shopping. I worked in retail, everyone knows the scam. Take a product hike the price up prior to "Black Friday" then "reduce the price" on that day. A coat that in the Summer fetched $20 because it was not a seasonal product. By September or October, the price is slowly increased to $35, then on Black Friday it's "dropped" to $30 and you're told you're getting a discount. How do I know this, because I did the same thing while I worked at both Sears and Marshal Fields when I was in High School. Mind you, it wasn't just coats either.

    Reply to: Wal-Mart Worker Dies in Black Friday Stampede   16 years 21 hours ago
    EPer:
  • It's not fitting to our society at all. as HULIQ write http://www.huliq.com/1/73764/black-friday-walmart-death-worker-trampled Black Friday shamefully made a black mark on the retail store. Our society should be ashamed of this sort of consumerism

    Reply to: Wal-Mart Worker Dies in Black Friday Stampede   16 years 23 hours ago
  • Cleaned by illegal immigrants. ;)

    Happy Thanksgiving to you too!

    I was thinking maybe a top Turkeys blog post to celebrate.

    Reply to: Happy Thanksgiving you guys   16 years 1 day ago
    EPer:
  • Was that some banks in the UK were overleveraged up to 200:1.

    The shrinking numbers we're seeing in the derivatives market would suggest that was actually close to correct.

    Reply to: Bad Ideas, Bad Management are Rewarded with Taxpayer Money   16 years 2 days ago
    EPer:
  • Those estimates are more than 10:1 in derivation. That's the only thing I can think which makes sense to me, they are trying to prop up this unregulated and unknown shadow banking system.

    Anybody want to buy a very expensive Dutch tulip?

    Reply to: Bad Ideas, Bad Management are Rewarded with Taxpayer Money   16 years 2 days ago
    EPer:
  • $631 T

    I think that this market is where most of the deflation is happening. Notice how the numbers get progressively smaller. And even the original article I saw from Bloomberg last August warned that most of the contracts actually cancel each other out; so actual payouts would be MUCH smaller than what the insurance originally cost and was being traded for, more along the lines of the actual $120 T in productive assets, and maybe much smaller than that since not all productive assets were insured.

    Given all of that, the $33 T number might be close to correct for the final "real" value after deflation- or maybe not.

    Reply to: Bad Ideas, Bad Management are Rewarded with Taxpayer Money   16 years 2 days ago
    EPer:

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