If $3-a-gallon gasoline doesn't make you hate the big oil companies, the shocking revelations in Chris Paine's thought-provoking documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? will.- V. A. Musetto, New York Post (click here)
Hydraulic excavators are parked at a Shin Caterpillar Mitsubishi Ltd. branch in Kanagawa Prefecture, on Oct. 8, 2007. Photographer: Robert Gilhooly/Bloomberg News
Everywhere one looks to find hope in the USA Economy there is none. Why is Wall Street still afloat, even though the USA has been abandoned? Because the marketability of products is still alive in other economies.
Traditionally American Companies that have exported in the past, preserving high paying American jobs to support the market demands of the USA; now derive their income from foreign markets, bolstered by Republican tax breaks that bankrupt the USA Treasury.
Just that simple. The Bush Republicans have abandoned the USA economy depriving it of anything except government issue GI uniforms.
Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Caterpillar Inc., the world's largest maker of bulldozers and excavators, said fourth-quarter earnings rose 11 percent as international demand overcame slower sales in the U.S., where recession is ``a definite threat.''
Net income increased to $975 million, or $1.50 a share, from $882 million, or $1.32, a year earlier, the Peoria, Illinois-based company said today in a statement. Caterpillar rose the most in fourth months in New York trading after beating average analyst estimates for profit and sales, which gained 10 percent to $12.1 billion.
Sales rose by more than third in both Europe and Asia, countering a slowdown in U.S. construction and mining demand. The deepest U.S. housing slump in more than a decade contributed to an 11 percent drop in North American machine sales for 2007.
``While we expect anemic growth in the U.S. economy, we continue to see positive conditions for our sales in most of the rest of the world,'' Chief Executive Officer Jim Owens said in the statement.
The company beat the average of 17 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg for profit of $1.49 a share and sales of $11.4 billion. Caterpillar rose $1.98, or 3 percent, to $67.23 at 10:54 a.m. in New York stock Exchange composite trading. Earlier it reached $67.75 in the biggest gain since Sept. 18. The stock had gained 9.2 percent in the 12 months before today.
The machinery maker forecast sales may rise 5 percent to 10 percent this year, with ``below average'' growth in North America. Overseas revenue may climb as much as 13 percent....
And why would the Republicans undermine the USA economy without a care otherwise?
Why?
Why, did you say?
To destroy the union structure that insured the best work force in the world received their share of the wealth. That's why !!!
The GM-Toyota Hanging Chad (click here)
January 24, 2008 02:32 PM ET
General Motors and Toyota both want this story to go away—but it only seems to be intensifying.
Everybody in the auto industry knows that sooner or later, Toyota will unambiguously surpass GM in sales and become the world's biggest automaker. So when it happens, it should be anticlimactic—an iconic moment, sure, marking the end of GM's 77-year reign as the No. 1 carmaker. But then everybody will just go on with the business of building and selling cars.
Unless the two auto giants tie. Or the horse race is too close to call. Or there's a technical dispute over the numbers. All of which seem to have happened, dragging out a story that even journalists are getting tired of.
Both GM and Toyota reported selling 9.37 million vehicles worldwide in 2007. But that's just a round number, so auto analysts are looking a few more digits past the decimal point to see who actually sold more. Executives at Toyota hate this story because it draws unwanted attention in the United States to a surging importer, and at first they refused to elaborate on their rounded number. But a besieged Toyota executive in Japan finally agreed to add an extra digit to the number, pegging Toyota's 2007 sales at a more precise 9.366 million. GM's number comes out to 9.369 million, about 3,000 more cars than Toyota—so that settles it! "GM Edges Toyota for Global Sales Title," Automotive News proclaimed in a headline on Wednesday. The American giant can keep the title for one more year, after all....
Rather than working with their unions, following market trends in cutting edge transportation that would free the USA of fossil fuels, what did American corporation do?
What did they do?
They continued to fuel the most corrupt industry the USA has ever entertained, "Cheney's Big Oil." That's what they did. Rather than leading, the auto maufacturers were followers. Bad idea !!!
We need new manufactering in the USA, that fills it's need to lead into the next decade. We need it now. Consumer products of conscience. Electric cars, high speed rail and alternative energy sources. It's not that hard. An economy laced with progressive ideas. Industries where tax breaks belong while out dated and antiquated technologies are refused those incentives due to their poor environmental records leading to far lower carbon dioxide emisssions in USA products.
The USA has the advantage to change it's way and become a global leader in alternatives while it sheds it's old economy. This is the choice of Americans. They want out of the Bush/Cheney nightmare. The question remains, who can bring that to us?
No More Neocons In Government !!!!!
GM downplays possibility of cuts (click here)
Fri, January 25, 2008
By SUN MEDIA NEWS SERVICES
TORONTO -- General Motors Corp. and the Canadian Auto Workers union both say the company still needs to determine what new vehicles will be built at car-assembly complex in Oshawa, but they're downplaying speculation that production cuts are on the way.
GM Canada spokesperson Stew Low said yesterday the company had studied the possibility of producing more rear-wheel drive cars at one point, but abandoned that plan once the U.S. passed a fuel efficiency bill in December. "The inference that this was a program that was approved, that there was money set aside, that Oshawa was identified as the manufacturing location, is not correct," Low said. "It was only at the study phase and it never saw the light of day."...
