Bizzy’s AM Coffee Biz-Econ-Life Links (081106)

Free Links:

• No amount or variety of creative financing gimmicks at Ford and GM can make up for this:
  

  Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp. won top honors in eight categories of a closely watched vehicle dependability study, more than any other company, while mainstream brands closed in on luxury nameplates, J.D. Power and Associates said Wednesday.

  ….. For the study, Westlake Village, Calif.-based J.D. Power questions owners of three-year-old vehicles about problems they are experiencing. This year’s survey questioned 47,620 original owners of 2003 model-year cars and trucks.

  ….. Toyota had winners this year in eight of 19 vehicle categories, while Honda and GM each took four segments. Ford had two winners, and Mazda Motor Corp. had one.

  The problem is even worse than it looks, because Ford and GM have so many more product lines and nameplate entrants.

• I missed this in the cutover and general hubbub until now — As would be expected of a gutless bureaucracy, the FDIC has placed a six-month hold on applications from Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and others to run their own banks. I previously posted on the topic here (”The Banking System Could Use a ‘Threat’ Like Wal-Mart”) and here (4th item at link).

• Delta loses $2.2 billion — I do not see the company’s emergence from bankruptcy as a sure thing.

• Speaking of Ford, if it thinks its problems with Don Wildmon’s American Family Association are going away (noted previously here and here), they need to think again — 78 Dealers in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas have written William Clay Ford a letter imploring the company “to take action to cease advertising in any controversial media” and stop “tacitly approving a controversial lifestyle or stance.” Look — the dealers are right in complaining that the AFA has singled out Ford when many of its competitors are doing similarly “controversial” things. I’ll even suggest that Wildmon is engaging in a bit of selective intimidation here. If Ford were in healthier condition, perhaps standing up to Wildmon would make sense. It does not please me to say this, but the company’s survival is clearly at stake. It simply cannot financially handle the serious hits it is taking from this battle, and it MUST consider its shareholders, employees, and dealers’ well-being. Bill Ford needs to figure out how to make peace with Wildmon, get the company back on its feet, and, if their moves are based on conviction and not knee-jerk political correctness, fight him on a level playing field later. Wildmon, with whom I often agree on values (but disagree strongly on tactics), needs to recognize that his cause will not be enhanced in the long run if he’s seen as the guy who selectively put tens of thousands of good people out of work and caused thousands of investors to lose billions of dollars — and that IS what it’s coming to.

• Unlike the previous situation, where Bill Ford has to worry about a lot of people besides himself, Paul Belien of The Brussels Journal blog only needs to get his family on board for his battle. Good thing — He’ll need to fight ultra-politically correct thought police in Belgium tooth and nail. The roots of his “problem” go back to his exposition and criticism of the European Union’s origins and development. The wedge the authorities are using to get at him is threatening prosecution over his and his wife’s home-schooling of their apparently quite accomplished children (NixGuy posted on this back in June). He is also accused, with the agreement of a “Catholic” priest, of having “racist” (read — not drenched in dhimmitude) posts on his site. Now the police want to bring him in for questioning based on anonymous complaint about his site. He’s not going. As noted, Paul only needs to answer to his family, and if they say “stand up to the bullies,” I say “give ‘em hell.”

• I knew the Michigan-Ohio rivalry was intense, but this statement is ridiculous — Kroger is moving some jobs from Livonia, MI (west of Detroit) to Delaware, OH (north of Columbus). The Michigan Teamsters union local at Livonia is not happy. Their spokesman Noah Oren is quoted as saying this:
  

  “We believe there are ways to explore how to make the Livonia warehouse more profitable rather than outsourcing good jobs to Ohio.”

  “Outsourcing”? To OHIO? As if The Buckeye State is a foreign country? Here’s a bit of geography for Michiganders — Delaware is in the same state (that would be O-H-I-O) where Kroger has its downtown Cincinnati headquarters roughly 120 miles away. If anything, Kroger is insourcing.