The Pot (Washington) calls the Kettle (Corporations) black

Of all the people on the face of the planet, members of the U.S. Senate should be the absolute last people to talk about wasteful spending and exorbitant executive bonuses while posting negative net income on the books.

Leave it to politicians... hypocrite is synonymous with politician, right?

Unfortunately for Detroit, they can't print money, raid the employee retirement fund, raid the employee insurance fund, take a portion of their employees' income, take a percentage of their employees' personal spending, and take a profit off anything any other company sells their employees so they can artificially inflate their own prices.

Yeah, it is a good thing corporations can't do what the government does.

So, let's compare apples to apples here. For fun, let's compare the budgets of the Federal Government with GM (I added Toyota to show how a well functioning company's numbers would look). Who would you trust with your money? (numbers are in $millions)

	U.S.A.	%	GMC	%	Toyota	%
Gross Income	$2,699,900	100.00%	$181,120	100.00%	$232,400	100.00%
Executive Compensation	$29,400	1.09%	$39	0.02%	$20	0.01%
General & Admin Expenses	$293,600	10.87%	$14,371	7.93%	$18,797	8.09%
Cost of Goods Sold	$2,156,700	79.88%	$154,320	85.20%	$177,060	76.19%
Miscellaneous Income/Cost	($289,400)	-10.72%	($2,780)	-1.53%	$11,937	5.14%
Health Care	$429,700	15.92%	$4,840	2.67%	$3,293	1.42%
Interest on Debt	$487,300	18.05%	$2,930	1.62%	$423	0.18%
Total Costs	$3,107,300	115.09%	$173,720	95.91%	$211,530	91.02%
Earnings	($407,400)	-15.09%	$7,400	4.09%	$20,870	8.98%
Depreciation & Amortization	$0	0.00%	$9,510	5.25%	$13,180	5.67%
Earnings Before Taxes	($407,400)	-15.09%	($2,110)	-1.16%	$7,690	3.31%

So, I broke down and got a motorcycle

2008 Suzuki GSX-R 750cc.
Yes, I could've gotten the Ducati 848, but...
-GSX-R gets better gas mileage
-GSX-R is several thousand dollars less in price
-GSX-R is easier to maintain than the Italian (big surprise?)
-GSX-R is VASTLY more comfortable to ride
-GSX-R has a steering dampener... unlike some Italians which were designed to be lesser bikes
-GSX-R has a 4.5 gallon tank, compared to the 4.1 gallon Italian, furthering the range difference
-GSX-R allows tall guys like myself to customize the locations of pegs and handlebars - very nice!
-GSX-R is an I-4 which is just easier to drive than a V-2
-GSX-R is much more forgiving with: turning, shifting, and accelerating
-GSX-R has mode select, so it can be detuned for better fuel economy

So, it is a much better bike for me. I don't get to sniff my nose and say "well, I drive an ITALIAN race bike" but, I do get to smile and say "I didn't get financially raped for some fancy name plates on a bike where the only benefits can be found on a track that I will never ride".

I found the ultimate car!

Ariel Atom 2. It beats super sport bikes. It isn't exactly a practical car. It has no trunk. It has only seating for two. In fact, it doesn't have any body panels or windshield. It weighs 1000 lbs. It has 300 bhp and 250 ft lbs of torque. 0-60 in 2.9 seconds. Cornering that destroys other cars and motorcycles. In fact, the idiots (I say this with the utmost respect) on Top Gear raced it against a Honda CBR 1000. The Atom turned out a time of 1:19 and the CBR turned out a time of 1:24. Beyond that, it beat the Porsche GT (a $600,000 car). It basically takes the Lotus Exige to a whole new level. Price tags start around 38k and go past 60k with options. There is nothing like it. A guy can dream, can't he?

Kyoto and reducing emissions

This is in response to the news release I read about on CNN about Kyoto. It turns out that the only reason Kyoto's members are anywhere close to their goals is because of the staggering economic recession in Russia during the 90s (they still have yet to fully recover). In fact, the only countries that have reductions (besides Russia) are Sweden, France, Germany, and the UK. Oh, but it gets far, far worse...

Per capita emissions tell a very interesting story. Populations in Europe are decreasing or stagnant, while the US has population growth (almost entirely from emigration). So, even though France, Germany, and the UK can point to decreases of 2-6% in their emissions, how much of that is actually because of population loss compared to population growth in the rest of the world? Germany loses 0.2% of their population per year. France gains 0.4% per year. The UK comes in with 0.3% growth. Compare this with the 0.9% growth in the US.

So, the important information would be the per capita (in parenthesis is the tonnage of emissions per capita) increase or decrease in green house gas emissions (these numbers are from the IEA and include ALL greenhouse gases, not just CO2), which is as follows:
Luxemberg (22.99-24.9) ..............8.3% increase
Australia (26.17-26.11) ................0.2% decrease
United States (24.37-23.44)..........3.8% DECREASE
Canada (23.4-23.49).....................0.4% increase
New Zealand (18.5-19.44)............5% increase
Germany (12.36-12.33)................0.2% decrease
Denmark (13.15-14.07)................7% increase
France (9.44-9.26).......................1.9% decrease
Japan (10.52-10.49).....................0.3% decrease
Spain (9.32-9.8)...........................5.2% increase
UK (11.1-11.01)..........................0.8% decrease

Those are the numbers between 2000-2003. All of those countries went through an economic recession, but emission rates are not affected much by recession as the numbers are driven mostly by car emissions and home heating and cooling. So, the US is actually reducing emissions, it is just being obscured by population growth. So, as I have said before, regulations are less efficient at reducing emissions than incentives. So, the Bush administration made a good move on that (how'd that happen?!?) - but as usual, Bush is a bumbling idiot and can't explain what his rather brilliant advisors came up with when he is asked. Which brings up the question, "what does he actually do again?" - but that's a whole different topic.

In fact, emissions per capita in the US peaked in 1997 and have been decreasing steadily (with a slight rise in 2003-2004 of 0.18 tons per capita) ever since (2006 = 23.1 tons per capita). I had to run a prediction on the other GHGs to obtain the 2005 and 2006 data, since there was only CO2 information for those two years so far (the margin of error is 5 digits past the significant digits I show).

You might ask, "it doesn't matter, we have a long way to go to catch up with the low levels of those European countries." Well... France has 70% of their electricty coming from Nuclear Power, which I think people in the US would be somewhat opposed to. Moreover, France, the UK, and Spain all have significantly warmer climates than the US. Over 50% of the population of the US live in area with a 5 degree C colder average temperature than France and Spain is even warmer. This obviously does not excuse the gap, but it gives some explanation for how large it is.

But, the truly staggering problem is Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Some numbers that were over looked in the previous list:
Qatar 67.9
UAE 36.1
Kuwait 31.6

Despite the common perception, these are modern countries, with per capita GDPs equal to most Western Countries. Qatar, in fact has the third highest per capita GDP in the world (the US is 8th by the way). If you go with the adjusted, PPP, those three countries sit in the low $20k per capita with most Western European nations.

Then we get to China...
The IEA released another report last month stating that they were changing their predictions, China is now set to pass the US as the greatest contributor of greenhouse gases by the end of this year (2007). China has emissions increases of 9.3% PER YEAR - as in, they have doubled their emissions in the last 5 years. 2006-2007 was a 9.3% increase (China's National Bureau of Statistics). Now, it doesn't take too much effort to see a problem with this trend. If China doubles its emissions in the next 5 years, that will cause a 25% increase in GLOBAL emissions if everywhere else on the planet maintains the same emissions output (which is never going to happen considering countries like India are also increasing their output in a dramatic way as well).
In fact, China's 2005-2006 increase in GHGs was equal to 106% of France's TOTAL yearly output.
So, as nice as it is for France to do its part by reducing their country's emissions, it simply is not going to have any affect globally. The decrease in emissions that the US had in the same period of time was 12 times smaller than China's increase. The modern countries in the world are simply unable to counteract the increases of the developing world.

Hybrids won't help GM, Ford, or Chrysler

Hybrids aren't the answer. If you read research papers on the reasons people buy cars. Hybrids only target a rather small portion of the market. The problem world-wide for America's Big 3 has always been quality. Toyota's rise is directly linked to the significantly lower defect rate on their vehicles. Fuel efficiency tends to be in the middle or near the bottom in the lists of why people buy cars in the research papers I've read (depending on what vehicle category the research is done on). I can't link the research papers because they are on my school's online library, which is only available to students.

I will link some articles that may help you get an idea of why some companies are doing well, while others aren't.

First, quality:

So, who leads in the quality department for cars?
http://www.cars.com/go/advice/Story.jsp?section=top&subject=iqs&story=iqsCar&referer=advice&aff=national
How about SUVs, where the American-based companies had staked so much research money?
http://www.cars.com/go/advice/Story.jsp?section=top&story=iqsTruck&subject=iqs&referer=advice&aff=national
The defect rates are the most telling though:
http://www.cars.com/go/advice/Story.jsp?section=top&story=iqsBrand&subject=iqs&referer=advice&aff=national

Toyota is the leader in almost each vehicle category. They lag in the SUVs and truck sales because power and looks tend to supplant quality for the number one spots (once again, depending on which category). However, Toyota has been working on that recently, so those categories, which tend to be much more profitable than cars, will start to see an erosion of the Big 3's market share in the near future.

The next is cost of production. The cost to build a vehicle for the Big 3 (in the US or outside) is higher than the cost for other companies.
http://www.ford.com/en/company/about/publicPolicy/manufacturing.htm
That's what Ford says about it. Specifically, look at this paragraph:
How much of an extra cost burden do U.S. manufacturers carry?

"The National Association of Manufacturers estimated that, when compared to its nine largest trading partners, the U.S. had a 18.3% cost disadvantage: 5.6% in corporate tax rates, 5.5% in employee benefits including health care and pension costs, 3.2% in litigation costs, 3.5% in pollution abatement costs, and 0.5% in rising natural gas prices. When the higher hourly labor costs of U.S. workers was factored in, the total net cost burden was calculated at 22.4%."

So, why do workers clamor for jobs in Toyota or Honda plants? Job security. They are paid a few dollars less per hour, but they don't care simply because they know they don't have to worry about being laid off next week, next month, or next year. Union negotiators do not work for the good of labor. Their primary focus is wages, because that's where they make their money, to the exclusion of many other issues that are important to the workers. If unions were nationalized, that would change their focus...

An amusing joke...

The coach had put together the perfect team for the Detroit Lions, save a great quarterback. He scouted all the colleges and even the Canadian and European Leagues without success.

Then one night on CNN he sees a war-zone scene in Afghanistan. In the background, he spots a young Afghan Muslim soldier with a truly incredible arm. He threw a hand-grenade straight into a window from 80 yards away. Then he threw another from 50 yards down a chimney, and then hit a passing car going 80 miles per hour.

So, the coach brings the young Afghan to the States and teaches him the great game of football. Sure enough, the Lions win the Super Bowl.

After the bowl, the elated quarterback telephones his mother: "Mom, I just won the Super Bowl!"

"I don't want to talk to you," the old Muslim woman says. "You deserted us. You are not my son!"

"Mother, I don't think you understand," pleads the son, "I've just won the greatest sporting event in the world!"

"No! let me tell you," his mother retorts. "At this very moment there are gunshots all around us. The neighborhood is a pile of rubble. Your two brothers were beaten within an inch of their lives last week, and I have to keep your sister in the house so she doesn't get raped!"

"I will never forgive you for making us move to Detroit".

FCEV

Get used to that abreviation, because it is going to be everywhere in the next couple years. FCEV, for those who aren't keeping up on automobile technology (and I can't blame you), stands for Fuel Cell (Electric) Vehicle. Hybrid vehicles, well, they were a bit of a fad. Auto manufacturers are already slimming their hybrid lines after 10 years in the market (6 if you don't live in Japan like me), hybrids are simply not doing as well as manufacturers had hoped. Obviously, when the government reduced the subsidy for hybrids, they weren't helping that niche market. Well, for all of you that drooled over the Prius, the next car to dream about is coming from Honda in mid-2008 (it will be termed a 2009 model, because that's the way they do things). Unlike the Prius, the US government is actually on top of this technology, subsidising it from the start. The technology has isn't ready to replace the internal combustion-based vehicles completely yet, but this is a start. It is supposed to be priced around $20k.

http://automobiles.honda.com/images/future-cars/AutoWeekArticle.pdf

Expect GMC to be rolling out an Crossover (those funky "almost" SUV vehicles) with this technology in 2009 (they originally had slated it for 2010, but the Honda just dropped the gauntlet). Analysts have made comments about this potentially revitalizing GMC, assuming this technology catches, which definitely seems to be the way things are moving.

http://corporate.honda.com/press/article.aspx?id=4092

Oddly, the comedians saw it but the politicians didn’t...

"And if the worst came to the worst, and you didn't get this money... what then?"
"Well, then there would be another market crash. Then I would say to you what people like me always say... that it is not us that will suffer, it is your pension fund."

Scary but true. It really brings up the question... why are we letting these guys run our investments? They take two dollars out of our pocket to give us a dollar and say "look what a good job I did! Better than market average!" That's nice until I want my two dollars back.

We burn all these fossil fuels, why aren’t we falling into the sun?

I was listening to my normal "drive to work, mindless banter" radio station this morning and the DJs brought in a self-professed "genius". They asked their audience to call in with questions to pose to this guy. This was one of the questions asked.

Yes, knowing a little bit about physics, this is a rather silly question. If speed remains constant and mass is reduced, the objects will move further apart. The genius went into some silliness about people getting fatter, thus off-setting the loss due to fossil fuel burn-off.

However, the question of how much is actually being burned off stuck in my head all the way to work, and through a chunk of the day. Eventually, I decided I would dig into some solid data (yay! wikipedia) on this. So, here it is:

7.2 Barrels of Oil = 1 ton
Daily Oil Consumption = 82,234,918 bbl/day (barrels per day)
Daily Coal Consumption = 16,975,037 tons/day
Earth Mass = 6x10^21 tons
Sun Mass = 2.19240901x10^27 tons
Daily Solar Mass lost through fusion = 1,968,413.057 tons
Daily Solar Mass lost through solar wind = 2.19241x10^13 tons
One Year = 365.2422 days

Annual Percent Loss =

Earth-Oil = 0.000000000069527%
Earth-Coal = 0.000000000103333%
Sun-Fusion = 0.000000000000000%
Sun-Wind = 0.000000000365242%

Mass Losses Combined =

E = 0.000000000172860%
S = 0.000000000365242%

The Earth is losing mass through other methods (like plants and animals converting matter into energy so they can live), but with that said, the sun is actually burning through a lot more mass than we are. So, we are moving into a higher and higher orbit around the sun. How fast are we moving away from the sun? Based on the solar loss of mass alone, over the last 4.5 billion years, we have moved 7,000 miles apart (astronomycafe.net). A blisteringly fast 0.000000000177457 mph. So, I guess I'm not going to worry about the earth cooling off quickly in my lifetime. Oh well, back to work!