I for one am happy to trade the Christmas party for working on my own schedule and agenda, but i understand those how like a job and being part of a bigger team.

I found this “christmas” party image, it’s pretty funny:

My point: If you don’t think the current credit crisis and it’s fallout hasn’t created an extrordinary situation you need to sober up and great real.

Well the outsiders are there at 2 of the 3 companies. The people who own and run Chrysler are vulture capital group Cerberus Capital, they’ve put Bob Nardelli, formerly of GE and Home Depot in charge. Whether you like Nardelli or not, he’s not a car guy nor is he from Detroit. Ford Motor Company CEO Alan Mulally, was brought to Detroit from Seattle, where he ran manufacturing for the largest exporter in the US, Boeing Aerospace. Mulally has been tasked with restructing the company, which generally means cutting manufacturing and operational costs. He’s solely responsible for reversing Ford’s biggest marketing mistake since the Edsel, the retiring of the Taurus brand name. So 2 of the 3 companies are led by outsiders, non-auto, non-detroit guys, yet we should fire them?

You may ask if 2 men can make a difference? Maybe, but there are more new hires that make a difference. Here is a list:

Chrysler -
Jim Press - President, vice chairman. Former COO of Toyota NA, a 37 year Toyota Veteran.
Sigmund Huber Supplier Relations, former General Manager Toyota Engineering and Manufacturing in North America.

Ford -
JC Mays - Divisional VP, former Audi Designer, vp at SHR perpetual management
James D. Farley - Group Vice President, Marketing and Communications. Was Group Vice President and General Manager of Lexus, before leading Lexus, group vice president of Toyota Division marketing.

GM -
Well this is not a company that has brought in outsiders to held turn the tide, they are the exception of the 3. The old guard at GM did put the guys in place who had succeeded in Europe and the ROW. Europe was one of the GM’s more successful and most competitive markets.

So why don’t the media and the US Congress seem to know this?

The UAW is not the problem here. Toyota, Honda, Mercedes, BMW, Hyundai, Renault, VW, etc. all have Unions in their home countries. The problem here is the US Auto Company’s management. Detroit’s managers have had to manage their unions, as have their competitors, if the union is the problem, then management has failed to manage that part of their business. In fact, since 2005 the UAW has agreed to 2 major concessions in their contract. The first concession established a 2 tier wage system that allows the Detroit 3 to pay new workers at levels matching foreign owned plants in the US, while the second removed medical pension liability from the auto companies to the Union. The effect of these will be to reduce GM’s cost differential with Toyota by 80%, by 2010.

Now that the blame is being placed at management’s feet, just how bad are they? The Detroit 3 still holds about 45% of the US market, while competing against world class competitors that include Toyota, Honda, Daimler Benz, BMW plus companies including VW, Fiat and Renault who are world class in the small car markets. The Detroit 3’s 45% share is larger than that of Toyota, Honda and all 3 German automakers combined. How is this a failure? Does either Coca Cola or Pepsi have a 45% market? The Detroit 3 control 45% of the market against at least 15 large international competitors.

Friedman and Shelby chastised the automakers for not building what people want. Forgive my ignorance here, but weren’t pickup trucks and SUV’s the most popular vehicles in the US, before Oil skyrocketed and gasoline rose from $2 to $5.25? If Friedman or Shelby were right, the current financial panic should not have affected the sales of world beater Toyota? Well Toyota’s sales were down 26% while the US 3 were down 33-45%, the difference is based on the US companies being more focused on trucks and SUVs. So Toyota is down 26% and Ford is down 33% so Toyota is great and Ford is sub par? Let’s get real, whatever the problems the US 3 have, the financial panic which has wiped out sales, has had the effect of accelerating the costs of the US 3’s huge restructuring.

Finally, there is the repeated claim that Detroit is behind the times on technology, which is historically untrue. The Detroit 3 first introduced engine computers, overhead cams, fuel injection, etc. For years Detroit has led the way in spread safety technologies such as Airbags and ABS to mass produced cars. Yes Detroit has fallen behind on hybrids, but it’s important to remember that much of the success of hybrids have been their marketing as being greener than traditional cars. The reality, according to Toyota’s own numbers is that each Toyota hybrid reduces an average of 4.5 tons of CO2 over it’s lifetime (Hybrid Hype), about $5 worth of CO2 at current market prices: www.theccx.com. GM has been launching their Hybrids, which have focused on improving the mileage of their most popular and least efficient products: SUVs and trucks. Management in Detroit may have be unable to compete in small cars, pay themselves too much and lack forward thinking vision, but the truth is their products are demonstrating they still have a major impact in marketplace.

Strangely enough, many things that have helped build the productivity of the last 25 years have combined to increase the speed at which economic changes occur and how extreme they are. In the 1970s it took weeks or even months for the automakers to notice that sales were dropping and to cut back production. Today the number are integrated so that if sales drop today, you can cancel a shift of production tomorrow. Ideas of maximizing your business by aggressively using your cash flow to expand your business, lead to businesses with no capital reserves. printers, car dealers, small manufacturers came to rely on credit to ensure they can pay their bills from day to day, so they could maximize their pay. That strategy and it’s associated tactics worked great in strong market. Today it appears that all markets are even more rapidly pulling back as the world sees slacking demand.

The combination of technology, management innovation and rapid communications have combined to allow the various players in the economy to react instantly. This rapid reaction has allowed the economy to turn around from boom to bust in a few short months as word of crisis cause business and consumers to start hoarding cash instead of spending it. We should get used to the speed at which the Economic “bi-polarism” occurs.

his article was published today: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/05/AR2008100502518_2.html

While I am happy to quoted, unfortunately he didn’t mention my company 4Offsets.com or link to out site.

Here are my words wisdom

“People still come to the site, but where you used to get people signing up [for offsets] every day, now you’d be lucky to get a few people a week,” said Fred Weiss, a small-time offset seller based in Ann Arbor, Mich., who sends customers stickers that say, “Carbon Neutral Vehicle.” Apparently that isn’t as important now.

“Who cares about the environment? Am I going to have a house next week?” he imagined would-be customers saying.

Well maybe I’m on my way to fame and fortune, but I think it will take a bit more before i join the talking heads of the US media.

Can’t Get Enough of Me? ;>) BUY MY BOOK!

I say let’s call these toxic securities(and i use the term securities loosely) as worth 35 cents on the dollar, for the purpose of “Mark to Market” accounting rule for a 6 to 12 month periods. This will bring borrowers into compliance with loan covenants thus slowing the crisis. In fact had this been the case last january, most of the crisis might not have happened.

The Chinese, want a perfect show, decided that the best singer was not as “visually perfect”, that is pretty/cute enough to appear on TV. They decided to use a 2nd girl to lip sync while the first girl sang.

While this is offensive to all of us who aren’t pretty and i count myself one of them, it isn’t that surprising. This has been done in hollywood musicals for years. so the media outrage at this unthinkable behavior is either based on ignorance of the entertainment industry or outright decite.

Why not put the spin this way: 2 girls got to share a moment where they performed for, literally billions for people around the world, rather than just one?

How appropriate to continually asked her how it felt about….

1 what went thru your head when you made this mistake?

2. how did you feel when you realized your mistake cost your teamates a gold medal?

3. it seems like your mistake rattled your teamates, what did you say to them after you came back from the balance beam, where you fell?

4. How did you prepare for the floor excercises, that you made 2 errors on?

5. What was your the feeling about being the captain of the team and …..

these are not exact quotes, but they might as well be.

I spent the last few days chatting with a business associate about psychology and human development. My first bachelor’s degree is in Pyschology. Those discussions and some recent stories i’ve read about treating earthquake victims in china and helping people in trauma (physical, emotional/mental). Current thinking seems to be: the most effective way to overcome come the emotional trauma is ask what they need (within reason) not to ask them to replay the event and discuss its implications. Replaying the bad times often results in a reinfliction of pain.

While Andrea Joyce’s job isn’t to be trauma counselor, she could have let Scaramone just talk about her feelings and experiences. Instead Joyce work hard to seem like mike wallace interviewing some tin horn dictator.

Gold Medal for the Most offensive interview: NBC and Andrea Joyce. Contrast that with the way Meridith Viero asked the same questions on the Today show this next morning.

Fortunately i’m not just a lone voice in the woods, various governments are starting to look into these businesses to put a halt to what are essentally a tax scam against the government and a confidence scam agains Offset clients. How many people bought an offset from a non-profit that was from the Chicago Climate exchange? Most offer that, so do we www.4offsets.com, nothing wrong with that, except that offset, in most cases, was bought from a commericial business. How is this in anyway a charitable contribution? Say the XYZgreen.org sells 1 ton of offsets for $10, that they bought for $6. What happens to the $4? In some cases i’ve looked into, it goes to pay the staff and not 1 dime is used for charitable works In a charity, it is used for charitable works, giving things to community whether money or knowledge.

Join me in the fight agains this abuse of the non-profit system and is a being used to scam million of Americans into believing someone’s source of wealth is really a charity. Don’t get scammed!
Ask for details of the non-profit’s charitable works and ask for IRS filings
Is the board of directors controlled by people who work at the foundation?
Where is the outside oversite?