West Virginia’s White gets USA TODAY Player of Week award - USATODAY.com

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The correlation between Al’s support on this blog and White’s Player of the Week win can not be verified, thus making it true. LOL

I need your help!  Yes that’s right international readers - this is your chance to finally affect a vote in the USA. 

Every week in USA Today, they ask readers to vote for the best US Football Player in all the land.  This week, WVU’s QB (my fair alma-mater) Patrick White is on the list.  He’s one hell-a-va player and, from all accounts, a really good person so please take a second and click on the following link and vote for Pat.

USA Today - VOTE for Pat White:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2008-11-23-player-of-the-week_N.htm

Thanks,

al

Without taking enough time to gather any external opinions since there is only one real free-market option, the answer is that the GM, Ford and private-equity-backed Chrysler should not be given any type of bailout money.  It will be throwing good money after bad and will do nothing to save the industry - it’ll merely nationalize it and cause those involved to suffer even longer. 

Earlier I railed for a bailout of the financial markets so why not support government intervention into the car markets?  Because, the bailout was originally designed to allow banks to feel secure enough to lend to one another and provide credit to small/large businesses so they can continue day-to-day business.  The unintended consequences of the approval of the bailout is the now growing line of companies, states and cities on Congress’s doorstep for more funny money.

The verdict is still out for the bank bailout, but I suspect things would have been worse had that government money not arrived to sooth the pythons who created this mess in the first place.  I do hope to see a turnover of leadership for most of the banks by the end of 2010 (not sooner as to create a crisis of leadership) but these guys need to go.

Back to our car bailout action, the US auto industry pays its employees more, takes longer to create cars and generally produces inferior cars to its Japanese and European rivals.  It doesn’t take an MBA to deduce that this is a business that will and should fail.  The fact all three have been propped up with cheap debt for this long will be a case study for most finance classes in years to come.

I love cars.  I love well designed; elegant; efficient; and damn fast cars.  With a notable exception of some of the muscle cars coming out like the Mustang and Camaro, Detroit automakers produce terrible looking, cheap cars that don’t hold a candle to their foreign competitors.  The last innovate US car company was Chrysler and the Germans turned that light off with mismanagement.

The saddest part is that this situation need not exist.  Holden, the Australian sub of for General Motors, makes awesome cars.  Good design, little to no plastic on the insides, and some models are super fast. 

GM, Ford and private-equity-backed Chrysler do not need a bailout.  They need tough love and a little time near bankruptcy and three turn-around artists with near God Rights [IT term for full control of the system] to walk the halls and start firing management who get in the way of innovation.  I would guess 50-60% of senior and mid-management could be pink-slipped with virtually no impact on company performance.

Their strategy - well - that’s harder but they’ll probably need to embrace the edges and leave the sinking middle ground to the foreign cars and go with a narrower line up - Ford - all trucks, and muscle cars; GM reduce their offerings; Chrysler - innovative small cars and vans, etc.  There’s some study here on strengths, competitors, etc but the exercise could be easily done.

Workers - Michigan and other rust belt states have plenty of un-employed workers so this negotiation should be pretty straight forward.  Union contracts need to disappear and more reasonable market based compensation needs to occur.  It’s basic economics that your average union rep refuses to provide to his/ her workers.  Profit sharing, bonuses for everyone, stock-options need to be the rule of the day with management becoming equal partners with workers.  Seem unrealistic - no job due to bankruptcy;  refined working conditions and a chance to take advantage of the upside.

No bailout.  No way.  Desperate business times call for innovative thinking; not a bailout from the feds.  The bailout just provides another year of pain for everyone and another year of foreign car companies gaining even more ground on the home team. 

Will this formula happen?  With a labor friendly congress and President?  I’ll start holding my breath … right … now.

From Dilbert.com

MS Yahoo is a match made in necessity.  It appears Microsoft is finally turning a corner in its product development and release cycle; and have finally started developing some nice only products.  Combine this with the reach of Yahoo and maybe, just maybe, it’ll work out okay for the combined team.

Who knows, maybe under Microsoft control the folks at Yahoo will figure out they actually do have competition.

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

The tune drifts in and out as you read this post wondering why this ranks as the most productive use of your time.  Yet, you’re still here.

[and I don’t know why I came here tonight … fall out my chair … wondering how I’ll get down the stairs]

Everybody dance.

It’s Friday and time to relax, enjoy a brew, and prepare to sleep in and enjoy the weekend

[clowns to the left of me]

Actually, it’s a mechanical pig

[jokers to the right]

Actually, it’s a giant stuffed fish in a hand painted fish bowl.  Be There.

Where to go in this post? 

Who knows?  Probably to the conga line … there they go … dancing bunnies, a koala and kangaroo.

KBILLI The Home of Rock

Stewart must go!  Stewart must go!

Charleston Daily Mail - West Virginia News and Sports - WVU Sports - Stewart isn’t getting the job done at WVU

11/11/2008 was Max birthday - firstly, congratulations to Alexandra who did most of the heavy lifting and secondly congratulations to my good friend Alex for having such a cute kid. 

Alexander /Alexandra are German so I can be excused for missing his initial email on Max:

nachdem wir gestern um 7 Uhr aus St.Gallen Richtung Zürich/Universitätsspital abgefahren sind, ist unser Sohn Max Leander etwa 16 Stunden später, also am 11.11.2008 um 23.06 Uhr, gesund und munter zur Welt gekommen. 

Alexandra hat einen gigantischen Kraftakt bewältigt, dessen Zeuge ich sein durfte. Sie ist entsprechend erschöpft, aber Gott sei Dank ebenfalls wohlauf. 

Max wog bei der Geburt 3.9 kg und mass 54cm. Alle weiteren Details später.  

Glücklichste Grüsse aus Zürich senden Euch

Alexandra, Alexander - und Max

Had, I bothered to hit Google Translate … okay Google Translate didn’t do to well on this one ..

• Max at birth weighed 3.9 kg and measure 54cm
• 16 hours later, on 11.11.2008 at 23:06 clock

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