With the Ford Motor Company bringing over most of their European small car lineup to the US in 2010 (or sooner, if the bailout money seems right and it'll help them revamp their plants, they don't really need the money), we should start hearing more and more about these incoming new models soon. Fortunately for Ford, they're all pretty universally hailed in Europe as top of their respective classes (we'll only be seeing the Fiesta and Focus from that list, at least for now), so we should hear nothing but praises for the quality of the cars, which will do wonders for Ford's image and just might get people excited about Ford again.
Unfortunately, there will probably one consistent wet blanket thrown over all of this enthusiasm for these cars, the pricing. You'll read that the base Fiesta with the Zetec 1.6L engine (probably the US base model) costs £12,331 to start, and that's about $18,400 US, far more than the current class-leading Honda Fit's $14,550. The Focus will have this same "problem" with regards to the Honda Civic, and the article in question will probably end with the same "Sure, it's a great car, but will Americans pay European prices for cars?" question, in keeping with the current trend of relentlessly pessimistic coverage of the American auto industry.
It seems to be a pretty damning point. Sure, it may be great, but an extra four or five grand over the top of what's already a pretty decent car? At that price, it'd better come with heated leather massage seats and a stereo system that can accurately reproduce a symphony orchestra instrument-by-instrument. However, as is so common these days when it comes to news coverage of the automotive industry, the media has and will probably continue to miss an important point: car prices don't directly follow currency conversion. Very little actually does, but when it comes to car prices, the difference becomes really obvious.
Just to pick an example, let's take another look at the pricing differences. Different engine specs make finding a direct comparison somewhat difficult, but the new Volkswagen Jetta 2.0L TDI diesel is sold in both the US and the UK. Prices start at £17,988 in the UK, which is $26,854. The cost in the US though, is $21,990, almost five thousand dollars less. This makes sense, as the price of something as expensive as a car should change with the value of the good itself relative to the local market. Just looking at currency conversion rates completely ignores big factors like transportation costs, materials and labor cost differences between production plants, demand, economies of scale for each country...there's a whole bunch of factors that effect the price of a car, only one of which is currency rates. In reality, prices between everything but six-figure supercars convert almost straight across between dollars and pounds, with only two or three thousand dollars tacked on when you move over from Europe, and vise versa. What does all this mean? That when Ford finally brings over the Fiesta at the end of next year, they're going to be in prime position to take the fight to Honda and their Fit, and I, for one, can't wait for the good press for Ford.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Just Can't Please Anyone
Obama makes pick for energy chief, sources say
Both pundits and normal human beings have reasonably impressed with the cabinet that President-Elect Barack Obama has assembled so far. The most common complaint I've read leveled at his choices so far, from both the press, the Republican Party and, surprisingly, from Congressional Democrats is that they're all from Ivy League colleges, that they're all too intelligent and don't have enough real world experience. I imagine Timothy Geithner (former Undersecretary of the Treasury for Foreign Affairs, former director of Policy Development and Review at the IMF, current President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York), Paul Volcker (former chairman of the Federal Reserve, responsible for the end of the economic crisis of the 1970's), General James L. Jones (former Supreme Allied Commander Europe, former commander United States European Command, former Commandant of the Marine Corps), Eric Holder (first African-American US Attorney for Washington, DC, first African-American Deputy Attorney General) and General Eric Shinseki (former Chief of Staff of the United States Army, fired by the Bush Administration for predicting higher troop levels would be needed in Iraq, was later proven right) and others might disagree, but that hasn't stopped people from saying it.
And today CNN is reporting that the Obama transition team has settled on a pick for energy secretary, an incredibly important role as the nation prepares to potentially make radical changes to not only the way we use and distribute electricity, but how we produce it as well. What's most important for that office is to have someone in charge who really understands not just the spin and public opinion on the different choices out there, but the hard, real-world science of the options, and can make an objective recommendation on what the best course of action is based on science, not political spin. After all, politics won't produce the energy this nation will need moving forwards, nor will it help in cleaning up our act. What we need is someone with a hardcore science background, someone who can disregard the politic that has infected the energy and climate change debate and provide real answers.
And so it's hard to think of someone with better qualifications than Prof. Steven Chu. Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1997 for his work in laser cooling (using laser light tuned to a specific frequency to slow down atoms), he is currently the head of Lawerence Livermore National Laboratories, one of the top research labs in the country. He is also the leader of a $400 million program at Livermore to research better and cleaner methods of energy generation, and so is quite possibly the best qualified person on Earth for the job. That hasn't stopped Congressional Democrats from sniping at his qualifications, saying that he's not politically experienced enough for the job, which my Beltway Translator-O-Matic reads as "He won't kiss our asses and bend to our will enough." Now, I can't imagine who could be behind the constant complaints from Democrats, but they couldn't be more wrong on this one. Someone from outside the DC political circle-jerk is exactly what an important and scientific topic like our energy problems needs, somoene who isn't willing to compromise what they know is the right answer because some suit tells them to do so. I say this is another inspired pick by Obama and his transition team, and if they keep this up, I might have to start believing some of that silly utopia hype from the campaign.
Both pundits and normal human beings have reasonably impressed with the cabinet that President-Elect Barack Obama has assembled so far. The most common complaint I've read leveled at his choices so far, from both the press, the Republican Party and, surprisingly, from Congressional Democrats is that they're all from Ivy League colleges, that they're all too intelligent and don't have enough real world experience. I imagine Timothy Geithner (former Undersecretary of the Treasury for Foreign Affairs, former director of Policy Development and Review at the IMF, current President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York), Paul Volcker (former chairman of the Federal Reserve, responsible for the end of the economic crisis of the 1970's), General James L. Jones (former Supreme Allied Commander Europe, former commander United States European Command, former Commandant of the Marine Corps), Eric Holder (first African-American US Attorney for Washington, DC, first African-American Deputy Attorney General) and General Eric Shinseki (former Chief of Staff of the United States Army, fired by the Bush Administration for predicting higher troop levels would be needed in Iraq, was later proven right) and others might disagree, but that hasn't stopped people from saying it.
And today CNN is reporting that the Obama transition team has settled on a pick for energy secretary, an incredibly important role as the nation prepares to potentially make radical changes to not only the way we use and distribute electricity, but how we produce it as well. What's most important for that office is to have someone in charge who really understands not just the spin and public opinion on the different choices out there, but the hard, real-world science of the options, and can make an objective recommendation on what the best course of action is based on science, not political spin. After all, politics won't produce the energy this nation will need moving forwards, nor will it help in cleaning up our act. What we need is someone with a hardcore science background, someone who can disregard the politic that has infected the energy and climate change debate and provide real answers.
And so it's hard to think of someone with better qualifications than Prof. Steven Chu. Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1997 for his work in laser cooling (using laser light tuned to a specific frequency to slow down atoms), he is currently the head of Lawerence Livermore National Laboratories, one of the top research labs in the country. He is also the leader of a $400 million program at Livermore to research better and cleaner methods of energy generation, and so is quite possibly the best qualified person on Earth for the job. That hasn't stopped Congressional Democrats from sniping at his qualifications, saying that he's not politically experienced enough for the job, which my Beltway Translator-O-Matic reads as "He won't kiss our asses and bend to our will enough." Now, I can't imagine who could be behind the constant complaints from Democrats, but they couldn't be more wrong on this one. Someone from outside the DC political circle-jerk is exactly what an important and scientific topic like our energy problems needs, somoene who isn't willing to compromise what they know is the right answer because some suit tells them to do so. I say this is another inspired pick by Obama and his transition team, and if they keep this up, I might have to start believing some of that silly utopia hype from the campaign.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Not quite right, but close enough
For those of you imaginary people out there who don't know, I've been doing/did a automotive news podcast for a little over a year, and I've been following the automotive industry bailout very closely. This is something that the automotive industry in the US needs very badly in order to stay afloat, and considering that 61% of the American public opposes the auto industry bailout, it made me happy that Jon Stewart, one of the prophets of the left, came out and said that Congress should give the industry the bailout. He didn't really touch on the financial reasons why they should (the catastrophic unemployment collateral damage that an auto industry bankruptcy would cause, the further destruction of the credit market from auto loans becoming worthless, and a whole bunch of other bad things), but his reasoning, that Congress spent more than twenty times as much bailing out the financial industry, and since they barely employ anyone and don't actually produce anything while the auto industry employs millions of people across the nation and produces a tangible product, is pretty solid. The Big Three in Detroit are actually improving their quality at the moment and some pretty damn good models are on the way for 2010, so if we can get them through the current recession (and they don't make any stupid decisions, I'm looking at you, GM CEO Rick Wagoner), they should weather the storm in roughly one piece. Except for Chrysler, they're screwed.
Rule #1 of Getting People To Agree With You
Atheist sign disappears from Washington state Capitol
Text from the sign:
At this season of THE WINTER SOLSTICE may reason prevailGee, I wonder why this sign, which was placed directly next to the Nativity scene at the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington, vanished.
There are no gods, no angels, no devils, no heaven or hell.
There is only our natural world.
Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.
Look, atheists. Actually, while I'm talking to people who aren't here, let's throw in religious folk, environmentalists, and, well, every strain of protester out there, here's the number one rule when it comes to trying to make a point, possibly the only rule.
When it comes to persuading people, no one likes an asshole.
People will not listen to you if you're an asshole about their beliefs and opinions. Instead, they will think, and rightly so, that you're an asshole, and dismiss everything that you say on your topic out of hand. More likely than not, they'll also dismiss everyone who ever takes that same position with them again as an asshole as well, so you're not only ruining your chances of persuading someone to agree with you, you're ruining everyone else's chances for a reasonable debate in the future. Yes, it will make you feel good, that you're getting your point out there, and that smug sense of superiority will last for at least a week. However, if you insist on pursuing such ideologically self-destructive behavior, why not do something that doesn't screw it up for the rest of us. Take up trolling in Internet forums or on news article comment threads, or running head first into brick walls.
Sure, I'm not entirely comfortable with the bending of the whole implied "separation of church and state" that having a Nativity scene in a government building is (Yes, atheists, it's not in the Constitution, it was established as legal precident by the Supreme Court in Renyolds v. US and is followed because of stare decisis, go legal nerdery), but would they be making the same fuss if they had a giant Menorah and diorama of the dedication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem set up in the lobby? Somehow, I doubt it, and as long as the state government gives equal treatment to any religious group that requests that they have a display put up in the lobby, which is the actual meaning of the idea of "separation of church and state", I don't see a problem with it.
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