plus 4, Ford sweeps North American Car and Truck of the Year awards - Autoweek.com |
- Ford sweeps North American Car and Truck of the Year awards - Autoweek.com
- Detroit 2010: Transportation Secretary LaHood ponders another round of ... - autoblog
- GM Exec: China Unlikely To Lose Sales Lead - NewsNet 5
- Guard was asleep in van before inmate escape - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
- GM To Cut Off Hummer Production Next Week - WPXI
| Ford sweeps North American Car and Truck of the Year awards - Autoweek.com Posted: 14 Jan 2010 06:36 AM PST Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Detroit 2010: Transportation Secretary LaHood ponders another round of ... - autoblog Posted: 14 Jan 2010 08:31 AM PST Detroit 2010: Transportation Secretary LaHood ponders another round of cash-for-clunkers Cash-for-Clunkers was among the more watched auto-related story lines of 2009. With the industry hurting, the government provided cash vouchers of between $3,500 and $4,500 to anyone who turned in a vehicle that was eight (or more) years-old and with between two and 10 miles-per-gallon worse fuel economy numbers than the new car or truck with which it was replaced. The program went from fledgling idea to a done deal in a matter of a few months, showing that the U.S. government is capable of move quickly when it really wants to, albeit with the help of a big fat $3 billion check. The feat was reportedly so impressive to Department of Transportation Ray LaHood that he openly wondered whether the program should be reincarnated for 2010. Motor Trend reports that LaHood told reporters at the Detroit Auto Show that Clunkers was "the most wildly successful program ever, selling 800,000 cars in less than 30 days." It sounds like LaHood was really impressed with how C4C panned out, but will the program and its multi-billion dollar price tag resurface in 2010? LaHood says the DOT won't be begging for any spending money, and he insists that any decisions will need to be made by Congress in the year ahead. [Source: Motor Trend | Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty] Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| GM Exec: China Unlikely To Lose Sales Lead - NewsNet 5 Posted: 14 Jan 2010 07:41 AM PST Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Guard was asleep in van before inmate escape - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Posted: 14 Jan 2010 08:24 AM PST
One of the private transport guards who was supposed to be watching murder suspect Justin Welch was asleep and did not know the van had stopped at the rest area in Arkansas where Welch made his violent escape, police said Thursday. The guard was awakened by Welch at gunpoint and after Welch had attacked another guard in a restroom, Van Buren (Ark.) Police Lt. Brent Grill said. Welch fired shots at the guard as he stole the prisoner transport van and fled the rest area on I-40 near Fort Smith, Ark., in the brazen escape at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday. The North Atlantic Extradition Service van never should have stopped at a rest area, Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel said. "When we contracted with them, we were provided with their policies which prohibit stopping at public restroom facilities. The protocol is to stop at local jail facilities for restroom breaks," Schimel said. North Atlantic Extradition, based in Columbus, Miss., is a private prisoner transport company. Its officials did not respond to requests for comment. There has been no sign of Welch or the white Dodge van since the escape, Grill said. A nationwide manhunt is under way for Welch, who is accused of somehow getting into the Oconomowoc home of Kimberly Smith on Oct. 1, binding her hands behind her back and stabbing her in an alleged murder-for-hire plot. Police found a knife and a pair of medical-style gloves used in the slaying in a storm drain near Smith's home. DNA found on the evidence was connected to Welch, who had a criminal record in California, according to court records. Smith was in a bitter custody dispute with Darren M. Wold, 41, of Lubbock, Texas. According to the criminal complaint filed in the case, Wold, Jack E. Johnson, 65, of Mexico and formerly of Waukesha, and Welch conspired to kill Smith. Wold and Johnson are longtime friends, according to court records. Welch is charged with first-degree intentional homicide. Wold and Johnson are charged with first-degree intentional homicide as a party to a crime. Welch was being transported from the San Diego (Calif.) County Jail to Waukesha at the time of his escape. Welch had been held in San Diego after his Nov. 18 arrest in Mexico as he attempted to cross the border into the United States. Wednesday's escape occurred after North Atlantic Extradition guard Michael Nowland, 29, of Columbus, Miss., led Welch and four other prisoners into the rest area restroom. Grill said at some point, Welch's handcuffs were removed, but his legs remained shackled. In the restroom, Welch attacked the guard with a screwdriver type tool, stabbing him several times, including in the right hand, the back of the neck and the head, Grill said. Welch got Nowland's gun and then got the keys and removed his leg shackles, Grill said. Welch handcuffed and shackled the guard. He also robbed a truck driver who was in the restroom of his jacket and cell phone, Grill said. Grill said the guard did not check to make sure the restroom was empty before bringing the prisoners into it. The guard should have done that, he said. Nowland was treated at a hospital and released. The second guard, Marian Pulliam, 32, of West Point, Miss., was not injured. Grill also said that he spoke with North Atlantic Extradition officials to determine whether the transport van had a GPS or other tracking device. The company said the van was not equipped with GPS, Grill said. The U.S. Marshals Service and the FBI were notified about Welch's escape, as were other law enforcement agencies. Additionally, Grill said "America's Most Wanted" television show was contacted and it posted information about Welch and the escape on its Web site. In addition to the homicide charge, Welch has a criminal history that includes robbery, auto theft and battery. In Arkansas, a warrant for Welch's arrest has been issued on charges of attempted capital murder; first-degree escape; aggravated robbery, theft; second-degree battery; and kidnapping. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| GM To Cut Off Hummer Production Next Week - WPXI Posted: 14 Jan 2010 07:19 AM PST Stoppage Comes Ahead Of Pending Sale To Chinese CompanyUpdated: 10:24 am EST January 14, 2010 JACKSON, Miss. -- General Motors Co. will halt Hummer production next week at its Louisiana plant until sale of the brand to a Chinese company is completed. Kevin Wale, president of GM's China Group, said, meanwhile, he's optimistic, but uncertain, the Hummer deal will be approved by Chinese government regulators. GM agreed last year to sell Hummer, once synonymous with America's love for big off-road vehicles, to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Corp. It had expected the deal to close early in 2010 after approval by U.S. and Chinese regulators. Assembly of Hummers at GM's Shreveport, La., plant will be suspended Jan. 19 because there's "sufficient inventory in the field" to sustain dealers while the sale makes its way through the regulatory process, Hummer spokesman Nick Richards said Wednesday. The approval delay is because Tengzhong is not an established manufacturer, something normally required by Chinese governments, Wale said after a speech Wednesday at the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit. "It's not a recognized car manufacturer, and they have rules that require that people can't just randomly go into key businesses," Wale said. "They have to get approval so that they don't end up with too many suppliers, too many people trying to compete in each industry. It's not a specific issue associated with Tengzhong or Hummer. It's just a structural management of their economy." It was unclear how jobs would be affected at the plant in Shreveport, which also builds Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon pickup trucks, Richards said. "It hasn't been determined what the impact will be right now, but Hummer production is under a quarter of production" at the plant, Richards said. The Louisiana plant once employed about 3,000 people, but layoffs and buyouts have reduced that to about 1,120. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said the state will "aggressively pursue a variety of options to retain and grow jobs at the plant." "For the long-term, we know our best opportunity to preserve jobs at the facility is supporting the sale of the Hummer brand, a transaction that appears to be on track according to GM officials, as well as to attract additional automotive tenants to fully utilize the facility," he said in a statement. Doug Ebey, president of the UAW Local 2166, said he doesn't "expect job cuts in the immediate future, but if (the sale) drags on and on anything is possible." "This is a temporary suspension of production and we expect the sale is going to go through," Ebey said. Gerald Thomas, 60, who has worked at the plant for 26 years, said he was disappointed by the news, but he doesn't expect job cuts right now either. "I figured they'd go up to the maximum production if we sold to the Chinese, but that's the thing, it seems like it keeps getting put off, like it's one thing after another," Thomas said. Hummer sales have been struggling since the sale announcement. High gasoline prices and the national economic slump get some of the blame. Sales peaked at 71,524 in 2006. But in December 2009 only 325 Hummers were sold, down 85 percent from the previous year, according to Autodata Corp. Sticker prices start at more than $42,500 and rise to about $63,000, according to data posted at the Hummer.com Web site. Aaron Bragman, an auto industry analyst with IHS Global Insight in Troy, Mich., said the suspension of production could be more about concerns the sale won't go through than surplus vehicles in the market. Hummer is a damaged brand that some in the Chinese government aren't keen on, he said. "The volatility of the gas prices really killed it and there's also a matter of changing taste," he said. "The Hummer H2 basically epitomized what he rest of he world hated about the American auto industry. It basically became the whipping boy for the green movement." Under the sales agreement, the Shreveport plant would continue producing the H3 model and H3T pickup truck on a contract basis until June 2011, with a one-year option until June 2012. The larger H2 was made under contract with South Bend, Ind.-based AM General LLC, which also makes military versions of the vehicles. The workhorse military vehicles used in Iraq and Afghanistan are not a part of the Chinese deal. ___ AP auto writers Tom Krisher and Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit contributed to this story Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Negativist has previously said things that bugged me, and the idea that the federal government should have allowed to GM to close its doors bugs me to no end, but I am afraid that he might be right about the prospects for GM paying back the money anytime soon. I'm afraid that will eventually prove to have been money down the drain. The sales trends for December were very revealing and do not bode well for GM. Ford sales practically exploded in December, as did the sales numbers for Toyota and Hyundai and several others. The numbers for GM were down, and this is not a good sign.
But it was steal necessary to bail out GM at that time, which was really a bail out of the union. If GM had been allowed to restructure in the standard manner, the union would have suffered, and many, many jobs would have been lost. Some people look at it as Obama paying back the union for putting him in office. You can look at it that way, but many other people, including the majority of knowledgeable economists, thought the loss of jobs would have been devastating and would have pushed us into a depression that might actually have measured up to the big one. No one can say with certainty that it would have happened, but the risk was real, and if it had happened, the consequences would have been inestimable, to include, for example, an inability to defend ourselves against further terrorists attacks. It is easy to dismiss such things when they are averted and do not occur. But no one can say for certain what things would be like today, or would be like in the ensuing decade, if the bulk of the GM workers had been put out of work.
The lesson that should be learned, but that probably won't be learned thanks to the disaster having been averted, is that really big unions eventually become really big problems. It is time for the laws to be changed so that U.S. corporations can refuse employment to anyone unwilling to sign a contract giving up their rights to participate in a union and in collective bargaining.