Words of the Weasel Part 30. Issues

Issue.  All purpose word used in place of failure, breakdown, bug, or problem.  Sounds much better.  Like something you can debate, rather than getting down to work and fixing it. 
As in "We have generator issues" from a lower Manhatten brokerage house explaining why they were not open for business on Wednesday after Hurricane Sandy. 
  Sounds much better than "Our generator is down".

Business Administration Blather on NPR

NPR was interviewing some Brit business administration guru early this morning.  The Brit was discussing the American automobile market, and how Japanese imports rose from nothing to 25% market share.  He said the imports entered the low end of the market and then the domestic makers "retreated" from that end of the market.  He obviously thought the domestic makes should have stood their ground and fought the imports on the beaches, on the landing grounds, and never surrender.  He didn't quite say it like that, but you got the message.
    And this guru was spouting nonsense. Detroit never retreated from the low end of the car market.  They were never in it.  Detroit was building famously large cars, six passenger, eight cylinder, automatic transmission, land yachts.  The imports were way smaller cars, four passenger, four cylinder, manual transmission.  Detroit never made anything like that.  And these minimal cars sold for about two thirds of what Detroit was getting for baseline sedans.   And a whole lot of customers decided that a minimal car at a good price was all they needed to get to work and chauffeur the kids around in.
   The decision facing Detroit was not whether to defend the low end of the market, it was a decision to enter the low end with a totally new small car design, or just keep on making what was selling well.
   Only GM took the plunge and decided to produce a true low end car, Saturn.  Ford and  Chrysler punted.   Saturn could have worked out, but GM suits saddled the operation with too much expensive overhead.
   Our Brit guru doesn't understand that the importers created a new market for a new kind of car.  The imports didn't invade the existing market, their created a whole new market.  And did very well at it.

First Snow of the Winter

It's falling up here.  It's light and it ain't sticking much, but it's snow.  Winter is coming. 

Firing Generals and Admirals over Benghazi

The TV news has mentioned this, but let it drop. Obama fired General Carter Ham, head of Africom. Then he fired Rear Admiral Charles M. Gaouette from his command of the powerful Carrier Strike Group Three (CSG-3) currently located in the Middle East . General Ham was fired right in the middle of the Benghazi attack, and Admiral Gaoutte was fired shortly afterwards. Service rumor has it that both officers were re leaved of command because they were sending re inforcements to Benghazi against Obama's orders to let the consulate be overwhelmed

Disgraceful.

Offshoring to the US.

Why Bizjet makers are going stateside.  Cover article in Aviation Week.   Embraer, a Brazilian aerospace firm, opened a $52 million assembly, completion, and painting facility in Melbourne Florida.  Honda has a 500,000 square foot facility in Greenboro, North Carolina employing 700 people.  France's Dassault has a plant in Little Rock, Arkansas to make Falcon jets employing 1600 workers. 
   All this investment went to right-to-work southern states, rather than old union strongholds in Wichita Kansas and Seattle Washington. 
   Said one executive "Why in the world would you go to Wichita and take all that trouble. You'd be nuts."

   And this is why we need to pass a right-to-work law here in New Hampshire.   Industry won't invest in states that are not right-to-work.

This is job growth?

Early this week they announced a mere 360,000 "new claims for unemployment" i.e. people out of a job.  This morning they announced a "job gain" of 171,000 jobs.  Boy that sure sounds like a net loss of  360,000 minus 171,000 equaling  189,000 jobs. 
  This is good economic news?

Federal regulation of Cell Phone Carriers?

Good old lefty NPR was calling for this today.  They claim the FCC wanted to require each and every cell phone tower have enough backup power to keep it on the air for 8 hours after the electricity failed.  The cell phone carriers successfully sued to block this regulation, some time ago, like right after Katrina.  NPR  is obviously in favor of this, and speculated that the issue might be revived after Sandy blacked out NYC. 
   Hmm.  What do I think?  You can always spend more money to harden the cell phone system more.  How much  money should be spent  to keep every one's cell phone working during a future Hurricane Sandy?  Every buck spent on backup power, secure land links,  tree trim back and such goes right onto your cell phone bill. 
   Who should decide how much money to spend?  The government or the cell phone carriers?  The carriers have some incentive to provide reliable service.  Certainly carriers who stayed on the air thru out Sandy will attract  subscribers from carriers that died at the first raindrop.  We could let market forces control the level of backup, which will result in a leveling off between reliability and cost.  The carriers will put enough money into disaster proofing to give them a competitive edge, but not so much as to drive off subscribers thru increased fees.  And, knowing the business a whole lot better than any bureaucrat, they will put the money where it will do the most good. 
   That FCC proposed eight hour backup power rule wouldn't do New York much good now.  Power has been off for a lot longer than eight hours, and it doesn't look like it will be back on any time soon. 
   People who really care about uninterrupted phone service can get a land line.