Professor Elam

Sat Feb 6 2010

The President of Toyota publicly apologized for the failing his customers with a 4.5 M vehicle recall over the accelerator  pedal fiasco. Now, does anyone recall the Presidents of GM or Chrysler apologizing for needing a bailout?  Did Bill Ford apologize for Ford needing to hock the entire company for $18B to keep it running once Mulally took over?  Funny I don't recall those press conferences…

We mentioned the red ink at Valero VLO a few posts back. I cannot access mysa.com right now but there is a good article explaining that for Tesoro and Valero, the price of gasoline, their product, has not risen as fast as the price of oil. The result is that their margin the difference between what they pay and what they charge for the product, has dropped. In addition, reduced shipping has cut fuel demand by 10%. Overall, this is why we study accounting, to better understand financial results. 

Meanwhile the photos of the back yards literally falling away from their owners look more like mudslides in CA than what we usually see in San Antonio. The City is talking tough, but seems to me that just rebuilding the wall will not exactly get Humpty Dumpty back up there, so to speak. The problem here is that the homes should never have been built in these locations to begin with. Mother Nature strikes back. Once a bad decision is made, no amount of finger pointing will improve the original decision. 

By the way, do you have a business card?  What you say, I am a student, I don't have a business!. Networking is all about improving your Rolodex. Author Gladwell in Tipping Point calls such people Connectors. Connectors have large rolodexes. They know lots of people. Your business card should look something like this

Ima Student

Texas A & M San Antonio  College of Business

Anticipated Graduation Date __ or Class of 2011

imastudent@tamuk.edu

Cell phone number ___ _____