Yes I spend a good deal of time talking about the troubles of Ford and GM, but right before our eyes, nothing demonstrates Dr. Deming’s 14 points and seven deadly diseases of TQM intertwined with , ahem, accounting difficulties, better than this. I made the post Making a Change a Tough Job before I read…

The headline in the Friday Jan 26 2007 detail how Gloria Orapello rang up  $383,788 in personal charges on her DISD charge card.  The theft by credit card occurred over  a period of 27 months.  Apparently half of the 1,200 employees are guilty of some level of theft by credit card.  Now this raises several…

Here is a great story about Managerial Accounting.  MCD and TGT have done well at squeezing more money out of exisitng stores, WMT has not, here is how McDonald’s is using 13,000+ restaurants to make more money from existing locations. The trick is to use your location and add value during times that you are…

I just read another insightful column by Jerry Flint about  GM’s market share loss. Please click and read the column. Mr. Flint does an admirable job of using statistics that anyone can understand, look at the waterfall decline in market share.  What was the GM Board thinking?  Yet the Board did not take action to…

:Here is a piece of PR fluff-Existing Home Sales Plummet.  This article notes that home sales suffered their worst drop since 1989. Indeed the Chief Economist for National Association of Realtors NAR admits that 40% of the market in 2005 were speculators buying and hoping to re sell for a profit.  Indeed, there is even…

Pleae read this excellent column by George Will about American Airlines.    AMR is burdened with many of the same legacy costs at GM and Ford. But AMR is up from $3 a share to $37 in the last few years.  This is a good example of the problems of the union contracts and their…

In honor of Milton Friedman (see recent posts)  You Tube is sponsoring a Challenge the Status Quo Contest.   Click on the link to the left to learn more about it.  Economist Friedman championed challenging the status quo, now you can too.  There are cash prizes and the video has to be between one and ten…

Business Week reports that  Tata and Fiat   are planning on building a $2,200 car.  The design is finished but Tata asked Fiat to fine tune the final design.  So why is this important?  Because the greatest growth in auto sales will be in countries that are not driving cars now, they will be moving from…

Either try this WSJ STudent Link  ( I tried it and it works after you click OK for encrypted link) go to http://www.wsj.com then scroll down the left side to Dow Jones sites and click on college journal then  scroll down the left side till you encounter, subscribe and succeed,  students sucscribe now and save…

Bond markets are referred to as fixed income markets, why?  Because the bond promises to pay a certain coupon rate when it is issued.  The amount of money the bond pays, or coupon, is fixed and does not change over the life of the bond.  Interest rates however change daily or even hourly as bonds…