In her post about the Logan, Michelle wishes that the Smart Car would come to America. Well Michelle, your wish is granted!  Yep, Smart Car  is coming to the USA.  It will first be sold in California.  But did you know that it has been a money loser for its maker, Mercedes?  Read Jerry Flint’s…

Chevy Norwood suggested in her post about N-M that she hoped some of the sales would go to charity.  No Chevy, N-M is NOT a charitable 501c3 organization!  As a matter of fact, click N-M posts loss  and learn that they just lost $42 M!  But sales are up 9% over a year ago!  Egads,…

Richard Allen of the Allen Group visited UNT Dallas October 10, 2006.  His company is the prime mover of what is known as the Dallas Logsitics Hub.   This is the largest inland port being constructed in the US at this time.  Ships coming from China are so massive they cannot go through the Panama Canal.…

You can listen to the the Forbes media analyst  discuss the Google purchase of You Tube at the hyper link.  Here are the factsYou Tube is an on line service that allows folks to exhibit their streaming video clips.It has only been in business for 1.5 years.We do not know if or how much money…

Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine says we are going to sell a whole lot more of a whole lot less.  Example, Here are the ratings for past tv shows, Cosby had 35%, Beverly Hillbillies was a 40, Seinfeld was about a 23, Lucy was a 70, but CSI is a 10.  His point is that…

No I am   not going intimate in this Blog.  KISS is the acronym for Keep it simple stupid.  No I am not referring to my class or any reader as stupid but to industry insiders.  Page B1 of the Wed 10/4/06 WSJ features an article on the Logan , Renault’s surprise hit simple auto.  The…

Looking back is not much help in predicting trends.  Just take a look at the stock price chart of GE, MSFT, or DELL, yesterday’s winners are not on today’s tout sheet, oops, I left out WMT.  Here are a couple of sites to check out for something different. Fast Company  is a forward looking magazine…

There are chapters on the cash flow statement in every course I am teaching this semester.  And yep, there is nothing more important than cash, just ask Ford or GM that are losing money and burning through their cash hoard.  Will they downsize in time to avoid running out of money?  Gee, Ford dropped its…

Santa knows who’s been naughty and nice, in the case of the famous Neiman Marcus Christmas Wish Book, let’s hope you have been nice.  Yep, click on the hyperlink for a view of what outrageous gifts N/M is offering this year. What’s my point?  Well, what does N/M hope to accomplish with outlandish gifts like…

IN the cost class in Chapters 5-6 we will be studying break even and cost volume profit analysis.  Nowhere is this a more interesting consideration than in movie making.  One is constantly battling the cost of the movie production to obtain a realistic depiction of fiction, while balancing that with the need to make a…