The last post about the information on car sales just got me thinking. And what I am thinking about is information.  There is a lot of it out there, what of it is useful?  Before we go further, read the last blog post about horizontal analysis and car sales around the world.

Suppose you were the head of an organization that had world wide sales capability. With the internet that could be a lot of firms.  What informtion would you want to help you plan your strategy?   Hmm, I feel a good writing topic coming on here!

I can envision a big picture slowly changing database, the sort of thing the CIA does in its factbook.  Then I can imagine breaking it down by say the Index of Economic Freedom.   Take a look at the top ten.  (Notice the drag on the big countries, that’s right, too much government, is any candidate saying that in the Presidential Race, no they are all calling for more of the same.) That would give me an idea of how difficult it would be to organize and set up sales in a country. It might be interesting to do a regression correltion between economic freedom and economic expansion. Then I would like some informationon on, well, information. How many computers and is there freedom of internet access, television, telephones, newspapers, etc are available?  This for example would put Cuba pretty far down my let’s go there list. That would let me know how easy or difficult it will be for me to ‘get the word out’ on my product.

Then we would start amassing detail on the particular industry I think. How often, how frequent, what would the monthly daily, weekly data look like?

Any thoughts?

We study horizontal analysis in managerial accounting. Here is a good example. One can readily see the fall in sales of specific lines.  Flint argues that eliminating choices will eliminate sales, less offerings is well less sales. He suggests Chrysler wil go from 13 % to 8% of the market, I imagine he is right. Chrysler seems more like Subaru than Honda.

My point is that the merge and blur strategy will result in lower overall market share for US carmakers.  GM is down ti 74,000 and Ford 54,000 UAW members and offering more buyouts.  Perhaps the last worker leaving Detroit wil turn out the lights.

Here is a run down on globalization.  I suspect that one could graph the increase in car sales by country as a measure of economic improvement. That would be a way of creating an economic indicator. For example, Poland and Estonia sales are up 20%. US Sales are down from last year. Where would you be expanding?

Do you know the meaning of the term margin call? When an investor buys an investment with borrowed money, he or she is said to be buying on margin, margin is the credit extended as a loan.

Let’s suppose the buyer puts up $50 and borrows the rest, $50, to purchase $100 of  a sub prime mortgage.  Now suppose the mortgage value falls to $75.  One fourthe of the total collateral has evaporated.  Rules will require the borrower to either put up more margin or the securities will be sold.  Remember the securities (and we use the term advisedly here) are held by the institution that extended the loan.  So they can selll to  protect themselves if the borrower does not put up the money or margin.

Read the hyperlink and discover that various banks and mortgage companies are getting margin calls.

thornburg Mortgage TMA now faces a going concern statement by its external auditor. That is a bit late as the shares have fallen from $28 a couple of months back to just about nothing now.  No doubt we will see more rushes for margin, everyone wants their money before it is too late!  Call up  a chart of TMA and see what it looks like.

I repeated the presentation I did for a civic club in Intermed II this past week, noting that the monthly chart indicators of Moving Average Convergence Divergence had turned down. This is  the first time since 2003!  My point is that these problems will not be corrected quickly, and that is turning out to be the case.

Auto repos hit a ten year high. This is a sort of first derivative of the housing sub prime crisis.  Can’t pay for the house, hand in the keys, can’t pay for the over priced car, do the same.  It is clear reading the article that too many people jump for the virtually nothing down pay forever car loan just like the nothing down pay for thirty year house loan. Once it dawns they are under water, they exit the deal. 

As an accountant, you will be expected to give solid financial advice to clients.  Buying a solid used car with less than 30 K miles for 2/3 the price of a new one is a pretty good idea, especially in the day of $30,000 cars!

Ford Workers face the their last decision, at least the last one they will get to make.  Ford is offering a final buy out package.  Take it and they  walk away with enough to start over in another line of work, re training, all that. Stay and they  gamble on Ford turning a profit. 

Reading this article it is amazing that the lady with 30 years is actually considering staying, this is the best deal she will ever get.  I asked the cost classes to write a proposal for a new busines using CVP techniques. Here is an example of real people in the workplace facing just such a decision.

This follows the posts about the fading hopes of Union led Ohio and other Rust Belt States.  Michigan is running television  ads featuring a Michigan born actor, begging companies to come to their state.  But unless Michigan can compete on the same footing as say Alabama, that will be a tough sell.

While we do not take sides in elections here, it is certainly fascinating to watch the Democrat Primary play out. Have you seen Slate.com delegate calculator?  It features the remaining states as well as delegates won thus far. One can play with the numbers depending on how many votes you think each candidate gets. There is no winner take all, it is a fractional allottment.  So if Hillary is behind in delegate count which she is, she has to really win big to pull ahead.

As an accountant you will be called on present meaningful explanations of number. This is a good one,take a look.

Robert Samuelson points out that the one thing that has to happen is happening, housing prices are falling. Until that happens the excess supply will not be removed from the market. Schemes to prop up folks that cannot afford the price they paid by jerry rigging mortgage rates or whatever are doomed to fail.  No one repeals supply and demand. Common sense from plain speakers like Gorbachev, Samuelson, and Tom Sowell, that is what the blog is all about.

I remarkd in the last post about how much change has taken place in Alabama, where one might have least expected it. But in other posts we note that past back benchers like Ireland are taking the lead in CHANGE!  Alabama and Ireland are both doing it with lower taxes, better education, and an open door policty to business.

Read what Gorbachev, yes that Gorbachev says about the recent elections in Russia. While I am no student of the Russian election system, one can see it leaves much to be desired.  I was particularly drawn to Gorbachev’s lament that  the Russian people were depressed under decades of Communist Rule. That’s quite a statement from the last communist leader of Russia!

Bob Dylan had it right ,the time’s they are a changing.

Triple digit oil prices not only spur alternative energy schemes but they spur methods to extract more from existing fields. In this article a former Resevoir Manager for ARAMCO speculates that these prices are fostering much more efficient recovery technologies. And so oil could be with us for several more decades.

As a professional accountant, you will be consulted on all sorts of decisions involving money.  The biggest is perhaps new plant location. Every city and state wants them and competition is fierce. Who is the latest winner in this category? Would you believe Alabama?  This is a follow up to our recent post comparing Ohio and Texas.  Alabama has lured Mercedes, Honda, and Hyundai.  Gee what a change from the 60s! Truly this is a realization of MLK’s I Have a Dream Speech.

Alabama just won another contract with Airbus to construct tanker planes for the USAF.  A combination of property tax and land incentives along with employee training and the absence of a closed shop environment and low taxes won the day. The logistics of two interstate highways and a deep water port sealed the deal.  San Antonio offered a similar package for Toyota which builds its Tundra pickup there.

Low taxes and a ready to go work force make for jobs, earth to Ohio, are you listening?