Roger Penske’s group will be importing the Smart Car.   Take a spin in this Motor Trend article. I have long advocated different cars for different purposes. Specifically I have proposed allowing one to license the Kawasaki Mule for the street in urban areas. This would be fine for my drive in Lancaster to school, just stay off I 35 and I 20 wich I do. The Smart would seem to fill the bill on that.  But frankly I would expect even better mileage given the sub 2000 pound weight and small engine.  30+ mpg is in the neighborhood of the Honda CIvic and Kia Rio, cars that offer considerable more room and storage and power.

but then they lack that golf cart open air feel of the Cabrio, what say you?  Will this sell in Peoria?

I ran across this Virtual Tour of a Canon Lens Plant.  We study variances in Chapter 10 of the Garrison book in ACCT 3270. How many potential variances do you see in this tour?  This is not doubt a much less expensive way to show the plant than trying to do photographs inside and one can tailor it exactly the way one wants, cool.  One can also visualize that whole raw material, work in process, and finished goods idea.

By the way, any camera buffs out there? Here is a recent start up, Camera Labs.  A Brit named Gordon Laing started it a couple of years ago. Looks like Gordon gets to do what we all dream of, pursue your hobby and make a living out of it. If you go on a video tour of a camera, he uses You Tube so there is not hassle of having to down load the latest Real Player, Media Player, Quick Time or whatever I don’t have the latest of  and then the fool thing never works anyway,am I the only one with that problem?  You Tube to the rescue.  And apparently the web sites know if you came to them from Camera Labs which is howq apparently the site makes money, this I guess would be another application of meta data.  Neat!

JOhn Daniels in Student Development has informed me of this on line help site. You can submit your papers for scrutiny and get suggestions on improvement. The site is

http://www.smarthinking.com

Username is NorthTexas

Password is Learn

Give it a try!

Walter Williams chimes in on the real Greatest Generation.  As always, Tom Sowell and Walter Williams have a way of getting to the point.

John Stossel tells the story of the Thanksgiving that almost did not happen.  It seems the Pilgrims tried the socialist model, with the usual results, failure. Once they switched to private enterprise, there was corn a plenty.

If this was true in 1623, it will be true in 2023.  Our health care system needs to be modeled on an IRA type savings account. There sould be a large deductible, after all this is insurance not the VA.  Then individual choice would drive availablity of services.  Steve Forbes notes that where this system exists, like in say lasik surgery, prices have dropped dramatically and availability has increased.  Let’s remember this when ‘universal health care’ gets debated in 2009. As the saying goes, if you think health care is expensive now, wait till its free….

This article suggests that the Tax Revolt is alive and well, it certainly was in Indianapolis. I suggest that the concept of what constitutes a tax needs to be exapanded.  For example UT Austin has proposed hiking tuition yet ANOTHER 13% over the next two years. UT Austin is the highest state tuition in Texas now at about $4,000 per semester.  This came after the legislature, denying them more state money and in the wake of a fee increase deemed unconsitutional by the AG, let UT set its own tuition.  Needless to say, that put the foxes in charge of the hen house. But…

Supposedly states support universities to improve education levels in the state.  If the state does not send them money, now the University raises money through their favorite source, you.  Is this not just another tax in disguise, your tuition?  Voters in the article I cited first are fed up with property taxes, how long till students register the same feeling about tuition?

Administrators idea of how to help is, raise the student loan limits. If there were ever an example of feeding the insatiable alligator, this is it!  Rather if we wanted to control out of control tuition, how about lowering loan limits, then only student cash would support increases in tuition and we would quickly discover just how elastic deamand for state education really is.  Your thoughts?

As always, Tom Sowell clear ths air on whether folks are making more money, surprise, they are. This flies in the face of the media mantra that the poor are getting poorer, no they aren’t, read Dr. Sowell and see why.

And here is Part II as Dr. Sowell continues to deconstruct misleading statistics. We have a great stat teacher in Dan F. please pay attention in his class!

Martin Sosnoff  actually plays the Wall Street Game and I would rather listen to a player than someone on the sidelines pretending to lay. This weekend I reached the same conclusion that C had finished five waves down on the charts and might be a buy, there is certainly enough bad news to justify it. A good article!

Okay the holidays approach and that means a lot of folks will be home yes including the kids, what to see that is not some syrupy ‘family’ fodder and not some silly cartoon, well let’s start our list!

Ratatouille is out on DVD and reallyreminds one how far computer animation has come.  The scenes in the kitchen of the French Restaurant are as detailed as any Disney has ever done. The combination of the artwork and the creativity that moves the story keeps all entertained.

The Family Man is surely the updated replacement for Miracle on 34th Street.  Nick Cage, successful NYC Investment Banker, lives an alternate life with an early love, how might it have turned out?

Guarding Tess is the amusing story of Cage as the no nonsense Secret Service Agent assigned to guard the wife of a now expired President.  The scene in Denny’s where Cage is called to the phone to be told ‘how it really is’ by the existing President is hilarious, as Tess has remarked to Cage, you are way out of your league.  Shirley McClaine comes to earth in real life long enough to do credit to the role as the aging ex First Lady.

Planes Trains and Automobiles , according to some of my friends, was actually made about my famous impatience with what seems the universal inability to get things done. Never mind the negative reviews on the link, read on down in the link.  Steve Martin encounters hapless John Candy as he and then they attempt to get home to Chicago for the Holidays. This film made Candy a bankable star.  For all of us not actually trying to get somewhere over the holidays, this is THE CLASSIC.  Note the scene at the rent car counter does contain a foul word but it is at least in context.

Have you seen any of the films of Hepburn and Tracy?  Kate Hepburn was playing an independent woman but one who cared for her man decades before the word feminist was coined. And no one ever wore a silk pants suit more beautifully.  Check out Desk Set, Pat and Mike, Adam’s Rib, Woman of the Year, and for great screwball comedy, Bringing up Baby. Click on Kate for a list of her movies.   Note, men and women had real relationships before technicolor.

Casablanca is in the top five of most lists of the best movies ever made. The dialog alone made it a classic.  Personally my belief is that  no one should received a college degree that has not seen and discussed the movie. Writer Dan Jenkins says he has seen it one hundred times, that may be overdill but the writers got this dialog right, see if you can improve on any scene. 

Amierican Airlines avoided Bankruptcy in 2003.  Now we can compare them with other airlines that took the BK route.  Regrettably all the graphs in the printed article are not in this hyperlink, another reason why print still has advantages. I have the actual article and you should examine it for more tips on how to make a presentation.

Here is how a Capter 11 bankruptcy SHOULD work.  Typically the business cannot make its debt payments and the stock value has fallen to little or nothing.  Courts now require the company to file a re organization plan within six month.  Some firms like Delphi enter BK with the plan already drawn up.  The managers get to affirm or reject any contracts within thrity days.  This allows them to re start negotiations on everything. Hence the threat of BK is used to wring concessions before a BK. Labor unions have made such concessions to UAL, Delta, NW, and US Air.  Similarly lower prices may be negotiated on the airplane leases, the leasor is facing the prospect of do or die, either make a deal or see the airplane parked.  And typically this is the chance to shed layers of bureaucracy that have grown over time.  The idea is to emerge slimmed down with a payment schedule that can be met.

Now historically BK had a negative connotation.  The employees that remain feel dumped on and duped. The stockholders get nothing. But these days it is looked on as more of a strategy.  Few to no maangers lose their jobs, take a look at the Texaco BK during their fight over Getty Oil with Pennzoil, no one lost a job.  So is it a negative or just another strategy like sending jobs to India?

Al of this is another managerial accounting issue.  Should one take bankruptcy as a strategy or only as a last resort, I report you decide.