review: http://www.newsweek.com/id/168849
review: http://www.newsweek.com/id/169159
nonfiction: http://www.newsweek.com/id/169158
nonfiction: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1859354,00.html
fact: http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/sex/truth-about-dating
fact: http://www.cosmopolitan.com/style/tips/beauty_qa_hair
advertisement: http://www.seventeen.com/magazine/
advertisement: http://www.cosmopolitan.com/
fiction: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2008/11/17/081117fi_fiction_lethem
fiction: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2008/11/10/081110fi_fiction_tower
editorial: http://www.newsweek.com/id/168395
editorial: http://www.newsweek.com/id/168954
Lisa Wikner, Greg Moppert, Amelia Kernan
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Thursday, November 13, 2008
In the news
For months, General Motors had been telling everyone who would listen that bankruptcy was not an option. It had a $30 billion cash pile and plans to restructure the company as the economy rebounded and 2007 U.S. auto sales topped 16 million units.
Then came October. Sales plummeted an astounding 45% over the same period last year, a result of a slowing economy and a dearth of financing for would-be car buyers. Total U.S. car and light-truck sales this year could come in at 13.5 million, 2.6 million fewer than last year. "That's in no body's business plan," says Kimberly Rodriguez, an automotive specialist with Grant Thornton. "The best planning in the world cannot survive that fluctuation." It's now clear that GM can't survive as an ongoing entity without massive federal assistance. The company is burning through more than $2 billion each month. It has $16 billion left. As if they were aboard a dirigible losing altitude, GM's bosses have been frantically throwing all manner of stuff overboard — retiree health-care benefits, people, assets, new car design — to conserve $5 billion. That will get it through the year.
But 2009 is the year of reckoning for GM and the rest of the domestic auto industry, if not the economy as a whole. The GM crisis is raising once again the issue of how far the government should go in rescuing banks, insurance companies, mortgage holders, credit-card issuers and now car makers. GM has no doubts about it. "Immediate federal funding is essential in order for the U.S. automotive industry to weather this downturn," GM president Fritz Henderson admitted to investors during a conference call in which GM announced a third-quarter loss of $2.5 billion.
No one is more aware of that need than Barack Obama, who carried Michigan by a huge margin. The President-elect is committed to helping the Detroit Three, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is leading a rescue party that plans to get a bailout bill in front of President Bush before Thanksgiving. So far, the President has offered only to speed through Congress an already approved $25 billion loan to help Detroit create new fuel-efficient models. But GM needs an additional $10 billion simply to pay its bills next year and $15 billion more to close plants, compensate redundant workers and dump some of its lesser-performing brands.
The issue boils down to a historic proposition: Is what's good for GM still good for the country?
"If GM were to go into a free-fall bankruptcy and didn't pay its trade debts, then the entire domestic auto industry shuts down," says Rodriguez. The system — the domestic auto plants and their interconnected group of suppliers — is far bigger than GM. It includes 54 North American manufacturing plants and at least 4,000 so-called Tier 1 suppliers — firms that feed parts and subassemblies directly to those plants. That includes mom-and-pop outfits but also a dozen or so large companies such as Lear, Johnson Controls and GM's former captive Delphi. Beyond those are thousands of the suppliers' suppliers.
Although the Detroit Three directly employed about 240,000 people last year, according to the industry-allied Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in Ann Arbor, Mich., the multiplier effect is large, which is typical in manufacturing. Throw in the parts makers and other suppliers, and you have an additional 974,000 jobs. Together, says CAR, these 1.2 million workers spend enough to keep 1.7 million more people employed. That gets you to 2.9 million jobs tied to the Detroit Three, and even if you discount the figures because of CAR's allegiance, it's a big number. Shut down Detroit, and the national unemployment rate heads toward 10% in a hurry.
Even if just one of the Detroit Three — and GM is the most likely, as Ford is in better shape and Chrysler is much smaller — spiraled into a free-fall bankruptcy, the systemic effects, at least initially, would be huge. The whole industry would not be able to build cars in the U.S., because of the lack of parts. "Unlike the airlines or steel, when you look at the automobile industry and the fact that the whole supplier base is connected — to Ford, Chrysler, Toyota — it will have a ripple effect on the entire industry," says Nicole Y. Lamb-Hale, a bankruptcy expert at the Detroit office of Foley & Lardner, a law firm that represents some GM suppliers.
Question.
Should the government save GM?
Do you think they should focus more on saving the other companies and let GM down?
Do you think that if GM fails all the others will as well?
Then came October. Sales plummeted an astounding 45% over the same period last year, a result of a slowing economy and a dearth of financing for would-be car buyers. Total U.S. car and light-truck sales this year could come in at 13.5 million, 2.6 million fewer than last year. "That's in no body's business plan," says Kimberly Rodriguez, an automotive specialist with Grant Thornton. "The best planning in the world cannot survive that fluctuation." It's now clear that GM can't survive as an ongoing entity without massive federal assistance. The company is burning through more than $2 billion each month. It has $16 billion left. As if they were aboard a dirigible losing altitude, GM's bosses have been frantically throwing all manner of stuff overboard — retiree health-care benefits, people, assets, new car design — to conserve $5 billion. That will get it through the year.
But 2009 is the year of reckoning for GM and the rest of the domestic auto industry, if not the economy as a whole. The GM crisis is raising once again the issue of how far the government should go in rescuing banks, insurance companies, mortgage holders, credit-card issuers and now car makers. GM has no doubts about it. "Immediate federal funding is essential in order for the U.S. automotive industry to weather this downturn," GM president Fritz Henderson admitted to investors during a conference call in which GM announced a third-quarter loss of $2.5 billion.
No one is more aware of that need than Barack Obama, who carried Michigan by a huge margin. The President-elect is committed to helping the Detroit Three, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is leading a rescue party that plans to get a bailout bill in front of President Bush before Thanksgiving. So far, the President has offered only to speed through Congress an already approved $25 billion loan to help Detroit create new fuel-efficient models. But GM needs an additional $10 billion simply to pay its bills next year and $15 billion more to close plants, compensate redundant workers and dump some of its lesser-performing brands.
The issue boils down to a historic proposition: Is what's good for GM still good for the country?
"If GM were to go into a free-fall bankruptcy and didn't pay its trade debts, then the entire domestic auto industry shuts down," says Rodriguez. The system — the domestic auto plants and their interconnected group of suppliers — is far bigger than GM. It includes 54 North American manufacturing plants and at least 4,000 so-called Tier 1 suppliers — firms that feed parts and subassemblies directly to those plants. That includes mom-and-pop outfits but also a dozen or so large companies such as Lear, Johnson Controls and GM's former captive Delphi. Beyond those are thousands of the suppliers' suppliers.
Although the Detroit Three directly employed about 240,000 people last year, according to the industry-allied Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in Ann Arbor, Mich., the multiplier effect is large, which is typical in manufacturing. Throw in the parts makers and other suppliers, and you have an additional 974,000 jobs. Together, says CAR, these 1.2 million workers spend enough to keep 1.7 million more people employed. That gets you to 2.9 million jobs tied to the Detroit Three, and even if you discount the figures because of CAR's allegiance, it's a big number. Shut down Detroit, and the national unemployment rate heads toward 10% in a hurry.
Even if just one of the Detroit Three — and GM is the most likely, as Ford is in better shape and Chrysler is much smaller — spiraled into a free-fall bankruptcy, the systemic effects, at least initially, would be huge. The whole industry would not be able to build cars in the U.S., because of the lack of parts. "Unlike the airlines or steel, when you look at the automobile industry and the fact that the whole supplier base is connected — to Ford, Chrysler, Toyota — it will have a ripple effect on the entire industry," says Nicole Y. Lamb-Hale, a bankruptcy expert at the Detroit office of Foley & Lardner, a law firm that represents some GM suppliers.
Question.
Should the government save GM?
Do you think they should focus more on saving the other companies and let GM down?
Do you think that if GM fails all the others will as well?
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
job loss
a way to save jobs is to boost the economy people are loosing jobs because there is no need for certain ones, this is affecting everybody. there is a strain on the economy, and that is decreasing the jobs. i dont know what can really be done we might have to just wait it out.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
OBAMA!
Obama represents change, and people have seen what happened with bush and want to try something new. McCain had all the same ideas that bush had and so it would have been just like electing bush for another term they were very similar in many ways. Obama is going to change things. It may take a while for the ball to get rolling but he will accomplish great things. Young voters are ready to see things go positivley and they have seen from a netural seat for a while what happened with bush. and they knew what they wanted. GO OBAMA!
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Journal # 8 & 9
Katie Couric is draging CBS down
Katie Couric is draging CBS down because she needs to be able to spread her wings.
Katie Couric is draging CBS down because she can do better.
Taxes being taken from our back pockets.
Katie Couric is draging CBS down because she needs to be able to spread her wings.
Katie Couric is draging CBS down because she can do better.
This image is showing the man taking money out of his bank ATM, while the other AMT is taking money out of his back pocket. The AMT stands for Alternative Minimum Tax. So basically he thinks he is getting money out but really it is being taken from him trhough all of his taxes.
Taxes being taken from our back pockets.Taxes are being taken from our backpockets because they have been raised.
The taxes come straight out of our own pockets.
Active Reading Questions Gould
1) " Transitions are found in the fossil records. Preserved transitions are not common, and shouldn't be. but not because of our understanding of evolution."
A) "We do not know how the Creator created, what processes He used, for He used processes which are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe."
B) "When we recognize the etymology of September, October, November, and December (seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth, from the Latin), we know that two additional items (January and February) must have been added to an original calender of ten months."
2) He cites interferences as evidence in paragraph 16, and 17
3)It sets the scene so we know what beliefs he will be talking about. so the reader wouldn't expect to have a recent theory in his essay.
A) "We do not know how the Creator created, what processes He used, for He used processes which are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe."
B) "When we recognize the etymology of September, October, November, and December (seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth, from the Latin), we know that two additional items (January and February) must have been added to an original calender of ten months."
2) He cites interferences as evidence in paragraph 16, and 17
3)It sets the scene so we know what beliefs he will be talking about. so the reader wouldn't expect to have a recent theory in his essay.
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