Despite Russia recently being designated as a country with no free-press and democracy being beaten down in subtle ways by Mr. Putin, capitalism is alive and well when it comes to government officials.
This article recently came to my attention and it even has a Pittsburgh connection! It seems that the former Russian Minister of Atomic Energy along with his American associate may have bilked several countries out of $9 M USD. Many shell corporations and international bank accounts were used to divert the money in more ways than a Swiss banker could come up with, although they claim that the money was sent abroad due to a distrust of the Russian banking system. In all fairness, that may be true, since during the early 90s there was rampant distrust of domestic money markets. What makes this look especially bad for the two is that the money was to be used to help increase security at Russian nuclear sites. You can bet the USA will try to fuck these guys as hard as it is legally allowed to (and then more). It will be interesting to see what happens in this case, but I hope for these guys' sake that they have a hell of a defense team.
2005-05-06
2005-05-05
Problems in Detroit
Growing up in Detroit, it shouldn't be a surprise that I have a good knowledge and family ties to the auto industry. Unlike most, these ties were mostly on the sales and consulting side, not with one of the specific manufacturers. My father has worked in dealerships for over 30 years in about every position and now is primarily a consultant. All this has rubbed off on me somewhat so I felt like writing about an interesting story I read in Businessweek. The link to that story is here, and I highly recommend anyone interested in the auto industry or business read it.
It seems that GM is about to fall apart. This is the company that has been #1 for over 70 years, which is practically unheard of in any industry. They used to be based in Flint, Michigan the location of the famous sit-down strike where the UAW was born. They left Flint, pretty much wrecked the town, but that's another story that Michael Moore made a movie on (which was pretty good, by the way).
GMs problems stem from mismanagement. Working class American's love to blame foreign competition (in the 80s many Toyota dealerships were vandalized and a Chinese man was murdered because a group of auto workers believed he was Japanese). I looked for links to these stories and was unable to find any, but it happened about 20 years ago and shows how protective people can be about American cars. People blame the Japanese because they succeeded where they Americans failed to. They just ran their business a lot better, producing higher quality cars at equal or lower cost and were quicker to introduce newer technologies.
GM seems to have an identity crisis; the company doesn't have a clear image as to what they produce. While Toyota stresses quality and fuel economy, Honda both of those plus great engines, BMW brings style and performance (though mediocre quality), GM's lineup is variable in quality (Cadillacs being great with the others average at best), cheaply made in some respects, poorly designed in others, with a mid-range price. With the exception of the new Cadillacs (which are pretty stylish and perform well while maintaining high quality), none of GMs lineup really appeals to me. I guess the original Hummer does, but its cheaper siblings seem to have too much plastic for the price. Their models overlap too with trucks produced by Chevy and GMC, midrange cars made by Saturn, Chevrolet, Saab, Pontiac, and Buick. Redundancies reduce the amount of research money that can be spent per vehicle, something that Honda and Toyota figured out early on that GM really needs to do.
These main factors hamper GMs ability to outsell their competitors, even with pickup trucks, since Ford is generally recognized as having the most rugged. Nissan and Honda also pose a threat in this area and I believe that their market share will soon increase, especially with Honda's Ridgeline which looks really cool even though I don't really care for pickups.
GM also has some problems with labor it seems. I personally don't like unions too much since they go against a free market. When you are paying people wages above the market average and bound by contracts stipulating how many of them must be employed at any given time, your options are greatly limited. The UAW was useful at first because workers were treated a lot differently 50 years ago. These days it just takes a cut of workers paychecks and makes life harder for GM. If the UAW's contacts help GM go bankrupt, will the workers benefit? I think not.
This is just my take on the situation with what I know from various news sources. I advise anyone who wants some details to read the article mentioned above.
Lastly, if the CEO from GM ever reads this, here's a vaccine that still might help GM: Kill Saab, Buick, and Pontiac. Pontiac has some new models that if improved might be able to integrate with Chevy or Saturn. See how the other brands fare for 3 years and combine more if necessary. Give the UAW hell. When the contract comes up for renewal, consider starting some nonunion plants. Toyota does it here in the USA. Work is work whether it is union or not. It will take time for some people to learn this, but those in the labor business will eventually shut up, and in the meantime you might just save the company.
If the CEO doesn't do things like I mentioned above, I have a feeling GM will either go bankrupt or get split up into a lot of small pieces. Neither is very attractive.
And today there was another update, Kirk Kerkorian, the rich guy who owns casinos, was once Chrysler's largest shareholder, and is currently suing Daimler Chrysler is considering doubling his stake in GM whereby he would own over 8% of the company. Richard Steinberg was quoted by Reuters as saying, "The vultures are now flying over the carcass."
It seems that GM is about to fall apart. This is the company that has been #1 for over 70 years, which is practically unheard of in any industry. They used to be based in Flint, Michigan the location of the famous sit-down strike where the UAW was born. They left Flint, pretty much wrecked the town, but that's another story that Michael Moore made a movie on (which was pretty good, by the way).
GMs problems stem from mismanagement. Working class American's love to blame foreign competition (in the 80s many Toyota dealerships were vandalized and a Chinese man was murdered because a group of auto workers believed he was Japanese). I looked for links to these stories and was unable to find any, but it happened about 20 years ago and shows how protective people can be about American cars. People blame the Japanese because they succeeded where they Americans failed to. They just ran their business a lot better, producing higher quality cars at equal or lower cost and were quicker to introduce newer technologies.
GM seems to have an identity crisis; the company doesn't have a clear image as to what they produce. While Toyota stresses quality and fuel economy, Honda both of those plus great engines, BMW brings style and performance (though mediocre quality), GM's lineup is variable in quality (Cadillacs being great with the others average at best), cheaply made in some respects, poorly designed in others, with a mid-range price. With the exception of the new Cadillacs (which are pretty stylish and perform well while maintaining high quality), none of GMs lineup really appeals to me. I guess the original Hummer does, but its cheaper siblings seem to have too much plastic for the price. Their models overlap too with trucks produced by Chevy and GMC, midrange cars made by Saturn, Chevrolet, Saab, Pontiac, and Buick. Redundancies reduce the amount of research money that can be spent per vehicle, something that Honda and Toyota figured out early on that GM really needs to do.
These main factors hamper GMs ability to outsell their competitors, even with pickup trucks, since Ford is generally recognized as having the most rugged. Nissan and Honda also pose a threat in this area and I believe that their market share will soon increase, especially with Honda's Ridgeline which looks really cool even though I don't really care for pickups.
GM also has some problems with labor it seems. I personally don't like unions too much since they go against a free market. When you are paying people wages above the market average and bound by contracts stipulating how many of them must be employed at any given time, your options are greatly limited. The UAW was useful at first because workers were treated a lot differently 50 years ago. These days it just takes a cut of workers paychecks and makes life harder for GM. If the UAW's contacts help GM go bankrupt, will the workers benefit? I think not.
This is just my take on the situation with what I know from various news sources. I advise anyone who wants some details to read the article mentioned above.
Lastly, if the CEO from GM ever reads this, here's a vaccine that still might help GM: Kill Saab, Buick, and Pontiac. Pontiac has some new models that if improved might be able to integrate with Chevy or Saturn. See how the other brands fare for 3 years and combine more if necessary. Give the UAW hell. When the contract comes up for renewal, consider starting some nonunion plants. Toyota does it here in the USA. Work is work whether it is union or not. It will take time for some people to learn this, but those in the labor business will eventually shut up, and in the meantime you might just save the company.
If the CEO doesn't do things like I mentioned above, I have a feeling GM will either go bankrupt or get split up into a lot of small pieces. Neither is very attractive.
And today there was another update, Kirk Kerkorian, the rich guy who owns casinos, was once Chrysler's largest shareholder, and is currently suing Daimler Chrysler is considering doubling his stake in GM whereby he would own over 8% of the company. Richard Steinberg was quoted by Reuters as saying, "The vultures are now flying over the carcass."
Sleeping
As with many of my friends, my sleep schedule has become really fucked up this week. As you probably read about in my previous posts, I pulled an all-nighter Monday night, staying up until Tuesday afternoon. I woke up in the early evening (on Tuesday), did some more work and went to bed around 3am on Wednesday. Looks like I'm starting another all nighter now, studying for one of 2 finals I have on Friday. I may end up staying up all night tomorrow (Thursday) studying for the final that is at 830am Friday. Then I can sleep Friday afternoon until my other final at 530pm, which I am studying for now (as well as writing a paper for the same class). I think its even more strange that I am planning my days like this, but during finals shit like this is definitely not the exception.
To all my friends at CMU: Good luck on your remaining finals!
To my friends at other schools: You're probably done by now, have a good graduation or summer break!
To all my friends at CMU: Good luck on your remaining finals!
To my friends at other schools: You're probably done by now, have a good graduation or summer break!
2005-05-03
Runaway Bride
If you've been watching the news lately you've without a doubt seen the story about the woman who went missing several days before her wedding, causing hundreds of people to go searching for her and most presuming she was dead until it turned out she just ran away.
She was found in New Mexico and told the police and FBI that she had been kidnapped. Soon after she admitted she had just gotten cold feet and took off. They are now considering charging her with false reporting and/or making her pay an estimated $100,000 for the search.
While the charges might just stick, I think that the fine is dubious at best. The search was called off before she was even found, and she didn't commit any crimes until she lied to the police. If she had been found and said she had just taken some time off and not made up any stories, she would definitely avoid ALL penalties. Just my opinion on the subject, personally, I think either she's nuts or her fiance is a real asshole.
She was found in New Mexico and told the police and FBI that she had been kidnapped. Soon after she admitted she had just gotten cold feet and took off. They are now considering charging her with false reporting and/or making her pay an estimated $100,000 for the search.
While the charges might just stick, I think that the fine is dubious at best. The search was called off before she was even found, and she didn't commit any crimes until she lied to the police. If she had been found and said she had just taken some time off and not made up any stories, she would definitely avoid ALL penalties. Just my opinion on the subject, personally, I think either she's nuts or her fiance is a real asshole.
Another all nighter continues
Its 7am and I didn't sleep this past night... instead I helped a friend study for a final and cranked out the bulk of my part of a group paper that's due on Friday. Though tired, I feel that I've accomplished a lot and will probably work for a while longer til finished. At least now I'll have more time to study for my 2 finals this Friday (and one of them is at 8:30am). Hopefully all nighters will end with my college career.
CMU III
Another entry about CMU. More will come about my fond memories of this place, but I decided to write about the benefits of college.
Today I was thinking, did I actually learn anything here? Was it worth over $150,000? I personally believe it was. My overall knowledge of business and finance has gone from almost non-existent to a level far beyond average.
I do not consider the actual business knowledge to be the most important aspect though. I think the most important thing I learned here was problem solving and critical thinking. Sounds rather trite, but its true. I find that I can tackle almost every problem thrown at me (at least in school) with relative ease. I don't stress as much, I'm able to study much more efficiently than I ever did in high school, and I find these mental processes working in the "real world" too.
Another thing I've improved with is group work and leadership. In high school we had some group projects but they weren't really effective at teaching group dynamics, they were just a way to let students work on a project that would be too overwhelming for one person. Here, I have had great groups, average groups, and horrible groups. I have also really started to take command of groups, delegate tasks, and manage people. I'm not an asshole at it, I just try to make sure that nobody feels cheated by other group members, keep everyone on track, and make suggestions. I also usually do more than my share of the work, because many things my groups do are my ideas, so everything has to start somewhere.
An aside on group work... I personally believe that to measure your success at group work, its not necessarily your leadership skills, delegation skills, or effort, at least not directly. I think the best way to measure the success is the number of projects that should have been failures and almost were, had it not been for you tireless working to get things right. If you measure it that way, I'd say I've done pretty well.
So, those are the two biggest things I learned in college. Both are extremely important to being successful, so I do feel it was worth it. Not to mention that getting a Bachelor's Degree is essential to finding good employment.
I probably could have gotten a comparable education at a state school for half the price, but private universities do have advantages, especially the small class sizes which really helped me. The few large classes I attended weren't very meaningful.
So, my advice: go to college.
Today I was thinking, did I actually learn anything here? Was it worth over $150,000? I personally believe it was. My overall knowledge of business and finance has gone from almost non-existent to a level far beyond average.
I do not consider the actual business knowledge to be the most important aspect though. I think the most important thing I learned here was problem solving and critical thinking. Sounds rather trite, but its true. I find that I can tackle almost every problem thrown at me (at least in school) with relative ease. I don't stress as much, I'm able to study much more efficiently than I ever did in high school, and I find these mental processes working in the "real world" too.
Another thing I've improved with is group work and leadership. In high school we had some group projects but they weren't really effective at teaching group dynamics, they were just a way to let students work on a project that would be too overwhelming for one person. Here, I have had great groups, average groups, and horrible groups. I have also really started to take command of groups, delegate tasks, and manage people. I'm not an asshole at it, I just try to make sure that nobody feels cheated by other group members, keep everyone on track, and make suggestions. I also usually do more than my share of the work, because many things my groups do are my ideas, so everything has to start somewhere.
An aside on group work... I personally believe that to measure your success at group work, its not necessarily your leadership skills, delegation skills, or effort, at least not directly. I think the best way to measure the success is the number of projects that should have been failures and almost were, had it not been for you tireless working to get things right. If you measure it that way, I'd say I've done pretty well.
So, those are the two biggest things I learned in college. Both are extremely important to being successful, so I do feel it was worth it. Not to mention that getting a Bachelor's Degree is essential to finding good employment.
I probably could have gotten a comparable education at a state school for half the price, but private universities do have advantages, especially the small class sizes which really helped me. The few large classes I attended weren't very meaningful.
So, my advice: go to college.
2005-05-02
Bye-Bye GLOCK
Today I bid farewell to my .45 caliber GLOCK 30, Mr. M is now the proud owner of this firearm. As you all probably know from my previous entry, I recently purchased a CZ 75 P-01 to replace the GLOCK. While GLOCKs are fine pistols, both in quality and reliability, there were several features/qualities that I never really liked.
The trigger always bothered me. At 5.5 pounds, it is equivalent to a single action pull of my new gun. That unnerved me, especially with the myriad of anecdotal evidence concerning policeman shooting themselves in the foot with one (there is even a true video circulating on the internet that shows this, although the idiot DEA agent who shot himself did so through his own stupidity without any faults on the gun's part). While I would (hopefully) never be stupid enough to put my finger on the trigger while (un)/holstering it, an AD (accidental discharge) is definitely possible. I didn't care much for the feel of the trigger either, it wasn't SA or DA, just something odd.
That being said, GLOCKs are extremely well built, use a very modern and uncomplicated design, and are in use by over 50% of police departments in the USA. They are great guns, but I'm not sure if I'll own one again.
To be fair, I also wanted to switch from a .45 to a 9mm. With my limited budget, 9mm is much cheaper to shoot. I also was nuts about owning a P-01, so that clinched the decision.
So, farewell GLOCK, it was fun, maybe we'll meet again, but for now I'm sticking with my P-01! Lastly, many people love GLOCKs, I am pretty much indifferent, and this guy hates them!
The trigger always bothered me. At 5.5 pounds, it is equivalent to a single action pull of my new gun. That unnerved me, especially with the myriad of anecdotal evidence concerning policeman shooting themselves in the foot with one (there is even a true video circulating on the internet that shows this, although the idiot DEA agent who shot himself did so through his own stupidity without any faults on the gun's part). While I would (hopefully) never be stupid enough to put my finger on the trigger while (un)/holstering it, an AD (accidental discharge) is definitely possible. I didn't care much for the feel of the trigger either, it wasn't SA or DA, just something odd.
That being said, GLOCKs are extremely well built, use a very modern and uncomplicated design, and are in use by over 50% of police departments in the USA. They are great guns, but I'm not sure if I'll own one again.
To be fair, I also wanted to switch from a .45 to a 9mm. With my limited budget, 9mm is much cheaper to shoot. I also was nuts about owning a P-01, so that clinched the decision.
So, farewell GLOCK, it was fun, maybe we'll meet again, but for now I'm sticking with my P-01! Lastly, many people love GLOCKs, I am pretty much indifferent, and this guy hates them!
2005-05-01
At least the real part is over...
With all of the nostalgia and thinking about my last four years spent at college, this past week has reminded me just how much I am glad that school is coming to a close (at least for now). On Friday I had a final exam and a presentation. I think I probably failed the final exam, but that's okay because everyone I talked with thought the same thing and this professor enjoys giving generous curves to his students. That being said, there is no way that I didn't pass the test, so all is good.
The presentation went okay, but I thought our effort may have been weak compared to other groups. I didn't see any other groups present, but its a gut feeling. Our project was about safety on campus. I agree with one of our survey respondents: if the campus started honoring gun permits I'd feel a lot safer. Fucking liberal swine!
The presentation went okay, but I thought our effort may have been weak compared to other groups. I didn't see any other groups present, but its a gut feeling. Our project was about safety on campus. I agree with one of our survey respondents: if the campus started honoring gun permits I'd feel a lot safer. Fucking liberal swine!
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