 The closed loop “For decades, the real estate industry has operated under the principle that the less information buyers and sellers have, the better it is for agents, lenders, title companies, and all the other folks who eat from the trough. But the real estate tide seems to be turning, as the housing and credit crises of 2008 have heightened awareness in Washington, D.C., and on Wall Street about the catastrophic consequences of a closed information loop – Michelle Singletary of Washington Post quotes Ilyce Glink in “Buy, Close, Move In.”
 Dr. Brian Stacy of NOAA prepares to clean an oiled Kemp's Ridley turtle.  An oiled Kemp's Ridley turtle-Click to enlarge  Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico Oil spill The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume – Tony Hayward, Geologist and Chief Executive, British Petroleum quoted in BP boss Tony Hayward admits job is on line over Gulf oil spill by Tim Webb of The Guardian  May 14, 2010
Thank you Chairman Towns.
I am Akio Toyoda of Toyota Motor Corporation. I would first like to state that I love cars as much as anyone, and I love Toyota as much as anyone. I take the utmost pleasure in offering vehicles that our customers love, and I know that Toyota’s 200,000 team members, dealers, and suppliers across America feel the same way. However, in the past few months, our customers have started to feel uncertain about the safety of Toyota’s vehicles, and I take full responsibility for that. Today, I would like to explain to the American people, as well as our customers in the U.S. and around the world, how seriously Toyota takes the quality and safety of its vehicles. I would like to express my appreciation to Chairman Towns and Ranking Member Issa, as well as the members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, for giving me this opportunity to express my thoughts today.
I would like to focus my comments on three topics -
- Toyota’s basic philosophy regarding quality control,
- the cause of the recalls, and
- how we will manage quality control going forward.
First, I want to discuss the philosophy of Toyota’s quality control. I myself, as well as Toyota, am not perfect. → continue reading Testimony of Akio Toyoda, Toyota Motor Corporation
 Amish fishing in Lake Tomah “We want to be producers, to be an overall good to the community and to the nation and not be dependent upon the nation for our livelihood or for the federal or state governments to give us our livelihood,” – David Kline, an Amish minister from Mount Hope, Ohio.
Source: Money or tradition: Indiana Amish face uneasy dilemma by Tom Coyne, Associated Press Writer, May 10, 2009
We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese …Thomas Friedman, in The Inflection is Near, The New York Times
Only when the last tree has been cut down; Only when the last river has been poisoned; Only when the last fish has been caught; Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten. – Native American proverb
FENGHUA, China — Chen Hsien, an employee of Fenghua Ningbo Plastic Works Ltd., a plastics factory that manufactures lightweight household items for Western markets, expressed his disbelief Monday over the “sheer amount of shit Americans will buy. Often, when we’re assigned a new order for, say, ‘salad shooters,’ I will say to myself, ‘There’s no way that anyone will ever buy these.’ … One month later, we will receive an order for the same product, but three times the quantity. How can anyone have a need for such useless shit I hear that Americans can buy anything they want, and I believe it, judging from the things I’ve made for them,” Chen said. “And I also hear that, when they no longer want an item, they simply throw it away. So wasteful and contemptible.” from the ONION
Let me review. These financial institutions on the brink of extinction come to the American taxpayer for hundreds and billions of dollars at the very same time they think they’re going to buy a $50 million corporate jet. They’re going to pay out $18 billion in bonuses. They paid an average of $2.6 million to every executive at the first 116 banks that got taxpayer money under TARP. Let me say that again. An average of $2.6 million in executive pay to the folks at the first 116 banks that got money from the taxpayers. They don’t get it. These people are idiots.
You can’t use taxpayer money to pay out $18 billion in bonuses. Merrill Lynch is unbelievable. They saved $3 billion to $4 billion from the pot of money that was going to Bank of America. The sale is going to close the first week in January. They always gave bonuses in January. You know what these sneaky guys did? They decided to give their bonuses in December before Bank of America took over – paid out $3 billion to $4 billion in bonuses in December and that quarter Merrill Lynch lost $21 billion. What planet are these people on? What could they be thinking about? – Senator Claire McCaskill
Beggars cannot be choosers – British Proverb
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About  I am a Civil Engineer from Louisiana State University. I coined the compound word, Americaneer, as an expression of my tribute. |
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