Tromper News Updates

This is a comment made in response to my new year's greetings and invitation to submit predictions for 2009. Dancer 18 was subsequently unable to see this comment so I am re-posting it so that he and all of you can see his predictions. I think I have changed the blog settings so that a comment you post will now appear as a separate full page but I'm not sure how that will look? I would ask our most prolific blogger, (Dorsal) to post a comment to this message so that we can all see how it will appear. AH Dancer 18 said... Hi Andy,Your email is timely, I was just thinking about the New Year’s predictions we used to do in the office. So here goes.Of course there will be an election, the real question is when. I think that you are right (that statement should get me a couple points on its own) the Liberals and Conservatives will agree on a number of issues and we shall have peace and government (notice I didn’t say “good government”) for a while. However, I think that as soon as one or more or a combination of the following scenarios is occurring, that Harper will look to go to the polls. Scenario 1 – the economy begins to show signs of recovery, not a flash in the pan recovery, but sustained recovery.Scenario 2 – the polls are showing that the people are having trouble distinguishing between the Liberals and the Conservatives on a number of issues, that is to say Harper won’t let blue become gray or get a tinge of red in it.Scenario 3 – this is similar to scenario 2 but more direct, the Liberals become too demanding on the issues; I think that Michael can control them, but for how long.The coalition is dead.The big 3 will most certainly all be smaller, whether they reduce to only 2 or not is more the question. So far there has been very little said about the presence of the off-shore car manufacturers, they’re already here with new modern low cost facilities and work-force and their products are more aligned to the “green car” issue; so they should be out of the gate faster and in better shape than either of the big 3. The big 3 still have their legacy costs, their unions, their non-green car models, etc. and they haven’t shown any real tendency to do anything constructive or progressive about any of these issues. All they want is money! Leases, well they all did this, but the big 3 really got into it so that about 60% of all new cars were leased, and who owned them after the leases ran out, the car manufacturers and the markets were flooded with good used cars that were under-valued and not selling because people were leasing new ones. I thought managers went to business school, obviously their business models didn’t have any long range analysis component.I fail to understand how two major industries that are so dependent on each other (oil and cars) can operate in large measure against each other. The car makers build gas guzzlers and the oil companies up the price of gas, duh! The earths oil reserves are dwindling and the car makers build gas guzzlers; shouldn’t they be building gas misers and help to extend the oil reserves as far as they can. I guess the formula is make billions for a few years instead of making millions for a lot of years.The bottom line for me is simply this, if the big 3 don’t make drastic changes to their business models, i.e. cut wages and benefits, build fuel efficient cars in one or two model choices, not 30, and stop spending money on lavish advertisements etc. then they will cease to exist and as Darwin stated the fittest will survive.The price of oil on December 1st, 2009 will be in the $39 to $40 range. Two reasons; one – it will take longer than that for any positive changes in the economy to take affect, and two – if the car makers do get some intelligence and produce cars that don’t use much gas that will also keep consumption and the price down. The obvious story would be some kind of attack on Obama, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one was made on Geo. W. Bush. But I really think that the middle east is going to explode, particularly if the U.S. pulls out of Iran and focuses more on its own problems than those of others. This will allow the sectarian issues to truly show themselves and the mess that follows won’t be pretty. Hmmm, maybe I’ll change my answer to item 3. Dancer 18 January 1, 2009 5:22 PM Andy Hardy said... Welcome Dancer 18! Someday you will have to tell me where that catchy handle comes from?Thanks for you well organised thoughts - they will be entered into the 2009 contest.AH January 3, 2009 7:54 AM