Trouble is nothing new in the car industry

In the beginning of the 1960s the Chrysler Corporation experienced that sales went down. Suddenly people did not seem that eager to buy these cars that looked like something to go to outer space with. The beautiful cars of the 1950s went away, and Chrysler's chief designer Virgil Exner developed new models. These models had a lower profile and some mean that this was the low water mark in American industrial design. However, Chrysler responded by developing a new engine, that not only would make the Chryslers, Dodges and Plymouths look like space-ships they would actually work like such. The engines were put into ordinary cars and loaned to the public in order to evaluate how they operated in ordinary traffic situations. The weight of the engine was around 200 kilos and it produced 130 HP at 3600 rpm. It could be driven on diesel, kerosene and jet fuel. As it turned out, even in those days with cheap fuel, it became too costly to use in transport for ordinary people and the project was terminated without the engines and the cars going into production.

Today Chrysler Corporation and the two other Detroit giants are in big trouble. Chrysler managed the crisis in the early 1960s by cutting down in their model programme. Production of DeSoto and Imperial was terminated and a programme with smaller cars as the Valiant and the Dart was presented and Chrysler survived. This time it will be even harder. The cooperation between Chrysler and Daimler was terminated because it showed impossible to merge these two companies corporate cultures together. In this process Daimler seems to be the survivor and Chrysler the casualty.

The situation after the financial crisis is that people are not buying goods that are expensive any longer in general, and in particular no new cars. One reason is the risk. People feel that they do not know what technology that will be used in cars in the future. Therefore you cannot be sure that the car you buy new will actually be worth anything, say three years from now. A second reason is that the models produced might not be attrictive in used car sales. Taken together the risk aversive consumer will wait and see.

This, however, puts the car producers in general, and the American car producers in particular in a great dilemma. They have chosen mainly traditional fuels and built big and fuelconsuming cars, that seems to end up at used car sales facilities en-masse. A car industry that does not sell new cars and whose old cars seems to be impossible to sell must be in big trouble. The question is if President Obama can save the day for the American car industry...

Read more at the Economist.

The Face of an Alien?

Today I saw a strange face. It seemed not to be of this Earth, as it seemed much too fantastic. It rather reminded me of the colours from Luc Bessons great movie "The Fifth Element". But this creature is´of this Earth and it is called a Moustaschgenon. It makes one wonder, what is the mind of such a creature?

The blueish creature in Besson's film was an Operasinger with an extraordinary voice. A voice of the stars. I wonder if the Moustaschgenon sings?

Snickaren och kassan

Sitter på morgonkvisten och lyssnar på P1 och får höra om den stackars snickaren som sjukskrivits efter en höftledsoperation, men nu anses som arbetsför efter 8 veckors sjukskrivning. Eftersom han var arbetslös vid operation är det bara att pallra sig iväg till arbetsförmedlingen. Det ska gå så bra så enligt den empatiska inrättning som benämns Försäkringskassan. Att snickaren tar sig fram med kryckor och inte kan ta på sig skorna själv och inte färdas utan hjälp från en plats till en annan, det tar den allsmäktiga och konsekventa kassan ingen hänsyn till. "I ditt anletes svett ska du förtjäna ditt dagliga bröd!"

Man ska inte ligga någon till last i Alliansens Sverige, alla ska dra sitt strå till stacken. Att snickaren är 63 år och hans beräknade sjukskrivning enligt den läkare som hanterade hans operation beräknades till mars, det tar Alliansens förlängda arm Försäkringskassan inte någon hänsyn till. Egentligen passar det bäst här att travestera Cato den äldre: "För övrigt anser jag att Försäkringskassan bör förstöras!"

Much fuzz about peckin'

Last summer we experienced a large woodpecker at our summerhouse. My wife's sister got a little bit annoyed because it was peckin' on the tree just out side their bedroom window. I said someting about the extreme good hearing of woodpeckers and that they actually could hear if something was alive in the tree. Of course I was right, as this autumn a large part of that very same tree fell to the ground. Luckily nothing got damaged, but the woodpecker had given his warning: "There is a bad tree in the garden folks!"

Now it turns out that woodpeckers do not peck just for food. Peckin' is away of showing who the best pecker in the wood is. Anything with good resonance works; metal plates, brick walls and even cars. It does not stop there because woodpeckers can also hear sounds from walls, like electric installations and mistakenly regard these as a possible delicacy not yet experienced. Or maybe it is a mere reflection of what a woodpecker said in a comic strip I red once said: "Well do not ask me, all this peckin' stuff has made me stupid!"

Early morning bird

Early this morning I got a mess from my wife. She had seen a black and white striped yellowish bird about the size of a sparrow, with the strangest sound; sounding like a malfunctioning cycle pump. After consulting all my available bird guides I came up with these three candidates. First we have the Speckled Piculet, which is related to woodpeckers, known to have strange sounds. You will see this bird just above the text. Our second candidate is the Leaf Warbler and of this bird we know little more than it exists in Southeast Asia. You will see this bird in the middle above. Finally we have a third candidate, which is a kind of bush sparrow. It looks right from the description, but has a sound like "seeye" or "zi'r'r'" or "sree'sree'sree'sree'sree". The big but is whether this bird is to be found in Southeast Asia or not... You see at the top. So which of the birds is it? Or is it another one?

Afraid of the future?

The future concerns many people. They are worried and fear that their children and their children will have a difficult life in the future. Climate change, energy problems, and the financial crisis makes people less optmistic an condfident. Michael Jackson worried about the future and made plans to be more than 150 years old. As it looks that must be without his noose.

Citizen G'Kar, distinguished diplomat and philosopher, had a more sober, not to say relaxed, attitude towards past, present and the future, as he stated: "Why don't you return to the past, the future is vastly overrated!"

Silence is Golden

This line refers to an old hit by the Tremeloes from the sixties. An old proverb says "Talking is silver, silence is golden". To me it seems that we are entering a society that tells us that we should keep our mouths shut, if we do not want to celebrate and embrace the elites in power. Michel Foucault brought us the concept of discourse in his very special meaning. Those who does not produce the dominant discourse are cursed, ridiculed or just claimed to be crazy.

The scary thing is that it becomes more and more of an absolute truth. If you pronounce anything outside the accepted truth your days are counted. I overheard a debate between a neocon and a person wanting to install some kind of measure for dealing with a social problem. At the end of the debate the neocon said: "But that is some kind of leftist idea." And this was the end of the debate. No objections! Hopefully it seems like the neocons and neoliberals has come to the end of the road and that their ideological dominance is over and dead.

Still some people seem to have a spine after all. Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales has expelled the Israeli ambassadors from their repsective countries and Chavez has broken off diplomatic connections with Israel. Hopefully the European Union will cancel the newly negotiatied trade treaty with Israel. Lets UNZIP!!!

There are Mountains

G. Gankhuu reached the top 4887 meters above sea-level and was greated by Mongolia’s president Enkbayar. The photo is unfortunetely not of Gankhuu on the top of Mount Winston, Antarctica, but this photo can be seen on Asiangypsy's blogspot. Instead we see my friend the Gnome who has reached the top of an unknown mountain in the middle of Nowhere. According to my experience Mongolians are not entirely familiar with the idea that it is of uttermost importance to reach the summit of a mountain. A Mongolian friend of mine told of an acquaintance of hers that had been climbing on the Altai Bogd Khan Uul and from her story I realized that the idea was to be on the mountain, not necessarily reach the summit.

Coming to think about it, it was just during the 19th century that Europeans came to the conclusion that reaching mountain summits had anything of importance in it. During those year, when a clearly mad French man, Charles Rabot 1883, reached the Summit of Sweden’s highest mountain it was considered as impossible to reach. But nevertheless this French guy made it, and thereby showed the Swedes that it was possible. In 1994 we got our first man on the Mount Everest, when Michael Reutersvärd reached the summit on 8848 meters.

Mountains are interesting and Sweden’s highest mountain, the Kebnekaise, is nowadays 2104 meters, but in 1922 it was 2135 m. This means that the mountain is actually shrinking, which means that it becomes more and more easy to climb the mountains of the Earth as Climate Change approaches. A further complication is that the sea level is rising. Taken together this means that it becomes less and less of an achievement to climb the high mountains of the planet.

And who is to be blamed for this? That is the easy part. Basically we kind find four culprits; First we have the oil company’s. Their guilt cannot be doubted, as these gravediggers of humanity has forced this carbone dioxide economy upon us, and made us addicted to it. Second we have the car industry, that has been building a whole concept and mythology of individuality and freedom around the petrol driven car. Third we have the mainstream economists and neoliberals who have been telling us that this is okay and in fact is contributing to the greater good. Finally we have ourselves to blame because we bought this pack of myths, cons and fairy tales without questioning them. Where did our ability to critical thinking go?

Goethe once said: “As individuals the Germans are admirable, but as a people only worth contempt.” I think that this could be applied on humanity seen as a whole. Seen as a whole humanity act as some kind of virus or bacteria, thus producing the poison that in the end is going to kill everybody off.

Or as an old Swedish lady once said: “It was all better in the past, before we had an environment to worry about.”

Times are rough, but modern...

It seems that the technology is not with me, but working against me. Consequently my computer seems to have decided that there will be no photos available today, which is a pity as I had a good idea about what to write about based on a photo.

On the radio they say that the leguana lizards on Guantanamo has more rights than the prisoners. Interesting, but that's maybe a symptome of the values of so called civilised and democratic people living in the West. Great concerns about animals, but none towardss their fellow humans.

On the Gaza strip the killing continous. I'll bet Obama is going to fix this on his first days as president, and thereby bring on a good relationship between him and the Israeli government. Cynic isn't it?

Cold winds and cloudy skies

Seems to be a little while since I last visisted my own blog. I just started the blog and took the bus from Jönköping to Stockholm when I was attacked by male person, intoxicated by alcohol and narcotics. It was a terrible experience and it seemed a bit odd that it happened just after I started a blog called "Reclaim your life".

Maybe a sign of some sort? I don't know... My dear one has left me in the cold and gone for the warmth of the Thai Kingdom. I hope she has a nice time... Here is just cold winds and cloudy skies...