Patriotism, Ford, and 63,000 miles …

Posted on by luken7

Now, I try to be patriotic and support the American worker by buying American, those products made here at home. But there are times when buying American is just not financially sound, or affordable in this case.

Our 1999 Ford Windstar, with 63,000 miles on it, lost it’s transmission…..63,000 miles. The cost? $3,047 for a new (rebuilt) transmission. Now, my 1988 Isuzu Trooper II with 192,000 miles, is still on its original transmission, and yes its an automatic. This is the second Ford that we’ve owned, with the same nightmareish incidents. But from all the foreign owned veichles from Toyota to Honda to my current Trooper, there has never, ever been an issue. Just ensure that the routine maintenance is done and all is fine. We’ve also kept up on the routine maintenance on the Windstar, at the Ford service center to boot, but that wasn’t enough apparently. Oddly, the drivers side power window motor went out just months before. And a few months before that? Major repair for the front end. All this after the warranty has expired.

Is it just me? I have a neighbor who has a Ford Expedition. His issue? He had to replace his entire engine, apparently defective. Lucky for him it was under warranty. Another neighbor also has a Ford Windstar, it’s been an a nightmare for them also.

So here are the painful questions. What exactly is the problem with American built vehicles that support the reputation that foreign vehicles are better, specifically Toyota and Honda?

Is it that the American worker is just not as good as their foreign counterparts?
Is it that American management is just not as good as their foreign couterparts?
Can we just not engineer and build quality vehicles?
Is it big labor interference? (opening a can of worms here)

I don’t know that answers to those questions, or as to why when (we) buy American vehicles, we have problems, although we treat them with just as much care as our foreign made vehicles. All I know is that with having a family, I can no longer afford to be this patriotic in buying any more American made vehicles. It’s just too expensive in the long run.

But with a trillion dollar retail automotive market in the U.S., I don’t think my decision will have much of an impact, which is why Ford vehicles will continue to be the quality that they are.

Microsoft's 10K filing ….

Posted on by luken7

Now we’re using Open Source as a reason for projected revenue decline. It has nothing to do with product quality or features …

Here’s an excerpt…
“ISSUES AND UNCERTAINTIES

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains statements that are forward-looking. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially because of issues and uncertainties such as those listed below and elsewhere in this report, which, among others, should be considered in evaluating our future financial performance.

Challenges to our Business Model. Since our inception, our business model has been based upon customers agreeing to pay a fee to license software developed and distributed by us. Under this commercial software model, software developers bear the costs of converting original ideas into software products through investments in research and development, offsetting these costs with the revenue received from the distribution of their products. We believe the commercial software model has had substantial benefits for users of software, allowing them to rely on our expertise and the expertise of other software developers that have powerful incentives to develop innovative software that is useful, reliable, and compatible with other software and hardware. In recent years, there has been a growing challenge to the commercial software model. Under the non-commercial software model, open source software produced by loosely associated groups of unpaid programmers and made available for license to end users without charge is distributed by firms at nominal cost that earn revenue on complementary services and products, without having to bear the full costs of research and development for the open source software. The most notable example of open source software is the Linux operating system. While we believe our products provide customers with significant advantages in security and productivity, and generally have a lower total cost of ownership than open source software, the popularization of the non-commercial software model continues to pose a significant challenge to our business model, including recent efforts by proponents of open source software to convince governments worldwide to mandate the use of open source software in their purchase and deployment of software products. To the extent opens source software gains increasing market acceptance, sales of our products may decline, we may have to reduce the prices we charge for our products, and revenue and operating margins may consequently decline. ”

Full 10K filing here

The Democratic Nominee: Kerry Enlisting Clinton Aides in Effort to Refocus Campaign

Posted on by luken7

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > The Democratic Nominee: Kerry Enlisting Clinton Aides in Effort to Refocus Campaign

Unfortunately, I think they’re a day late and a dollar short with this one. These folks should have been there from the beginning outlining what the platform should be. And that is the krux of the problem, there really is no agenda or platform for Kerry to speak to. So they just hop from issue to issue, depending on the crisis of the day that Bush isn’t handling or created, then saying they’ll fix it.

You see, Bush is the incumbent, so Kerry has to offer something better than Bush, not just equal. When I look at the Kerry plan website, its full of ideas and very short on plans of how it will be done. For example, Kerry will create 2 million or so jobs in the first year….how? Where did this number come from? You would think that if this were factual, the business community would endose him because this means that if jobs are being created, consumers and business are buying, products and services are being sold, so money is being made.