General Motors Stockholders Vote To Change CEO Nov. 6, 2012

Mitt Romney at the North American Auto Show in 2008. Image Credit: theweek.com - Bryan Mitchell/Getty Images

General Motors Stockholders Vote To Change CEO Nov. 6, 2012

In an age of government takeovers and crony-capitalism, the citizens of the United States are uniquely connected as partners in business.

Today, a poor earnings/profit report was released just six days before a national election is scheduled to take place - the election for President of the United States. The poor earnings/profit report was released by General Motors, which was taken through bankruptcy in a process that greatly damaged trust throughout the investor and business community ... a Federal Government takeover.

This action changed the ownership of one of the largest manufacturing enterprises in the world from one based on free enterprise to Government and organized employee Union ownership.

General Motors reported a drop in profit of 12% and in most business environments this would be a great cause for concern. As forced stock holders, every American citizen owns a piece of the company and the de facto CEO of the company is the President of the United States.

This excerpted and edited from Businessweek - 

GM 3Q profit falls 12 pct
By Tom Krisher - AP - October 31, 2012

A turnaround in South America and a rosier outlook in Europe helped push General Motors shares up in premarket trading Wednesday, even though the company's third-quarter net profit fell 12 percent.
GM said it earned $1.5 billion from July through September, down from $1.7 billion a year earlier, as European pretax losses widened and North American profits fell.

But South America swung to a big profit and GM posted better-than-expected results internationally outside of China.
[Reference Here]

This Associate Press release reprinted in Businessweek, however rosy, hides the fact that if we, as stockholders, are dis-satisfied with the direction of earnings and profit at General Motors, we can change the CEO November 6, 2012.

We can keep a community organizer, lawyer, law school lecturer (not teacher or professor), and current 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama as the CEO of General Motors ...

... or we can vote for an incredibly successful businessman and turn-around specialist who was born into the family of CEO of American Motors - George Romney, CEO, 2002 Winter Olympics Organizing Committee - Salt Lake City Olympics, and the 70th Governor of Massachusetts ... Mitt Romney as CEO of General Motors.

The choice seems pretty easy ... we, at MAXINE ask, what say you?  


** Article first published as General Motors Stockholder's Vote To Change CEO Nov. 6, 2012 on Technorati **
 

When A Government Takeover Of A Business Sector ... Nukes

Wheels keep turning: A production line at Holden's Elizabeth plant in Adelaide, Australia. Holden Australia is a wholly owned subsidiary of GM and employs thousands of workers in South Australia and Victoria. Australian Industry Minister and Senator Kim Carr, says GM's bankruptcy, which is the biggest in US manufacturing history, will have no immediate effect on Holden Australia. "We've spoken directly with the company. Its future is guaranteed," he told ABC News. Caption & Image Credit: Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC News)

When A Government Takeover Of A Business Sector ... Nukes

Okay, okay, okay ... so now we all come to the point where we can understand why it does not make sense to anyone why a Government can not, and should not take over the running of a business enterprise.

Two words - UNION CONTRACTS.

When a free market enterprise goes belly up due to changing demand or poor management decisions, everyone who was involved in that business has skin in the game.

What happens when a Government owns a business enterprise? Everything ... including the culture the enterprise, gets twisted until it becomes unrecognizable.

This excerpted and edited from the New York Times -

Automaker Pensions Underfunded by $17 Billion
By NICK BUNKLEY - NYT - Published: April 6, 2010

The pension plans at General Motors and Chrysler are underfunded by a total of $17 billion and could fail if the automakers do not return to profitability, according to a government report released Tuesday.
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If either company’s plan must be terminated, the government would become liable for paying benefits to hundreds of thousands of retirees. The effect on the government’s pension insurer, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, would be “unprecedented,” the report said. The agency manages plans with assets totaling $68.7 billion, less than the $84.5 billion in G.M.’s plan alone.
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The Treasury Department owns 61 percent of G.M. and 10 percent of Chrysler as a result of the [FORCED] emergency loans the carmakers received last year. The government spent $81 billion bailing out the companies and others in the auto industry.
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“In the event that the companies do not return to profitability in a reasonable time frame, Treasury officials said that they will consider all commercial options for disposing of Treasury’s equity, including forcing the companies into liquidation,” the report said.

In addition, the report said the government’s interests as a shareholder of G.M. and Chrysler could clash with those of pension participants and beneficiaries.
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G.M. is scheduled to release its financial results for 2009 on Wednesday. Chrysler plans to provide an update on April 21.
[Reference Here]

We, at Maxine, will update when these financial results become available.

Obama's GM & Segway To Produce Single Person Clown Car

The Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, or PUMA, project also would involve a vast communications network that would allow vehicles to interact with each other, regulate the flow of traffic and prevent crashes from happening.The 300-pound prototype runs on a lithium-ion battery and uses Segway's characteristic two-wheel balancing technology, along with dual electric motors. It's designed to reach speeds of up to 35 miles-per-hour and can run 35 miles on a single charge. Image Credit: General Motors Corp. and Segway Inc. via Huffington Post

Obama's GM & Segway To Produce Single Person Clown Car

General Motors (struggling, Obama Administration managed automaker) is teaming up with Segway (geek-mover sold primarily to local Governments) to produce a new two-wheeled vehicle for the urban landscape called the PUMA.

It looks like someone took a SMART car and squeezed it. It's far more car-like (and faster) than the Segway, and hopefully, for both GM and Segway, prove more mass-market-friendly: the Segway is banned on many city streets because it's too big to be considered a bike, and too slow and exposed to be considered a car. It is this reason that it has only been acceptable to local Governments for patrol and traffic control (also featured in Paul Blartt Mall Cop, Safety Never Takes A Vacation).

This excerpted and edited from The Wall Street Journal -

GM, Segway to Make Vehicle
By SHARON TERLEP, The Wall Street Journal - APRIL 7, 2009

General Motors Corp. is teaming with Segway Inc., maker of the upright, self-balancing scooters, to build a new type of two-wheeled vehicle designed to move easily through congested urban streets.

The Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility - PUMA - Image Credit: General Motors Corp. and Segway Inc. via Huffington Post
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GM has slashed product-development programs, advertising and spending on auto-show events. But it will take to the streets of Manhattan on Tuesday to show off a prototype of the vehicle, called PUMA, for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility.
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The machine, which GM says it aims to develop by 2012, would run on batteries and use wireless technology to avoid traffic backups and navigate cities.
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GM is betting PUMA's more car-like traits -- an enclosed compartment and top speed of 35 miles per hour -- will lead to better results.

GM didn't say how much the machines would cost, but research chief Larry Burns said owners would spend one-third to one-fourth of the cost of a traditional vehicle.
Reference Here>>

The Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility - PUMA - Image Credit: General Motors Corp. and Segway Inc. via Huffington Post

This is more of what we can expect from an automobile company owned and operated by the Federal Government and Unions - Clown Cars, and Scooters!

OK,OK! So they're hi-tech. Questions: How practical is this Obama Wheel-Chair (Barack-O-Chair)? Where does one place an airbag?

Where is the updated and Green refined version of the 1957 Chevy with a 0-100 in under 9 seconds acceleration that runs on Hydrogen or Electricity and costs under $20,000?!

It’s Time To “Buck” Up And Implement Bacteria Biofuel Solution

As syngas fermentation leads to lower ethanol concentrations than corn fermentations, the energy and cost to separate the ethanol from water is proportionally higher. To reduce this differential, Coskata has exclusively licensed membrane separation technology to reduce the energy requirements by over 50%. The vapor permeation process is amenable to separating ethanol from biofermentation broth because of the very low solids content of the broth relative to other fermentation processes. Image Credit: Coskata

It’s Time To “Buck” Up And Implement Bacteria Biofuel Solution

There was a time one could buy fuel for ones car or truck for a “Buck” a gallon … and it is a past we can embrace right now … TODAY!

Well, at least General Motors seems to think so with its investment in Biofuel processing startup Coskata.

The key to the conversion approach Coskata has perfected uses bacteria to break down the broad array of organic waste (switch grasses, twigs, corn husks, leaves, landscape waste, and other non-food sources of organic material) and make Ethanol for a fuel mix or replacement.

After the carbon-hydrogen bonds in the feedstock are "cracked" using gasification and converted into syngas, bacterial fermentation (biofermentation) of the syngas into ethanol occurs using proprietary Coskata microorganisms. Image Credit: Coskata

The real kicker is that this process not only protects our current food paradigm built upon corn for feed and food, the process uses far less petroleum fuel (about 13% as opposed to 77% - or 17 times more efficient) and water while greatly increasing the productive output per bale of feedstock in order to create a gallon of this cleaner burning substance.

Design engineer Mike Sura adjusts settings on Coskata's 150L bioreactor to make ethanol. Image Credit: Tyler Mallory/General Motors

This excerpted from WIRED -

Startup Says It Can Make Ethanol for $1 a Gallon, and Without Corn
By Chuck Squatriglia - 01.24.08 1:00 PM

A biofuel startup in Illinois can make ethanol from just about anything organic for less than $1 per gallon, and it wouldn't interfere with food supplies, company officials said.

Coskata, which is backed by General Motors and other investors, uses bacteria to convert almost any organic material, from corn husks (but not the corn itself) to municipal trash, into ethanol.

"It's not five years away, it's not 10 years away. It's affordable, and it's now," said Wes Bolsen, the company's vice president of business development.

The discovery underscores the rapid innovation under way in the race to make cellulosic ethanol cheaply. With the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requiring an almost five-fold increase in ethanol production to 36 billion gallons annually by 2022, scientists are working quickly to reach that breakthrough.
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Besides cutting production costs to fire sale prices, the process avoids some key drawbacks of making ethanol from corn, company officials said. It wouldn't impact the food supply, and its net energy balance is high because the technique works almost anywhere using almost anything with great efficiency. The end result will be E85 sold at the pump for about a dollar cheaper per gallon than gasoline, according to the company.

Coskata won't have a pilot plant running until this time next year, and it will produce just 40,000 gallons a year. Still, several experts said Coskata shows enough promise to leave them cautiously optimistic.
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Coskata uses existing gasification technology to convert almost any organic material into synthesis gas, which is a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Rather than fermenting that gas or using thermo-chemical catalysts to produce ethanol, Coskata pumps it into a reactor containing bacteria that consume the gas and excrete ethanol. Richard Tobey, Coskata's vice president of engineering, says the process yields 99.7 percent pure ethanol.

Image Credit: Coskata

Gasification and bacterial conversion are common methods of producing ethanol, but biofuel experts said Coskata is the first to combine them. Doing so, they said, merges the feedstock flexibility of gasification with the relatively low cost of bacterial conversion.
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Coskata's method generates more ethanol per ton of feedstock than corn-based ethanol and requires far less water, heat and pressure. Those cost savings allow it to turn, say, two bales of hay into five gallons of ethanol for less than $1 a gallon, the company said. Corn-based ethanol costs $1.40 a gallon to produce, according to the Renewable Fuels Association.
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May Wu, an environmental scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, says Coskata's ethanol produces 84 percent less greenhouse gas than fossil fuel even after accounting for the energy needed to produce and transport the feedstock. It also generates 7.7 times more energy than is required to produce it. Corn ethanol typically generates 1.3 times more energy than is used producing it.
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Making ethanol is one thing, but there's almost no infrastructure in place for distributing it. But the company's method solves that problem because ethanol could be made locally from whatever feedstock is available, Tobey said.

"You're not bound by location," he said. "If you're in Orange County, you can use municipal waste. If you're in the Pacific Northwest, you can use wood waste. Florida has sugar. The Midwest has corn. Each region has been blessed with the ability to grow its own biomass."
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"Even if you produce it county by county, you still need an infrastructure," he said. "People aren't going to go to some remote location for fuel."
Reference Here>>

The Biodesign Institute of Arizona State University - Alternative Engergy
(click image to launch video)

The biofuel developed for ASU's "Tubes in the Desert" project avoids many of the downsides presented by biofuels such as corn, cellulose or other crops/plants. Because it uses a microscopic bacteria as the fuel source, it doesn't compete with food crops and could yield a much larger amount of fuel per acre. The bacteria are grown in transparent tubes, hence the name. /// ASU researchers are also exploring the possibilities of microbial fuel cells -- tiny microbes that generate energy by feeding on waste. /// Guest interviews include: Neal Woodbury, Ph.D., the Biodesign Institute; Wim Vermaas, Professor, ASU School of Life Sciences. /// Learn More: Visit http://www.azpbs.org/asuspotlight