Category: News

Standard & Poor’s sees a drop in Ford’s future stock price according to their latest rating of the company’s stock from hold to sell.

“Although expected, Ford’s confirmation that it has substantially agreed to sell Volvo Car Corp. to China’s Zhejiang Geely does contrast with General Motors’ failure to sell various assets such as the Saturn brand,” analyst Efraim Levy wrote in a statement released Dec. 23.

With Volvo gone, Ford is expected to sink all of their efforts into improving and marketing their core brands. Ford is expected to continue a modicum of cooperation with Volvo, however analysts at this point are considering Volvo an amputated limb of Ford at this point.

– By: Stephen Calogera

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)

Skoda is one of the manufacturers that did impressively well in November, with official figures pointing to an increase in UK demand by 45.3 percent year-on-year. The Czech manufacturer sold a total of 2,511 Skoda cars last month, with Fabia remaining the most popular model, closely followed by Octavia.

Worldwide, Skoda delivered a total of 55,460 units in November, which represents an increase of 26 percent compared to the same period of 2008. China obviously represented one of t… (read more)

Mayim Bialik — best remembered as funky hat-wearer Blossom Russo on the ’90s sitcom Blossom — will join fellow former teen star Molly Ringwald on the ABC Family drama The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

Fresh off of a TV makeover on TLC’s What Not to Wear in May, Mayim has been cast in the recurring role of Dr. Wilameena Bink, a counselor who fills the vacancy left by Mr. Molina.

The new gig will reunite Mayim with director Brenda Hampton — who worked with her on Blossom and Kirstie Alley’s Showtime series Fat Actress before stepping behind the camera for American Teenager.

“Brenda Hampton had this funny idea to have this high school counselor who is known for having, at her previous job, taken a student to the prom as her date,” Mayim told ISEB. “That’s all she told me. She just said, ‘I want to do this really wacky character,’ and it just sounded great.”

Now a married mother of two, Mayim’s noticing some major differences between today’s teen TV series and the one that made her a star.

“Teen actors now look much fancier than we looked 15 and 20 years ago. It’s interesting to see what our culture has demanded from young actresses, especially. Our show was considered racy for talking about safe sex or drugs, and this show is pushing a lot of limits.”

What in the world could be wrong with a drunk 18 year old girl flashing her boobs at passing motorists? Unfortunately for Cherelle May Dudfield of New Zealand (not shown above), a lot.

On Sept. 27th the 18-year-old was flashing her boobs at passing cars, egged on by her friends. She was standing on a traffic island in the middle of a four-lane road in the southern city of Invercargill when the joyous moment all went awry.

One of the vehicles, whose driver was apparently distracted by the boobage, crashed into Dudfield as she tried to run to the side of the road. Dudfield rolled up onto the hood of the car and cracked the windshield but was miraculously taken to the hospital with only minor injuries.

Dudfield was fined $198 for disorderly behavior. I say this brave breast flashing girl needs a medal, not a fine. Just make sure it doesn’t cover up her boobies please.

[via The Denver Post]

photo credit: wonderferret

Related posts:

1. The Boob Ice Luge Will Spice Up Any Party
2. The New Sun Maid Raisin Girl Gets A Boob Job
3. 10 Things Never To Tell A Girl With Big Boobs

Stocks are drifting lower worldwide with commodity names exhibiting particularly unimpressive performance.

That’s leading to weakness in the Canadian dollar.

There are also fresh fears about Japan. According to reports, S&P is still toying with an eventual downgrade to its sovereign credit. It wouldn’t be immediate, but if the country can’t make some improvements to its fiscal situation, it may be inevitable.

Also in Japan, there may soon be a resolution to what may be the equivalent of their GM, as the long-troubled airline JAL may end up lin liquidation without government support. The stock dropped about 25%.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Finance Ministers Of Japan And Ireland Reveal Health Problems In The Same Week
• Japan Suddenly Extends The Welcome Mat To Foreign Bond Buyers
• Marc Faber: Avoid The US Disaster, Buy Wheat, Sugar, Natural Gas, And Japan In 2010

Tyra may be shutting up, but her employees sure aren’t: Just a few days after Tyra Banks announced her Emmy Award-winning daytime talk show would end its five year run at the end of the current season, same of the fashionistas employees are stepping forward to reveal that working the diva was nothing to smize about.

“There had been high turnover of employees for years,” The New York Daily News quoted a past crewmember as saying. The staffer revealed that many people quit after just a few months because it was “pretty difficult to work for Tyra.”

“She and the higher-ups on the production staff could be extremely brutal. She really is a diva,” the source added.

A second industry source, who has worked on the show agreed, adding, “Everything had to be done Tyra’s way.”

The Tyra Banks Show provided some of the 2000s most memorable TV moments: including ones that saw the ex-Victoria’s Secret Angel donning a fat suit, dressing as a man, and wearing no makeup.

“This will be the last season of ‘The Tyra Show,’” Banks told PEOPLE on Monday. “I’ve been loving having fun, coming into your living rooms, bedrooms, hair salons for the past five years.”

Banks said she’ll focus on the launch of her New York-based film production company Bankable Studios in an effort to bring “positive images of women to the big screen.”

The final episode of The Tyra Banks Show will air this spring.

It looks like something went wrong big time, and I’m not talking about the big ruckus in Latveria. It appears that all of the DLC for Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 has gone MIA on PSN and neither

One interesting aspect about the web is that for every successful venture there is a myriad of others that pop up around it. Some are obvious copies, some just try to cash in on someone else’s success, but some actually provide a useful service extending the functionality of the original one. This is made easy by the APIs that many Internet services provide, some like Twitter making them a central piece of their strategy. The problem with APIs, though, is that when you depend on them, you’re basically at the mercy of the company behind them, as one startup using YouTube’s APIs, Totlol, found out and painfully so.

Totlol is a video site aimed at children. It uses videos from YouTube which are filtered and curated by the parents in order to provide the kids with content appropriate for their age. It managed to gain a decent following, but a change in the YouTube API Terms of Service (ToS) forced its creator, Ron Ilan, to shut down the free, ad-supported version of the site, and offer only a subscription-based one.

Now, Ilan is claiming that YouTube made the changes in direct response to his site and that Google’s intentions were clearly aimed at preventing Totlol from achieving too much success and potentially at YouTube launching a similar feature at some point. What’s more, he claims that this was a delibe… (read more)

To Our Clients, Colleagues and Friends,

• CNBC listed the governments most likely to default on their bonds.  Starting with the most likely, they are, in order: Venezuela , Ukraine , Argentina , Pakistan , Latvia , Dubai , Iceland , Lithuania , California (huh?), and Greece .  No way will California default, but the rest look pretty shaky. Shorting Ukrainian or Venezuelan bonds might sound like a no-brainer, but how the heck do you find those bonds to borrow in the first place?

• GSE Update:  (1) The federal government so far has provided $60 billion to FNMA and $51 billion to Freddie Mac, (2) in return for the investment, the government got preferred stock paying dividends of 10%, (3) the dividend is yielding $11 billion a year to the taxpayers, and (4) executive compensation at the two agencies is down 40% from the pay levels before the conservatorship.

• We mentioned Don King last issue, and we should point out three reasons we like him: (1) he’s a highly successful businessman who’s made millions as a fight promoter, (2) if you ever listen to him, he’s terribly bright and will quote Ayn Rand, Rousseau and Kierkegaard all in the same sentence, and (3) how can you not love a guy with that haircut?
  
  King impresses us as the kind of guy who’d have been successful at whatever he did. If he owned a bank, he’d probably be a CAMELS 1.
• With the shrinking of manufacturing, Big Steel and car assembly plants across the land, we wonder if maybe medical research and medical services will replace them.  Cleveland no longer epitomizes the steel and automobile industries as it once did, but when we were there a few months ago, the Cleveland Clinic and related hospitals seemed to be really thriving. Baltimore lost its GM assembly plant, and a Bethlehem Steel plant that once employed 30,000 people is down to just a few hundred. But John Hopkins Medical School is now Baltimore ’s largest employer, and hospitals and large biotech parks have been sprouting up.  As they say, one door opens as another one closes, and maybe medicine and biotech will be the next engine to pull our economy forward.

• We once were doing a FOCIS-plus Review at a mid-Western bank, and we were working in a cubicle right next to the call center.  We couldn’t help overhearing what a lot of the Loan Officers were saying, and it seemed that some statements were being made that put the bank on thin compliance ice.  (“I can guarantee you that rates are headed upwards….. Let’s lock you in now, and if rates drop, you’ll automatically get the lower rate….. You don’t need to call around, ‘cuz I guarantee you that ours are the lowest rates you’ll find anywhere in the country.”)
  We’d like to suggest you hire some Mystery Shoppers, maybe someone who worked for you once and who knows the business.  You can check up on service levels that way, but you’ll also find out if your people are putting you at risk by what they’re telling borrowers.  By the way, a very young Mike McAuley and his lovely wife Marie, once were real mystery shoppers. They mostly ate at restaurants and reported on what they experienced, and is that a cool job for a young couple, or what?  Mike will tell you that “The only catch was that while we got paid for dining on all four courses, we had to check out each bathroom very carefully.  It was a tough call whether to do that before or after the meal.”

• The latest FDIC Supervisory Insights reveals that 20% of all banks have more than half their assets in long terms assets.  In 2006, longer-term assets made up the majority of assets at only 11% of the banks.  From our own observation, it looks like most of it is banks holding onto GNMA or FNMA mortgage backed securities.  Yes, the yield is good, but do you really want to own 30 years paper in this environment where rates are likely to go up?
• Every time a bank fails, the FDIC’s Inspector General writes a report on what happened.  We were reading the IG’s Report on Silver State Bank in Nevada , and it reported that “A significant portion of the EVP’s compensation was based on loans they originated.  In addition to a salary, the EVP, along with his loan officers, received a production-based incentive of 10% of any loan origination fees and 3% annual bonus on their average outstandings.  These compensation arrangements did not emphasize loan quality.”  Interesting.  Since loan performance wasn’t a factor in bonuses, why not go make tons of high risk, high-fee CRE and construction loans?  This is, of course, precisely what they did, and it finally killed them.

• If your bank gets a C&D, how much time do you have?  Each one is potentially different, but we’ve seen many that give the bank months to raise capital and implement other changes.  But not always.  We were reading the Inspector General’s report on Lew Ranieri’s Franklin Bank in Texas , and they got a C&D on November 4, 2008 and were closed on November 7^th.  The C&D directed the bank to raise more capital, but three days isn’t exactly enough time.

• Our FOCIS Review for Warehouse lenders has always looked at what percentage of revenue is paid out to the owners of mortgage banks, so we were interested to read that a Harvard Law school professor looked at 2,000 companies to see what percentage of total compensation earned by the top five executives went to the CEO. His research showed that the higher the amount that went to the CEO, the lower the company’s future profitability. It’s not quite the same as what we look at, but it’s revealing and not that surprising.  Maybe it’s like pitchers in their first season after signing a big contract. They just don’t seem to do as well as when they’re in the last season before free agency.

• We saw and liked Avatar and would give it a solid 8.0.  The visuals are stunning, and the avatars themselves look 100% real.  The movie involves a love affair between the avatar of a U.S. Marine and a woman from another planet (there’s even some ardvarking between them) but it’s also a great adventure, with a battle scene as good as any you’ve ever seen.  It’s also about an indigenous people who are very much a part of nature, a primitive species is attacked by high tech U.S. Marines. It’s not really thought-provoking, but it’s great entertainment.

• When you read about the “private militia” the Iranian regime uses to attack protestors, doesn’t it remind you of the Nazi Brown Shirts?  Democratic governments have armies and police.  They do not have private militias.
• In looking at the high points and low points of the past year, a definite highpoint was that they finally got Roman Polanski.
• Eugene Burdick was a Cal professor of political science who wrote Failsafe and The Ugly American. We were re-reading his first novel, TheNinth Wave and we found the following dialogue between two college freshmen: “How long will my two hundred bucks last me at Stanford?”  “Not very long.  Tuition is $115, room and Board is $120 a quarter.  Books will cost a little.”  The book was published in 1956, and it looks like a full year at Stanford was well under $1,000 a year back then.  It’s now $53,000 or so.  All the private colleges are about the same.
• With most movies, you only meet the characters bit by bit. One of the things we liked about Goodfellas was how you meet the entire cast within the first minute or two.  Here’s a part of that introduction, after you’ve met the leading characters. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD3y43cyddI a long
• With compliance being such a big issue, we have two professionals we can recommend.  The first is Pam Strickland , the top Compliance Consultant we know.  We think she only does California , but you can ask her (www.pamstrickland.com).  Whatever she charges is worth it compared to the cost of non-compliance if you get caught.
  The other professional we can recommend is attorney Dave Medlin of Medlin & Hargrave (510-832-2900). Many of our clients know him because he helped them dodge loan re-purchases, but he probably knows more about mortgage law (as well as mortgage compliance) than anyone we know.  Wait.  We’d put him and attorney Mike Huber (801-733-5807) in the same category.  We think highly of both.

On of the great lines from The Merchant of Venice is when Portia says that “The quality of mercy is not strained.  It drops as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath, and it is twice blessed.  It blesses him that gives and him that takes.” It’s been a hard year for many people, so let’s all work toward showing more mercy and compassion in the coming year.

Garrett, Watts & Co.

Bonuses:      A Dog’s Graduation and     Healing A Sick Bank

Helping mortgage lenders increase revenues, control costs, and better manage risk.

Joe Garrett         ([email protected])

Mike McAuley      ([email protected])

Corky Watts         ([email protected])

Big Pharma has been trending this direction for a long time: marketing medicines to people who don’t need them and who have nothing wrong with their health. It’s all part of a ploy to position prescription drugs as nutrients — things you need to take on a regular basis in order to prevent disease.

The FDA recently gave its nod of approval on the matter, announcing that Crestor can now be advertised and prescribed as a “preventive” medicine. No longer does a patient need to have anything wrong with them to warrant this expensive prescription medication: They only need to remember the brand name of the drug from television ads.

This FDA approval for the marketing of Crestor to healthy people is a breakthrough for wealthy drug companies. Selling drugs only to people who are sick is, by definition, a limited market. Expanding drug revenues requires reaching people who have nothing wrong with them and convincing them that taking a cocktail of daily pharmaceuticals will somehow keep them healthy. Read more…

The UK government is planning a new traffic restriction, named controlled motorways: a permanent 60 mph limit could be imposed on up to 250 miles of the national motorway network, autocar wrote.

This scheme is to be implemented over the following 5 years, and controlled motorways speed limits could be lowered to 50 mph and even 40 mph when the traffic is congested.

The new law will be enforced by a technological army of average speed cameras and road sensors and wil… (read more)

After several media reports suggested that Ralf Schumacher might return to the Formula One championship with Scuderia Toro Rosso, the team’s boss Franz Tost insisted that these are simply absurd allegations.

Tost has been linked to Ralf Schumacher’s first steps in Formula One, during the German’s days at Jordan. While employed by Ralf’s former manager Willi Weber to take care of Michael’s little brother’s career in the Great Circle, the Austrian also switched to Williams-BMW when… (read more)

For those with iTunes Celebrity Playlist Podcasts, Lady Gaga recently did one and included her and Bey’s song, Telephone.  She was quoted as saying:

“I’m in the middle of writing the treatment for the video so I have the song on my mind and I have been speaking with everyone that I’m working on the video with and pitching to everybody the treatment that I’ve come up with and it’s very, very exciting. So to all my little monsters who are listening I cant wait for you to see it.”

Can’t wait! Click here to download the podcast from iTunes now.

Le retour du Q5 hybride, une nouvelle vidéo de l’A8, du teasing à l’approche de Detroit… l’actu. des anneaux est chargée ces jours-ci. Revue de détails.

En 2010, Audi lancera les A1, A7, A8 et R8 Spyder. Rien que ça… En fin d’année ou début 2011 se joindra à ce festival de nouveautés le Q5 hybride.

Ce SUV deviendra alors la première Audi de série à recourir à cette technologie. Il sera présenté au prochain mondial de l’auto de Paris en octobre 2010. On ne sait pas encore grand chose des caractéristiques de l’engin, tout juste peut-on pronostiquer l’association du/des moteurs électriques avec le 3.2 V6. Audi semble donc ne plus aller à reculons vers l’hybridation après quelques altermoiements.

La nouvelle A8 sera présentée au salon de Detroit, mi janvier.

Du côté des berlines, on sait déjà presque tout de l’ A8, qui sera présentée à Detroit dans 15 jours. Audi vient par contre de sortir une vidéo promo de l’engin; de belles images (avec des propos quand même un peu ridicules de grandiloquence) :

Enfin, fidèle à ses habitudes, la marque vient de refaire un bon coup de teasing pour annoncer qu’elle présenterait une grande nouveauté à Detroit, sans en dire plus. On sait juste qu’il s’agira d’un show-car et non d’un concept, donc d’une voiture quasiment prête pour la production, et que le slogan de l’opération de est « vorsprung durch tchnik », ce qui signifie « l’avance par la technique » . Les pronostics vont donc bon train, et sauf grosse surprise, la bonne réponse est dans les 4 suivantes: A3, A6, R4, Q3…

Un show car Audi en invité surprise à Detroit; pourquoi pas la R4?

Rappelons qu’Audi prévoit de continuer à sortir ses nouveautés à un rythme soutenu, son objectif étant d’augmenter sa production de 50% sur les 6 années à venir.

Nouveau: pour profiter facilement et rapidement des notifications de nouveautés sur le site,pensez à vous abonner via Twitter. Chaque modification, nouvel article ou nouvelle vidéo sur notre chaîne Youtube, fait l’objet d’un Tweet immédiat!

Oscar-winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr. has been tapped to play philandering golfer Tiger Woods in an upcoming biopic.

“‘It makes a great movie because people love the drama of seeing someone really successful fall from the top and then scramble to pick up the pieces of their life,” a producer dished to The Daily Mail this week.

The womanizing sportsman, 34, has been in the international spotlight after a tabloid report and a bizarre car crash set off allegations of more than a dozen extramarital affairs.

Gooding Jr. — who most recently won acclaim for his portrayal of heart surgeon Ben Carson in a 2008 TNT TV movie — won an Academy Award for his portrayal of football ace Rod Tidwell in Cameron Crowe’s 1997 box office hit Jerry Macquire.

What actor would you like to see play Tiger Woods in a movie?

There’s no secret that the recession seriously struck down the auto industry. As one of the crisis measures, automakers decided to close down dealerships all over the United States. Chrysler Group LLC decided to close down 789 franchises in June, while General Motors has said it will slash 2,400 retail locations of its own by the fall of 2010.

So what happens to the empty spaces, especially considering the depressed real estate market? Associated Press notes that the once glamorou… (read more)

The recently-revealed Toyota Camry hybrid will also be launched in China in 2010, with production to be handled by Guangzhou Toyota, the Chinese joint venture established by Toyota. The alliance is currently in charge of Camry, Highlander and Yaris model and aims to sell a total of 267,000 vehicles in 2010, up from 209,400 units this year.

Toyota will sell the Camry hybrid in several regions of the world, including the US and Australia, with the latter to officially begin sales in… (read more)

With space for as many apps as you want (until you hit that physical 7 GB space limit), Palm is now free to dump as many and as large apps as they like into the App Catalog. Of course, they were before, but they were invariably met with cries of derision about the app limit. No more! So now we’re getting more apps, slowly creeping up on that magical one thousand count. We love to break out the bubbly to celebrate, but in the meantime we’re just going to wait. Oh, and list all the newness after the break.

read more

	The decade’s top five green transportation predictions – and how they fared Nostradamus had it easy.		Enterprising DIYer adds boat tail to Pontiac Firefly to boost mileage It looks odd, but it’s worth a 15.1 mpg percent improvement.
	Mini E range plummets as winter hits the northeast Reality sets in for cold EV drivers.	Other news: REPORT: Stop-start tech saves fuel, so why can’t we get it in the States? Blame the EPA Environmental group sues Honda for slogan trademark infringement VIDEO: Jay Leno parks a Chevy Volt in his Big Dog Garage

AutoblogGreen for 12.30.09 originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 30 Dec 2009 06:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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