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China's Geely buying stake in Mack Trucks' parent company The Morning Call [local Allentown, PA newspaper] / December 27, 2017 The Chinese owner of Sweden's Volvo Cars is buying a stake in truck manufacturer AB Volvo. Geely Holding Group said Wednesday the acquisition of shares from Cevian Capital, a fund manager, would give it 8.2 percent of Volvo's share capital and 15.6 percent of voting rights. Financial terms weren't disclosed. Analysts estimated the value of the deal at around 27 billion kronor ($3.3 billion). AB Volvo is the parent company of Mack Trucks, the North Carolina-based truck maker that assembles its heavy-duty vehicles at a massive plant in Lower Macungie Township. Mack spokesman Christopher Heffner did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment on Wednesday’s news.

Yes.....8.2 percent.

Reuters / December 27, 2017 China’s Geely Holding, owner of the Volvo car brand, is buying an 8.2 percent stake in Swedish truckmaker AB Volvo from activist investor Cevian Capital, worth around $3.3 billion at current market prices. The value of the investment amounted to around 27.2 billion Swedish crowns ($3.26 billion), a Reuters calculation showed. Geely paid 3.25 billion euro ($3.86 billion) for the stake. The deal makes [China's] Geely the biggest individual shareholder in Volvo Group and second ranked in terms of voting rights behind Swedish investment firm Industrivarden. “Given our experience with Volvo Car Group, we recognize and value the proud Scandinavian history and culture, leading market positions, breakthrough technologies and environmental capabilities of AB Volvo,” Geely Holding Chairman [and Communist Party Secretary] Li Shufu said in a statement on Wednesday.

BMC was known of years ago..... British Motor Corporation

Billy, it's not about global image. Rather, it's about realistically dealing with their pollution problems. India and Pakistan are ten times worse.....I wish they would also seriously deal with their environmental issues. The Buick Envision SUV is the same quality level as a unit built in North America.

Philco-Ford Press Release / 1967 .

US poised to let emerging markets trade pact expire The Financial Times / December 24, 2017 Pressure mounts to let Generalized System of Preferences, which grants tariff-free access to US, fail A 1970s US trade deal that unilaterally grants products worth billions of dollars from India and other developing countries tariff-free access [why?] to the American market is set to expire on December 31, as pressure mounts from Donald Trump supporters to let it die altogether. Congress last week failed to agree on renewing the Generalized System of Preferences, despite Republicans and Democrats saying they support it and will try to bring it back to life. But critics of the programme created to help developing nations grow their export industries argue that countries such as India have for too long abused the programme by ignoring its rules, and that past administrations have been too lax in enforcing them. “There’s nothing developing about India or China any more — 600m people are in the middle class in India and that’s probably three or four times the size of our middle class,” said Dan DiMicco, former chief executive of steelmaker Nucor and a trade adviser to Mr Trump. “Just because there are pockets of real poverty — and there’s no doubt about it — that’s the job of their government to take care of, not our government.” More than 3,500 products from 120 developing countries and territories are covered by the trade deal, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service. In 2016 products worth $19bn were imported into the US tariff-free under the GSP, with business groups saying importers saved more than $700m in duties. But economic nationalist supporters of the US president such as Mr DiMicco argue that countries such as India have failed for decades to live up to their end of the bargain and grant US companies reciprocal access. “It’s a one-way street. It’s not supposed to be a one-way street,” said Mr DiMicco. “India doesn’t qualify on any count,” Curtis Ellis, founder of the American Jobs Alliance which advocates hardline economic nationalist trade policies, wrote in an article published by Breitbart, the conservative outlet controlled by Steve Bannon, the former White House adviser. “It routinely rips off US intellectual property and blocks US imports through a combination of high tariffs, taxes and corrupt bureaucracy.” The Trump administration, whose support for the GSP has been lukewarm compared with that of previous administrations, has indicated it wants to see it reformed. The office of US trade representative Robert Lighthizer, which administers the programme, on Friday declined to comment when asked by the Financial Times whether the administration supported GSP renewal. Backers of the trade deal say it benefits US businesses by providing sources of low-cost parts outside dominant China, and that any impact on competing companies in the US is relatively small. The $19bn in goods imported in 2016 represented a minuscule portion of the US’s total $2.2tn in goods imports. The GSP programme has expired before, most recently in 2013. Businesses that use it are forced to pay duties until it is renewed, which last time took almost two years. The Trump administration’s vow to rip up and rewrite decades of US trade policy has added a new layer of uncertainty, say backers of the trade deal. “I fear it’s dead in Congress for the foreseeable future, regrettably. It really shouldn’t be controversial, but alas, as with so much regarding trade and this administration it could turn out to be more difficult than necessary,” said Clark Packard of the R-Street Institute, a pro-trade Washington think-tank. Republicans and Democrats in Congress say they back renewing the GSP but ran out of time to do so this year. Kevin Brady, chairman of the House ways and means committee, last week blamed Senate Democrats for not giving the GSP the green light. A spokesman for Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate finance committee, which oversees trade matters, dismissed that as “nonsense” and said Republicans consumed with pushing tax reform had failed to advance GSP legislation. A spokeswoman for Senator Orrin Hatch, the Republican chairman of the finance committee, said he would seek to renew GSP “as soon as possible” when Congress reconvenes in January. Mr Trump on Friday suspended some of Ukraine’s GSP privileges for failing to live up to its IP requirements while partially restoring Argentina’s. “President Trump has sent a clear message that the United States will vigorously enforce eligibility criteria for preferential access to the US market,” Mr Lighthizer said. “The administration is committed to ensuring that other countries keep their end of the bargain in our trade relationships.”

Warmest wishes to one and all for a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Pentagon admits running secret UFO investigation for five years The Guardian / December 17, 2017 Task force that investigated sightings of unidentified flying objects ran from 2007 to 2012 with annual budget of US$22 million The truth is finally out there [of course not really], after the Pentagon admitted it ran a secret UFO investigation programme for five years until 2012. The US defence department’s own “X-Files” operation, known by the less catchy title of the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, was closed after a change in funding priorities, it said. But the remarkable revelation has raised more questions than answers, including whether the programme has been completely shut down, or just covered up further. While the Pentagon claims it ended five years ago, it said it continued to take seriously “all threats and potential threats to our people”. The military intelligence official Luis Elizondo, who ran the programme on the fifth floor of the Pentagon’s C Ring, according to the New York Times, which broke the story, told the paper it was only the government funding that had dried up. He said activities continued under the direction of his successor, whom he declined to name. Either way the revelation is likely to provide some satisfaction to UFO enthusiasts, often dismissed as conspiracy theorists. Nick Pope, who used to run the British government’s UFO project, said: “The take-home message here is that there’s probably something out there, but we don’t know what it is. It’s an extraordinary revelation, not least because it directly contradicts the many specific denials that the US government has issued previously when asked about this subject, and their involvement in it. “It precisely reflects my own experience of this intriguing but frustrating subject with the British government. Like our US colleagues, we too denied – even to parliament – that we were undertaking secret studies into the UFO phenomenon and consistently downplayed the true extent of our interest and activity at the Ministry of Defence.” The New York Times said the project, parts of which remain classified, received $22m (£18.7m) each year, hidden away in US Department of Defense (DoD) budgets worth hundreds of billions of dollars. It said its initial funding came largely at the request of the former Senate leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat long known for his enthusiasm for space phenomena. He was quoted as saying: “I’m not embarrassed or ashamed or sorry I got this thing going. I think it’s one of the good things I did in my congressional service. I’ve done something that no one has done before.” Last year, John Podesta, chair of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, declared that he had convinced her to explore declassifying any government documents related to UFOs should she win the election. Bill Clinton previously said that, during his time in the White House, he had tried to find out if there were any secret “X-Files”, concluding: “If so, they eluded me.” In the UK, 209 files and approximately 52,000 pages of information on UFOs were released during a five-year rolling disclosure programme that concluded in 2013, containing details of about 6,000 separate observations reported to the British authorities since 1984. In 2009, the Ministry of Defence closed down its hotline for UFO sightings, stating: “In over 50 years, no UFO report has revealed any evidence of a potential threat to the United Kingdom.” Responding to the revelations about its activities, the Pentagon spokeswoman Laura Ochoas told Reuters: “The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program ended in the 2012 timeframe. It was determined that there were other, higher priority issues that merited funding and it was in the best interest of the DoD to make a change.” She added: “The DoD takes seriously all threats and potential threats to our people, our assets, and our mission and takes action whenever credible information is developed.” Pope said: “This isn’t quite the ‘spaceship in a hangar’ smoking gun the UFO lobby was hoping for, but it’s as close as those of us who have looked at this subject from within government will ever go to saying: ‘Yes, this is real.’”

Ford Trucks Brasil gives a world class showing at the 2017 Fenatran international transport show in Sao Paulo.

Ford Trucks Press Release / October 23, 2017 .

Volvo Trucks Brasil / December 6, 2017 https://natal.cocacola.com.br/home/ .

The diesel Equinox is supposed to get 28mpg city, 38mpg highway and 32mpg combined. In comparison, the 2018 CRV with the new fuel-sipping 1.5T gets 27mpg city, 33mpg highway and 29mpg combined, and you know its a far better designed SUV with legendary resale value. These MPG comparisons are both AWD models. Note city mpg is virtually the same. In global markets, Honda has offered the CRV with their 160 horsepower 1.6-liter i-DTEC diesel engine paired with a ZF 9-speed transmission.

When did Social Security and Medicare become entitlement programs? For more than 50 years, we and our employers paid FICA (Federal Insurance Contribution Act) payments from every paycheck received. Thus, how is receiving payments from these two federal insurance programs in our old age now considered an "entitlement"? Combined employee/employer Social Security and Medicare deductions totaled from 7.25 percent (1964) to the current 15.3 percent. Thus the benefits of Social Security and Medicare in retirement are not handouts. Rather, they are returns from an insurance policy managed by Congress and various agencies. The payments were mandatory. It is estimated that through 2010, Social Security deductions exceeded benefits paid. But the excess, in the trillions of dollars, were raided repeatedly by Congress. Once the coffers were significantly depleted, paying benefits became a clear budgetary liability. To attack or deny Social Security and Medicare is breaking a faith and contract with the American people who were forced to pay their FICA, and for employers who were required to match their payments since the inception of these programs. The American people all need lawyers for the biggest class-action suit in history: The people of the United States versus the Congress of the United States.

Power Torque Magazine / December 2017 It’s 1965 and the air is filled with enthusiasm and anticipation. A young 23-year-old Sunny Warby is about to purchase his new truck, but, unbeknown to him at the time, it will still be parked in his shed some 52 years later. Prior to that purchase, Sunny had been working for United Dairies on various tasks from laboratory duties to driving. A decision was made to buy his own truck and he soon began negotiations with Norm Lee at Frigmobile, and, as was the Norm (pun intended) in those days, a deal was done with a smile and a handshake and a promise of regular work. To the outsider, Norm seemed to be a man very fond of Mack trucks and instructed Sunny to, “Go and buy a Mack.” Sunny thought it to be a wise business decision to go and compare alternative options and evaluate prices, so he looked at Mercedes, Foden, Internationals and Diamond Ts, which he then put forward to Norm, who promptly reiterated his earlier instructions, “Go and buy a Mack.” As it would turn out, a crafty Norm was getting a commission for any Mack sales he generated, so, naturally, Sunny purchased his first and only Mack. Trucks Sales and Service was the Mack agent in Sydney at the time and was located at 200 O’Riordan Street in Alexandria. The sales person for the purchase of Sunny’s B-Model was Allan Starke. This must have been a pivotal event in Sunny’s life, forever etched in his memory, as these details just mentioned rolled off the tongue like it happened only yesterday. A princely sum of 9250 pounds was the asking price for a shiny red 1965 B- Model Mack, complete with a 211 horsepower 711 thermodyne engine and an 18-speed Quadruplex twin-stick transmission. The final drive was spec’d up with a 64-mph differential, which saw the old Mack cruising at highway speed with 2100 rpm reading on the tachometer. “The price was 9250 quid for the truck, but they gave me a discount of 250 quid because I had no trade-in. “That gave a purchase price of 9000 quid, of which I needed to have a 3000 quid deposit, and was required to pay it off within three years. At 245 quid a month, you had to work hard,” explained Sunny. “I also added a few luxuries, like a pair of West Coast mirrors, a sun visor and blinkers, which I think from memory cost another 59 pounds. The turntable was 280 pounds, and I was ready for work”. After picking the truck up on the Saturday and emblazoning it with the Frigmobile logo, Sunny was all set to take on the transport world, or so he thought! Upon arrival at the Frigmobile yard on Monday he introduced himself to Dennis Downer and said, “I’m here to start work, can I see Norm Lee?”– to which Dennis replied, “We sacked him this morning”. With that gut wrenching statement, Sunny is quick to say, “I thought my world had fallen, there and then”. Such is the way things were done back then that the company was good to their word and Dennis said, “Come back tonight, we’re sending you to Melbourne via Canberra”. That began a long working relationship for Sunny and his Mack with Frigmobile. During his employment with Frigmobile Sunny was hauling the company’s own trailers, subsequently also layer hauling the trailers owned by Streets Ice Cream, after that company outsourced its transport operations to Frigmobile. “I remember on occasions, the truck and a refrigerated trailer would be loaded onto a train for Perth and a fridge box would also be loaded on board. When the train stopped, and after period of time had passed, you would have to get off the train, run around to the fridge box, strangle the Lister (shut off the refrigeration engine) top up the oil and check the fuel and try to get back onto the carriage before the train moved off – more often than not you found yourself running like hell to get back on board, a funny sight on the Nullarbor,” recalls Sunny. “The best jobs for Frigmobile were, Dubbo/Wagga and Kempsey runs of a single drop at a depot and return, for which I got paid $180”. In 1967 Sunny bought his Freighter spread-axle bogie trailer to fill in the gaps when work with Frigmobile went a bit quiet, and over the years Sunny and his Mack have contracted to various companies like TNT, Westons Transport, Con Payne and more, doing both interstate and local work. “It’s been a challenging life, but an enjoyable one for us, from 14 to 15-hour Sydney to Melbourne runs with multiple trucks on the old Gundagai bridge causing it to dance and sway, to sleeping across the seats, being your own mechanic and meeting some great people along the way,” reminisces Sunny. After a lifetime on the job and some 1.5 million miles clocked up, a restoration was in order. This two-year process began in 2014, culminating with the finished truck and trailer you see here, just in time for her maiden outing to the Clarendon Rally/Kenworth Klassic show in 2016. Sunny has always been good in relation to keeping up maintenance, so the mechanical aspect of the job was not a huge task, however, the years of toil and labour had definitely taken a toll. Sunny also wanted to paint the truck in its original colour as it had seen a few different colours of the spectrum over the years as dictated by company contracts. Sunny would like to acknowledge the work and assistance in this project of Matt Stephenson and Mick Drew of MLS Truck Repairs in Riverstone, as well as David Chapman (Chappo) of Northwest Truck repairs, also in Riverstone, and Bruce Gunter. Sunny is extremely grateful for their assistance in bringing his “Old Girl” back to her former glory. He also apologises if he has forgotten to mention anyone. “So many good people have contributed,” said Sunny. Sunny and his good friend, Stephen Brown, did the restoration work on the Freighter trailer themselves. At 75 years young, Sunny still gets out behind the wheel for work, sometimes six days a week. As for the B-Model, well, she lives somewhat more of a quiet life these days, frequenting trucks shows and events like the Haulin the Hume run, without the burden of the payloads of years passed that were, perhaps, poorly calculated in favour of a good profit. If you run into Sunny at an event or show, be sure to check out the Old Mack up close and say g’day, he’s a top bloke and quite fond of a chat. . . Photo Gallery – https://powertorque.com.au/custon-and-classic-mack-time-sunny-warbys-b-model-mack-review-custom-and-classic-trucks/

Iveco Trucks Australia / December 7, 2017 Leading waste management company SUEZ, has placed a record order of 110 IVECO ACCO compactors to service a newly-won 16 year contract with Brisbane City Council. SUEZ has held continuous collection contracts with the municipality since 2002, with the new agreement officially beginning in July 2018. The new ACCO models will comprise 104 6x4 units fitted with Superior Pak side loaders for curb side collection, with the remaining vehicles configured as 8x4s, featuring Bucher Municipal front loaders for high density, multi-dwelling collection. Queensland State General Manager at SUEZ Recycling & Recovery Australia, Peter Hudson was intimately involved in the truck selection process. “There were several main factors that influenced our decision to select ACCO models for this new Brisbane City Council contract,” he said. “SUEZ has a long an extensive history with IVECO and with ACCO – the ACCO is a staple of the waste industry particularly for side loader work. “The ACCO has provided us with a great service history with over 95 per cent uptime and helped us service Brisbane City Council to a very high level – we achieve a bin miss rate of just .06 per cent, and this figure includes people that forget or place their bins out, or who bring them out late for collection.” Helping achieve this reliable performance is the ACCO’s premium American driveline, factory built dual control system and an extensive local development and engineering program. While the truck performance itself was a key consideration in selecting ACCOs for the new contract, IVECO’s ability to offer a full service and maintenance provision also weighed heavily, according to Peter. This maintenance not only covers the truck cab chassis but the compactor bodies as well, with IVECO working closely with Superior Pak and Bucher Municipal to provide a complete maintenance service. “Curb side collection work is notoriously tough on the trucks, there’s a lot of strain on the braking system, steering and tyres,” Peter said. “With IVECO we get a bumper to bumper maintenance solution – SUEZ doesn’t operate its own workshops, our preference is to concentrate on our core areas of business. “We pay a fee and vehicle and maintenance is taken care of, there are KPIs set against vehicle performance so this provides the additional peace of mind of knowing that the trucks are maintained to the highest levels and will perform for us.” The large majority of the new ACCO fleet will likely see service for around eight years, over this time the trucks will cover between 400,000 and 500,000 kilometres, accrue around 18,000 hours and log average speeds of approximately 25 kilometres per hour, proof of the demanding start and stop nature of the work. An additional benefit of SUEZ’s long association with IVECO according to Peter, is having an excellent relationship which greatly assists should any unforeseen challenges arise. “Having IVECO based in Australia and having worked in partnership with the company for many years, it’s easy to pick-up the phone if extra support is needed or if something comes up that needs attention,” he said. “There’s never a problem in dealing with them and they can also offer additional flexibility during the truck build process, the 8x4 front lift ACCOs for example will have a non-standard wheelbase. We’ve specified a shorter wheelbase to get an improved turning circle for servicing the multi-dwelling locations where space is tight. “One option may have been to go for a 6x4 front lift but then we’d be losing considerable payload, IVECO was happy to customise the wheelbase and work with Superior Pak on the body requirements.” With all needs for the Brisbane City Council contract having been ticked at a corporate level, SUEZ also sought feedback from drivers during a consultation process and overwhelmingly their familiarity with the ACCO product saw it rate well according to Peter. “Most of our drivers have spent many years – and for some, their whole working life – using an ACCO, so they’re very familiar with the vehicles,” he said, “this means a seamless transition from the older vehicles into the new ones.” IVECO Australia National Key Account Manager, Scott Slater, said this latest supply of refuse collection trucks to SUEZ marked a long collaboration between the two companies. “IVECO is extremely pleased to have supplied the locally-manufactured ACCO product to SUEZ for many years now,” Scott said. “It’s a strong endorsement of the ACCO range from one of Australia’s leading recycling and recovery companies. More broadly this ongoing partnership also says a lot about IVECO as a company and our ability to closely meet the needs of SUEZ and of Brisbane City Council. “The ACCO’s proven history of efficient and reliable performance in this industry and IVECO’s ability to collaborate and manage third party body builders to deliver a turn-key solution certainly put our company in a strong position to win this tender.” The new fleet is expected to be complete and ready for delivery to SUEZ throughout May and June before gradually taking over collection duties from 1 July, 2018. .

http://magazinulasim.com/Konu-yeni-bmc-cekici.html?page=10 .

Defense Update / December 22, 2017 Following two years of intensive market evaluation and field trials with a demonstrator vehicle, the German Ministry of Defense ordered 280 Eurocargo military medium multipurpose 4×4 trucks from Iveco Defense Vehicles (DV). The order was made by German BwFuhrpark Service GmbH on behalf of the German Army will be delivered in 2018. Over the last decade, Iveco DV has delivered nearly 1,000 vehicles to the German Army. Recent contract awards with the Bundeswehr also include 133 armored Trakker-8×8 trucks. The MLL 150 E 28 WS vehicles to be delivered under the current order will be supplied with an unprotected long-distance-driver cab with a highly comfortable new seating arrangement, flexible storage for radio systems and soldier equipment, off-road single tyres, a roof hatch, a NATO-blackout-light, trailer version, a spare wheel carrier and an innovative multipurpose swap-body-frame to support multi-mission-operations outside Germany. All vehicles will be fully Euro 6 emission compliant, including full single-fuel-operation-capability and offer a best-in-class payload. .

https://www.motor1.com/news/225344/medium-duty-silverado-truck-spied/

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