kscarbel2

Yes, at face value (most of us have never known a major political figure personally), I'm impressed with how he carries himself at the New York state press releases, particularly with the questions and answers.

Can you please share a news link on the 100,000 ventilators ? Beyond that, I'm not from New York and thus have never paid attention to him. But his performance in these press meetings by any stretch is impressive. I get the anti-abortion stance of some. I'm not up on Cuomo's stance.....on anything. My thought is, if a couple of teenagers or college kids mistakenly test their equipment without protection, and obviously in cases of rape, an early term abortion is acceptable. Quarantines preventing inter-state travel by the masses, excluding trucking, could become a necessity. The reason China was able to kick this is because they could order people to stay home (aside from essential food shopping) with immediate effect, prohibiting intra-city and inter-province travel. I'm hoping warmer weather, I heard 77 degrees F, has a positive effect. That would buy time for the developments of vaccines and more medicines for treatment, assuming worst case scenario it would return next winter. SARS, for example, for whatever reason, never returned. Otherwise, as extremely contagious as it appears to be, many states might be 2 or more months away from peaking. There's a limit to how long our national economy can take a beating. Any longer and a recovery will take considerable time.

I like the now discontinued conventional cab Scania "T Series" as well. .

Reuters / April 30, 2014 The U.S. government lost $11.2 billion on its bailout of General Motors, more than the $10.3 billion the Treasury Department estimated when it sold its remaining GM shares in December. The $11.2 billion loss includes a write-off in March of the government’s remaining $826 million investment in “old” GM. The U.S. government spent about $50 billion to bail out GM. As a result of the company’s 2009 bankruptcy, the government’s investment was converted to a 61 percent equity stake in GM, plus preferred shares and a loan. Treasury whittled down its GM stake through a series of stock sales starting in November 2010, with the remaining shares sold on December 9, 2013. At the time of the December sale, Treasury put the total loss at $10.3 billion but said it did not expect any significant proceeds from its remaining $826 million investment in “old” GM. “The goal of Treasury’s investment in GM was never to make a profit, but to help save the American auto industry, and by any measure that effort was successful,” Treasury Department spokesman Adam Hodge said. Last week, GM posted its 17th consecutive profitable quarter.

The B-24 Liberator may have had a larger bomb load than the B-17, but I never trusted it. Particularly the early ones, they were a death trap. The Consolidated Liberator was designed by bean counters to be expendable, while the Boeing B-17 alike the B-29 was designed to complete the mission and return to base. Many Americans died needlessly in the 1941-1943 period because we entered the war with shockingly inferior weaponry. Granted, we'd just been in extended depression.

This gentleman is a born leader and manager. .

Bloomberg / March 28, 2020 Sixteen months after Mary Barra angered Donald Trump by announcing plans to close several U.S. factories in states the president vowed to revive, the General Motors Co. CEO is back on the outs with the White House. Unlike in late 2018, Trump’s Friday fracas over ventilators caught GM completely off guard. Trump first accused GM of taking too long to make the desperately needed medical devices and of trying to gouge the government. By the evening, the President again criticized the automaker for closing a car factory in Ohio. Executives at GM -- which had worked around the clock for a week to convert an Indiana parts plant into a breathing-machine factory -- were themselves frustrated over how long it was taking the federal government to finalize terms with its partner Ventec Life Systems Inc. GM forged ahead and detailed the ventilator deal in a midday statement that disputed President Trump by saying it would be “contributing its resources at cost.” Trump followed up with an order that GM accept a federal contract that the company and Ventec had been seeking all along. Patching things up with the White House will be crucial for a company that is struggling to cope with idled plants amid the coronavirus pandemic. GM is freezing work on new-vehicle programs, deferring pay for white-collar staff and piling up cash to weather a global health crisis and the economic fallout expected to follow for months to come. “The entire GM team is proud to support this initiative,” GM said. “Our commitment to build Ventec’s high-quality critical care ventilator, VOCSN, has never wavered.”

He's on top of things, not a character trait of many governmental leaders these days. . . .

Interestingly, he doesn't come across at all as a democrat.

Am I the only person impressed with what I see of New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo? His performances day-after-day in his Coronavirus press briefings are amazing. Who would like to write him in as President next term? I'm liking this guy from Queens who knows what he's talking about and doesn't beat around the bush. I would like to reboot the United States on the global scene with Cuomo at the helm. And as an added bonus, he reminds me at times of Robert De Niro in the Godfather.

You're right Bob. I believe Ford is producing at a non=standard site, i.e. not at one of the auto final assembly plants.

GM ordered to produce ventilators under Defense Production Act Automotive News / March 27, 2020 President Trump, accusing the company of "wasting time" while the federal government faces mounting pressure to marshal more resources to stem the deadly coronavirus outbreak, invoked emergency powers and ordered General Motors on Friday to produce ventilators under the Defense Production Act. In a memorandum released by the White House, Trump said Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar would determine the number of ventilators GM must build. The act grants the president power to expand industrial production of any key materials or products for national security and other reasons. In the case of GM, the order means the company must "accept, perform, and prioritize federal contracts for ventilators.” Also late Friday, Trump appointed White House trade adviser Peter Navarro to coordinate actions under the act, and issued an executive order authorizing the government to “guarantee loans by private institutions, make loans, make provision for purchases and commitments to purchase, and take additional actions to create, maintain, protect, expand, and restore domestic industrial base capabilities to produce such resources.” Rising death toll Trump, at a White House briefing late Friday, said the United States would produce 100,000 ventilators in 100 days and said he had named White House aide Peter Navarro as the coordinator of the Defense Production Act. "We're going to make a lot of ventilators," Trump said, pledging to take care of U.S. needs while also helping other countries. Trump said there was a great chance the United States would not need so many ventilators to fight the coronavirus outbreak, and would then help other countries in need. On Friday, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States topped 100,000, the highest in the world. The U.S. death toll now tops 1,550. GM said earlier Friday it will begin shipping FDA-cleared ventilators as soon as next month from an Indiana plant after Trump earlier Friday urged the company, as well as Ford, to ramp up output of the devices to treat COVID-19 patients. GM, in partnership with medical device company Ventec Life Systems, is building critical care ventilators at a Kokomo, Indiana, factory under a program dubbed Project V. Ventec also will increase production at a manufacturing site in Bothell, Washington. Scope unclear It's unclear whether Friday's order will require GM to tap other U.S. plants to build ventilators, but the automaker now faces direct government pressure under law to accelerate output. “Our negotiations with GM regarding its ability to supply ventilators have been productive, but our fight against the virus is too urgent to allow the give-and-take of the contracting process to continue to run its normal course," Trump said. “GM was wasting time,” Trump added. “Today’s action will help ensure the quick production of ventilators that will save American lives. GM said Friday it has been working with Ventec and other partners "around the clock for over a week to meet this urgent need." The automaker, which is undertaking the project as a contract manufacturer for Ventec, is donating resources at cost, according to a Friday statement. Ventec and GM said they are able to build more than 10,000 ventilators a month, depending on the needs of the U.S. government. Since the GM-Ventec partnership was announced March 20, the companies' supply base has sourced more than 700 individual parts that are needed to build up to 200,000 ventilators. Working with the UAW, GM said it will recall about 1,000 workers to immediately scale up ventilator output. GM also will begin producing surgical masks at a manufacturing facility in Warren, Michigan, starting next week. Within two weeks, GM expects to ramp up production to 50,000 masks per day. That total could potentially increase to 100,000 per day. The UAW, which has pressed the Detroit 3 to idle U.S. plants to safeguard employee health and safety, applauded GM's efforts. The price tag for GM's bid to supply ventilators was more than $1 billion, the paper said, with several hundred million dollars to be paid upfront to the automaker. Ford Motor Co. said it’s also “pulling out all the stops” to build ventilators and other devices needed to deal with the pandemic. Ford is already delivering tens of thousands of face shields to hospitals and police, Mark Truby, the automaker’s vice president of communications, said Friday. Truby also said Ford is “working flat-out” with General Electric Co. to produce ventilators and 3M Co. to boost production of air-purifying respirators in a partnership announced three days ago. Industry efforts Other automakers are also working to produce ventilators, masks and other medical equipment. On Friday, Toyota Motor Corp. said it was "finalizing agreements to begin working with at least two companies that produce ventilators and respirators to help increase their capacity." New York City Mayor Bill be Blasio on Friday said on Twitter that Tesla Inc. had agreed to donate hundreds of ventilators to hospital intensive care units in New York City and the state of New York. Tesla CEO Elon Musk in response said the electric carmaker was helping locate and deliver existing ventilators. Tesla on Friday did not respond to a request for comment on where it got the ventilators from and whether the company was producing any ventilators of its own, something Musk has said the company will do. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Ferrari previously said they were exploring making ventilators in Italy.

Bob, once shown the design goal, auto designers can create almost anything. Ford designed and began production in an impressive time frame. If a vacuum cleaner guy can do it in 10 days, General Motors certainly should be able to...................https://us.cnn.com/2020/03/26/tech/dyson-ventilators-coronavirus/index.html

President Trump today criticized General Motors in a series of tweets, about the automaker not providing the number of ventilators that were expected. "As usual with 'this' General Motors, things just never seem to work out," Trump said. "General Motors MUST immediately open their stupidly abandoned Lordstown plant in Ohio, or some other plant, and START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!!!!!!" Trump stated that GM said it will only provide 6,000 ventilators in late April, and they want "top dollar," after saying they would provide 40,000 ventilators "'very quickly.' Trump added, "Always a mess with Mary B. Invoke'P,'", in reference to GM CEO Mary Barra and with P referring to the Defense Production Act.

Ted, both you and David Wild know that MAN is a great truck. Are MAN and the other European brands suitable for Australia? Yes, and no. For ordinary on-road operation, I'll argue they have been market adapted. A lot of operators in Oz are running Scania with V8s, including the outback, and swear by them. Mack in Oz is no longer the Australian Mack product we knew and liked. Now, it's just a Volvo with a Mack badge. Paccar, despite its arrogant and snobbish corporate culture, has done extremely well. Kenworth displaced Mack in Australia years ago, this we all know. Paccar offers a broad range of models specifically designed for Australia. But as in the US, Paccar is shooting themselves in the foot by trying to force customers to take their DAF engines (Paccar MX) over the Cummins, a hugely arrogant mistake. I do agree that Paccar is mistakenly trying to push the old last-generation DAF CF into Oz. It's out of place.

Daimler is seeking an $11 billion line of credit (credit line) in order to weather the crisis (and Toyota $9 billion). Some of the big boys are in trouble.

Ted, I sez MAN builds a good truck.

Commercial Motor / February 12, 2020 Is MAN’s new TGX genuinely new, or a facelift of a 20-year old cab? .

Scania Group Press Release / March 25, 2020 Transport is like the the bloodstream of our society. That also becomes clear in times of crises. Without transport we will not get food and other necessities to our stores, or medicine and medical equipment to our hospitals and pharmacies. Waste and recycling will not be transported out of our cities. And without public transport, it would be much more difficult for doctors, nurses and caretakers to reach and look after the sick and the elderly. I want to extend a big thank you to the hard working heroes in transport and acknowledge the drivers, mechanics, spare parts handlers and loaders working to keep trucks and buses on the roads. Henrik Henriksson President & CEO - Scania Group .

GM cuts white-collar salaries 20%, furloughs 6,500 in U.S. Hannah Lutz, Automotive News / March 26, 2020 DETROIT — General Motors is freezing work on some vehicle programs and will temporarily reduce paychecks for all salaried employees globally by 20 percent to conserve cash as it weathers the coronavirus outbreak. But the automaker is promising to make up for the lost income within a year. In addition, 6,500 salaried workers in the U.S. — mostly people in engineering and manufacturing functions who cannot work remotely — will be placed on leave and receive 75 percent of regular pay during the downtime. General Motors CEO Mary Barra and CFO Dhivya Suryadevara told employees on Thursday the company needed to take immediate aggressive steps to cut costs. Suryadevara warned "if we don’t take significant austerity measures we will do serious damage to the long-term viability of our company." Suryadevara noted that GM has very little revenue coming in “and we are preparing to operate the company temporarily on credit if necessary." In an email to employees on Thursday, Barra said GM for years has been making "difficult decisions to strengthen our business and make it more resilient," and now those moves "will be put to the test," Reuters reported. Barra told employees the largest U.S. automaker is "aggressively taking costs out of the business wherever we can by suspending work on some product programs and cutting our marketing budgets and hundreds more actions." While some vehicles under development will be delayed, models close to launch such as the redesigned Chevrolet Tahoe, GMC Yukon and Cadillac Escalade large SUVs will go on sale later this year as scheduled. The company is also sparing a Cadillac electric SUV and Cruise Origin self-driving vehicle from delays. "GM's business and its balance sheet was very strong before the COVID-19 outbreak and the steps we are taking now will help ensure that we can regain our momentum as quickly as possible after this crisis is over," the company said Thursday. The pay deferments will start April 1 and potentially could last about six months, GM spokesman Jim Cain said. Employees will receive lost earnings in a lump-sum payment no later than March 15, 2021, GM said. The move will result in "significant" immediate cash savings, but GM declined to be more specific. The company has about 69,000 salaried employees, or about 42 percent of its global work force. Executives will see deeper pay cuts on top of the unilateral 20 percent deferment, resulting in a total reduction during the crisis of 30 percent for senior leadership and 25 percent for other executives. Pay for members of GM's board of directors will be cut 20 percent and not repaid. Employees' health care benefits will not be affected.

Bill Ford to defer salary amid coronavirus pandemic Michael Martinez, Automotive News / March 26, 2020 DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford will defer 100 percent of his salary for at least the next five months and other top executives will defer up to half of their pay as the automaker looks to conserve cash amid the coronavirus pandemic. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said CEO Jim Hackett, COO Jim Farley and CFO Tim Stone will defer 50 percent of their salaries, effective May 1. Bill Ford's deferment also is effective as of that date. The accumulated deferred salary amounts will be paid after the company has repaid at least $7 billion of the $15.4 billion credit lines it tapped earlier this month. Hackett, in a letter to Ford employees, said the company's top 300 executives will defer 20 to 50 percent of their pay. "The character of people and organizations is revealed in difficult times," Hackett wrote. "I'm extremely proud of how Ford is keeping our people safe, doing our part to limit the spread of the virus, taking care of customers and managing through the crisis in ways that safeguard our work force, our business and our partners." Bill Ford earned a $1.7 million base salary in 2018, according to the automaker’s latest proxy filing. Hackett collected a $1.8 million base salary over that same period. Farley’s base salary recently rose to $1.4 million when he was named COO effective March 1. 'Tougher actions' Hackett, in the letter, said Ford intended to get through the pandemic without any job losses, although he noted that it may have to “take tougher actions” if the situation lasts longer than anticipated. Additionally, Hackett said Ford will begin deferring merit-based salary increases, suspending overtime for salaried workers and freezing hiring for “noncritical skill positions.” He said work schedules and pay might be “temporarily reduced” for workers whose jobs can’t be done from home and that others may be offered voluntary sabbaticals. Hackett said the company would continue to provide health insurance and paid time off to cover a 14-day quarantine if workers are exposed to the virus.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday said the historic jump in jobless claims today to 3.28 million was not a piece of economic data to focus on because it was for a period before government relief was assured. "To be honest with you, I just think these numbers right now are not relevant, whether they are bigger or smaller in the short-term," says Mnuchin said. With the Senate coronavirus relief bill now so close to passage in the House, Mnuchin hopes that firms start to rehire these workers. As late as last week businesses didn't have another choice except let workers go because they didn't have cash and didn't know that protections would be forthcoming, Mnuchin said. .

This is too spot on not to interest a few. Sylvia Browne, a psychic who claimed she started receiving premonitions at age 5. She died in 2013. In 2008 at age 71 she published a book with this prediction: "In around 2020, a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments. Almost more baffling than the illness itself will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrived, attack again ten years later, and then disappear completely." The book is called "End of Days: Predictions and Prophecies About the End of the World" and has shot up to No. 2 on Amazon's nonfiction chart. .

Ford credit downgraded to junk by S&P Bloomberg / March 25, 2020 Ford Motor Co. was cut to junk by S&P Global Ratings as the coronavirus pandemic delivers a shock to the global auto industry, rendering the No. 2 U.S. automaker the largest fallen angel to date. S&P downgraded Ford’s credit rating one notch to BB+ and may cut it further, according to a statement Wednesday. The move follows Moody’s Investors Service, which dropped its rating Ford for the second time in sixth months earlier Wednesday. With Ford’s factories shut around the globe -- including all North American plants -- and no decision as to when they’ll resume production, the automaker is under immense financial pressure, according to S&P. “The stress of having all of a company’s plants shut down differs from that of a conventional recessionary downturn,” the agency said, noting that the shutdowns mean Ford isn’t generating revenue to cover costs. “The rate of cash burn, even for a few months, could be faster than that which transpires during a typical recession.” S&P also placed General Motors on credit watch late Wednesday. The agency indicated there is at least a 50 percent chance it will lower GM's credit rating by one notch if the company's plants "remain idle for longer than we expect, causing its cash flow generation to turn negative, eroding its liquidity, and increasing its debt leverage with no signs of an imminent improvement." Moody's also warned it was considering cutting GM to junk as it faces sharply lower demand. "A severe disruption in automotive demand due to the coronavirus, combined with the possibility of a follow-on economic recession, will place considerable pressure on GM's cash flow and credit metrics," Moody's said. Because the spreading coronavirus has idled plants, prompted mass layoffs and curbed demand for big-ticket purchases across the globe, light-vehicle sales will decline by 15-20 percent in the U.S. and Europe, and by 8-10 percent in China, this year, S&P said. Ford is one of many auto companies facing what Moody’s calls an unprecedented “credit shock,” with the coronavirus outbreak also posing a major threat to peers including GM and Volkswagen Group. But Ford is particularly at risk because of the problems it’s been having with executing an $11 billion restructuring that’s yet to improve performance. The cost to protect Ford’s debt against default for five years has soared this month more than fourfold, though it’s come down this week. Its bonds due 2025 trade around 78 cents on the dollar. “Ford is managing through the coronavirus crisis in a way that safeguards our business, our workforce, our customers and our dealers,” the company said in an emailed statement. “We plan to emerge from this crisis as a stronger company.”