Obama’s New Plan for America
Obama Drastically Scales Back Goals For America After Visiting Denny’s
Another GM Misstep
It’s true that GM is between a rock and a hard place in this economy and there’s no easy fix for the mess they’ve gotten into. There will be some unintended consequences to the decision to reduce dealers from 5,969 dealers to 3,600 by the end of 2010 – Some not so good.
Automotive experts say the big reasons behind the dealer cuts are to reduce inter-brand competition that drives down prices. That’s fine if GM were just competing against itself, but it’s not.
In Orlando, Roger Holler Chevrolet was notified that two of its dealership agreements with GM will not be renewed at the end of October 2010. The Holler family has been selling GM cars in Orlando since 1938. They have been so successful that they also operate dealerships that sell Hondas, Hyundais, Audis, and Mazdas.
If GM thinks that competing against itself was bad, just wait until they start competing against other car makes. Here is a quote from the Orlando Sentinel:
Roger Holler said he intends to pursue “a Plan B, because those are very good locations, with excellent potential,” which could mean seeking another brand to sell.
GM is telling Holler he can’t sell Chevys, so he will have no choice but to sell something else at his prime locations. I’ll bet Honda, Hyundai, Audi or Mazda would love to have Holler sell hundreds of their cars.
Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo
In this visit to Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo we take a look at a wide variety of animals.
Sandhill Crane Takes a Walk
This Crane took a long walk. What a goofy bird!
Sandhill Cranes Visit
Let’s look at some Sandhill Cranes!
No Future in Newspapers
When I first decided to finish college (ten years after high school) I started looking at the educational programs available at my hometown public university. I was determined to pick a field of study that would be easy to get through; that it be interesting was a secondary consideration. The first goal was to simply graduate.
Knowing myself a little better at 27 than at 17, I thought about how poor my mathematical skills were and how uninterested I was in numbers. I liked reading and I thought with a little instruction it would be interesting to learn how to write a little. I chose journalism for my major with a concentration in radio reporting. In radio reporting you learn to write a little, very little.
It was clear, even in 1986, that radio journalism was pretty much dead, and had been dead since the 1950’s. What was I thinking? I was wasting my tuition dollars on an education that taught skills that had been obsolete for thirty years. Getting a job as a radio nerws reported would be next to impossible, but I ignored all the warnings given by friends, classmates and professors.
After years of struggle, my radio news reporting career never did take off. I was never economically able to lead the nomadic life needed to chase the variety of positions in radio; to move from one small market to the next, to the next. I did spend ten years and eventually became a station manager. What a horrible job! There have been many times down through the years where I thought I made a big mistake back in college. Maybe I should have taken the newspaper track in J-school; gotten a comfortable newspaper job.
Now I’m glad I didn’t.
Newspapers are now feeling the same effect radio news felt in the 1950’s when television news was getting up on it’s feet and starting to flex it’s muscle. Newspapers are going out of business almost every day. Many blame the internet. Well guess what. The internet just left a message for TV news. It’s coming for you too. That means I’m also glad I didn’t become a TV news reporter either.
