In the very early ’80s, yours truly was dispatched to Vegas (back when the town still seemed to have a Rat Packer or two floating around) for a very razz-ma-tazz roll-out of Isuzu commercial trucks in the U.S.
Now the thing is I can’t recall whether the work trucks or the cars, pickups and SUVs (sold by a separate division) got here first but what I remember the best about the truck intro was a very slick video Isuzu ran. It emphasized the firm’s long and fabled automotive history and that the company name was correctly pronounced “Eee-zoo-sue,” NOT “Eye-zoo-sue,” which seems to be what many truckers prefer.
Well, you say “Isuzu” and I say “Isuzu,” but it doesn’t change the news the Japanese automaker has announced it is pulling out of the U.S. consumer market, as revealed on autoblog.com.
However, the OEM did state it is not– I repeat, not– leaving the commercial end of the market.
“Isuzu Motors Limited has decided to end its North American SUV (Sport Utility Vehicle) new vehicle sales business as of January 31. 2009,” according to the press release posted on autoblog.com. “With this decision to end SUV operations, Isuzu’s North American business will focus on the CV [commercial vehicle] and PT [diesel engines and components] businesses.”
Of course, Isuzu has built an enviable reputation as a truck supplier here in the states and benefited from a long-term relationship with General Motors that was reconfigured last year.
As a result, Isuzu Commercial Truck of America Inc. (ICTA) is now distributing its low-cab-forward vehicles directly to both the Isuzu dealer network and GM’s network of Chevrolet and GMC medium-duty dealers.
Clearly, trucks are where the bucks are. But anyone who remembers any of the rather nifty cars Isuzu peddled here back in the day– the Giorgetto Giugiaro-designed Impulse leaps to mind– not to mention the no-nonsense Trooper SUV– may again enjoy hearing a message from their very twisted U.S. pitchman, good old Joe Isuzu:
Though much slimmer than he once was, Bibendum– a.ka. The Michelin Man– is big enough to conceal secrets when he chooses.
Then again good old Bib (he is 110 years old!) is such a creature of public relations it should shock no one that he has graciously stepped aside long enough to let FleetOwner give you a sneak peak at the new tire his bosses at Michelin will fully reveal next week at the Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC) meeting in Orlando.
The new tire is the XZE2, the next generation of the XZE, which Michelin calls its best-selling truck tire.
Michelin tells us the new XE2 is a case of “the best just got better.”
According to Michelin, the XZE2 tire outperforms its XZE predecessor in a number of ways:
1) Significantly longer wear for additional miles with no performance compromise
2) Casing and siping designs that decrease irregular wear
3) Wider tread footprint for more stability
4) Tread rubber compound that was previously only available in LRH tires
5) Decrease in rolling resistance for better fuel economy.
The XZE2 will be offered starting March 1st in sizes 11R22.5, 275/80R22.5 and 11R24.5.
A 275/80R24.5 size will become available in April.
You can see the XZE2 in Orlando at Michelin’s booth (#1026) during TMC, which runs from Feb. 4-6, or just keep checking the FleetOwner website– updated daily!– to read a report on the tire as well as all the product and industry news reported from the show by FleetOwner editors on site.
Writing in The New York Times this week, columnist David Leonhardt defined what is happening to the U.S. economy as “the new moderation.”
And while I think he is 100% correct (read what he said here), what is happening now I think can much more directly be described as “Welcome back to the 1970s!”
Who out there remembers the “Me Decade”? Actually, in my mind the go-go ’80s were much more of a “me-first” period but I digress. How I recall the ’70s– beyond the generally horrible taste exhibited in almost everything from clothing to furniture save for cars and popular (not disco!) music and television– is that it was for better or worse a truly middle-class era.
Yes, 35 to 40 years ago there were plenty of persons living below the poverty line and as well as legions of the working poor– although I dare say there are more today. But there sure were fewer truly well-off people tooling around in luxomobile SUVs buying every new piece of electronica or kitchen countertop option for that matter that comes their way. And there were far fewer wannabes willing to embark on whatever risky financial gynmnastics they calculate could vault them into appearing or at least feeling “rich” or “upper class.”
Such cotton-candy whispy dreams had to end. But that doesn’t mean we are heading into a nightmare.
If everyone from Wall Street to Main Street does their part to intelligently downsize– especially the ridiculous and much too widely held belief that “consumers” can keep consuming at a dizzying pace forever and ever and ever– maybe just maybe everyone in this country who already has far more than their basic needs being met can slow down and consider there is more to life than square footage, wide screens and third-row seating.
If that happens, well, then maybe we can start to re-direct our formidable national energy from selling each other stuff and “’services” we don’t really need to being not only the world’s economic powerhouse but also the home of the kind of genius that propelled mankind ahead with such inventions as universal electricifcation, affordable automobiles, the telegraph and telephone, radio, motion pictures and television not to mention the personal computer, the Internet and the cell phone.
This nation was challenged to greatness by John F. Kennedy a few years after we’d been humiliated by the appearance of a dinky satellite dubbed Sputnik. JFK’s call to action was answered resoundingly. In much less than 10 years our nation went from a space-race has-been to putting, as Kennedy envisioned, a man on the moon.
“…in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon–if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”
–John F. Kennedy, May 25, 1961
If we could do that back then with the crude technology of the day why can’t we do more to excel and advance as a nation now?
I’ve no doubt that Fed rate cuts and tax refunds or stipends or whatever they’re calling them this time around will stimulate the economy to some degree. You put money on the street, it gets spent. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.
But what will stimulate our economy to where we really want it to be–way out front of every other economic power on earth– will be if Americans can individually and collectively start working toward more than their comfort.
Nostalgia is a dangerous thing, tis true. It can cover up all sorts of unpleasant truths. But what I remember most fondly about the ’70s was the sense of shared experience that existed in this country.
No, I don’t want to give up any of the progress made on any front since those days. But I do yearn for that feeling of “we are all in this together and let’s try to do something about it” that seems to have largely fled the good old U.S.A. in the last 30-odd years.
Maybe the next POTUS will be the kind of leader who will stir our nation once again to action if not greatness.
But the reality is it is up to all of us to make this a time worth recalling one day as the good old days.
According to The Wall Street Journal this morning, the Fed chairman has “endorsed a ‘quickly’ implemented fiscal stimulus package, saying it would complement the Fed’s efforts to provide monetary-policy insurance against an economic downturn.” The Journal also reported that in prepared testimony, Bernanke “repeated the pledge he made last week to enact ’substantive’ rate cuts if needed to counter the threat to the economy posed by fragile financial markets and weakening employment. ”
Way to go, Ben! What’s more, according to CNNMoney.com, our Lame Duck in Chief has indicated that he will support an economic stimulus package– even though it will mean making nice with the Frustrated Majority up on Capitol Hill.
On the other hand, we keep hearing that the $14-trillion– or some such unfathomable figure– U.S. economy is akin to the battleship that, no matter what harm’s way it is steaming into, cannot be turned on a dime.
Even so, there is such a thing as psyching people up. Americans both indiviudally and collectively as businesspersons are more apt to do what they can to help our economy if they feel the government is in there with them, shoulder to shoulder, trying to keep things moving at least forward.
By the way, The New York Times is running an extensive profile on Mr. Bernanke. It may be worth a look-see, if like me, you ever wonder much about how the hell things actually happen in this great, grand country of ours.
Where the money is…
SPECIAL BONUS !
Courtesy of Reuters, here is the Head Fed in Talking Head mode:
Almost six months after the horrible collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis, the finger of blame is being pointed at a design flaw– gusset plates– that was viewed early on as the likely culprit.
According to a report on CNN.com today, a Congressional official briefed by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) revealed that Federal investigators have identified a design flaw as the cause of the collapse that killed 13 people on August 1st.
“The official… said that investigators found a design flaw in the bridge’s gusset plates, which are the steel plates that tie steel beams together,” reported CNN.com. “The official spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to pre-empt an update being provided later Tuesday by the NTSB chairman, Mark V. Rosenker.” Here at FleetOwner, I should note, we have not seen anything of that update as of 2:30 pm EST.
CNN.com also reported that Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters is expected to issue an advisory sometime today “urging states to check the gusset plates when modifications are made to a bridge — such as changes to the weight of the bridge or adding a guardrail, said a federal official with knowledge of the plans.”
We can all only hope that any bridge that needs inspecting in relation to that design flaw is checked over thoroughly posthaste.
The unbelievable aftermath (Photo: Aaron Becker/BBC)
Sometimes you got to wonder what people, including high-powered eggheads in Washington, are thinking.
News item: This afternoon The Wall Sreet Journal reported that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had “opened the door to aggressive interest-rate reductions, saying downside risks to the economy ‘have become more pronounced.’”
According to the Journal, his remarks “support Wall Street’s expectation that officials could lower the fed funds rate by as much as one-half percentage point when they meet at the end of this month.”
I for one am glad Mr. Bernanke has at last perhaps fully realized that so-called “downside risks” to the economy are quite real and deserve a hell of a lot of his attention.
But, really, what took him so long to figure that out?
I am no economist– geez, I managed to get through college without taking an economics course– but it does not even take a real estate license to know our economy has been heading for trouble ever since the first “creative” home loans (much better, I think, if these financial insstruments were referred to only as “mortgages,” the meaning of which can be traced back literally to the phrase “death pledge”) were floated four or five years ago before Americans bent on being homeowners or speculators– despite what their actual finances may have suggested was prudent.
Of course, all those folks eager to get their piece of the American dream (or to “flip it”) were aided and abetted if not seduced by the massive forces of the great real estate-mortgage banking-home improvement alliance that seemed to be formed overnight ready to flog along and cash in on this nationwide bacchanalia.
The party was long and hearty and now the hangover is stacking up to be nothing if not world class.
But abstinence alone will not cure this beast. Rather, it is high time the Fed and other economic players in the U.S. government stop talking and swing into action to at least mitigate if not turn around this crisis before it gets any worse.
The Journal also reported this afternoon that its latest survey of economic forecasters “sees 42% odds of a U.S. recession this year along with mounting inflationary pressures, an uncomfortable mix that could influence the focus of the presidential campaign and complicate life for the Federal Reserve.”
Oh to be in the Granite State this morning! For a political junkie like me, last night was what the World Series, the Super Bowl and the college ball game of one’s choice and, what the hell, a Texas high school football game too, all rolled into one would be for a sports nut.
With the Iowa caucuses behind them, the Democratic and Republican campaigns are now turning all their guns on the small but mighty State of New Hampshire where the first-in-the-nation presidential primary will be held next Tuesday. I can hardly wait to channel-flip between MSNBC andCNN!
Only in America can two candidates who on paper at least could easily be written off– one a young but bright, talented and charismatic U.S. Senator and member of a minority group (although that should not matter and may be it does not), the other a colorful and outspoken ex-governor and ex-minister– can ride into a Heartland state and turn upside down the hopes, dreams and schemes of the alleged front runners seeking to carry their parties’ banners into battle this fall to win– and I pray with a clear margin of victory–the greatest political prize in the world.
If you like your politics served up with lots of drama, consider this succulent prose offered today by The New York Times:
The victors in Iowa, Senator Barack Obama for the Democrats and former Gov. Mike Huckabee for the Republicans, are as far from the status quo as possible. One is the son of a Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother who entered the United States Senate just three years ago. The other is a former Baptist minister who was best known until recently for losing over 100 pounds and taking on the issue of childhood obesity.
I mean, come on, you can’t make this stuff up!
Whether you are one of those sad folks who disdain politics (perhaps simply because you do not accept that it is the essential lubricant that has kept this nation moving forward through over 200 hundred years of thick and thin) or you are like me someone who is engaged enough to be active in party politics and even to run for elective office, 2008 is one year to make your vice heard and your vote count.
I will pause here to state this is not a personal blog– it exists as an extension of my profesional position as a journalist– so I am not going to use it as a soapbox to declare my own party or candidate preferences. Anyone who knows me at all, be it in person or through the pages of FleetOwner the Magazine or by reading between the lines I pen right here can probably figure out where about I fall on the political spectrum.
That being said, I feel it is my civic duty to urge all within earshot (or is it cybershot?) to learn all you can about the candidates– at least the viable ones!– so you can make your own informed choice in November, if not sooner if you are lucky enough to live in a primary state.
I further urge you to at least consider getting involved in some way in the campaign of the candidate of your choice. On the local level, there are many ways to help now and on into November and all you need do is contact the campaign of your chosen candidate via their official web site. Trust me, you will be welcomed with open arms. And I can guarantee you will have more fun– and, ultimately, far greater satisfaction– than you will ever get waving flags and foam fingers at a bunch of sinfully overpaid guys playing games on TV.
Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey (who was a U.S. Senator both before and after being the Veep), the original “Happy Warrior”– so nicknamed because his good cheer and sunny disposition never faded under the weight of politics– had this to say about our political process:
“Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.”
And in deference to the lost practice of equal time, here is a quote from President Gerald R. Ford, another great American politician who served so honorably in the House and above all as our beloved accidental Commander in Chief:
“The ultimate test of leadership is not the polls you take, but the risks you take. In the short run, some risks prove overwhelming. Political courage can be self-defeating. But the greatest defeat of all would be to live without courage, for that would hardly be living at all.”
The prize– and all that goes with it– awaits November’s victor.
