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Philippe Varin faces some tough decisions when he takes over Peugeot-Citroen. Unlike the turnaroungd he achieved at Corus steel group where the booming demand from China for steel helped, this time the auto market in Europe is declining by about 30%. He has to navigate betwen the interests of the Peugeot family which has 45% of the voting rights, employees who are affected by the cost cutting, the French government which has required no closing of factories for as long as the company receives governement aid. Peugeot-Citroen received a low interest loan of 3 billion euros from the French government. Questions he will have to address, as do all auto manufacturers in the USA and Europe relate to overcapacity as demand declines. And for Peugeot this has to be tackled without factory closures. And the other major issue facing auto manufacturers worldwide is how much to focus on the fuel efficient small car segment. Peugeot has key strengths in this segment and Varin may decide on refocussing on this segment....

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See Liz Claiborne, 11 July 2007, WSJ. How a new CEO at Liz Claiborne is tackling the problems of a bureaucracy, layers of management from acquisitions, lack of clear direction, responsibility, and out of focus organization. A problem that is coupled with too many brand labels so that there is no focus for marketig and advertising and distribution dollars to obtain a winning advantage. And the added problem of designers not having the opportunities to come up with winning products in a constantly changing fashion field with changing consumer tastes and trends. McCom is a top manager at J&J before this and handled the Tylenol brand after its crisis, so he's seasoned. His approach also makes sense given the need for focus and the need to be able to develop a new model for sales not dependent on others. He sent out an email to 200 senior managers asking them to identify the biggest barriers to success. What is common between the jobs at Mitsubishi, Liz Claiborne (Tylenol), and

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Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party suffered a major defeat in North Rhine-Westphalia. Exit polls show the SPD Social Democrats party winning 38.9% of the vote, increasing its vote by 4.4%. The CDU won only 26.3% of the vote, dropping 8.3% from the last election. The SPD state premier, Hannelore Kraft, proved to be a popular campaigner. Her opponent Mr Rottgen made debt-financed spending an issue and told voters this was a referendum on Merkel's policies for Europe. Ms. Kraft said after the win: "We made people the central focus again." This has overtones of the victory of Francois Hollande in France, a few days ago, and shows a fundamental shift in Europe. German media described it as debacle for the conservatives considering the size of the margin between SPD and CDU. The Greens secured 11.6% of the votes and this will enable Ms. Kraft to govern easily compared to an earlier minority government she led. This state is the largest in Germany, with one of every five Germans living here, with the capital in Dusseldorf. The Pirates party secured 7.8% of the vote, and the Free Democrats staging a recovery with 8.3% of the vote under a popular young leader Christian Lindner. Upto this point the SPD lacked an effective leader to challenge Merkel. The sense now is that Ms. Kraft will emerge as the SPD's challenger to Merkel in elections in 2013, or earlier. French president Hollande goes to Berlin on May 16, 2012, and the SPD win is expected to strengthen his position in negotiations....

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David Brooks of the NYT is critical of the way Google CEO Sundar Pichai handled the Damore email affair. Pichai cut the discussion short and fired a 28 year old engineer who wrote a controversial memo about women and working in the software industry. Brooks says the memo actually makes things harder for women in a male dominated tech world.  Not mentioned here or in the coverage in the media is that Google could have used this as an opportunity to refocus the discussion on how to correct the exaggerated tilt in favor of men in the male dominated tech world- about 80% male. Even with the differences between men and women is such a huge tilt a good idea? How could it be handled by giving women better opportunities and changing the culture itself to ways that can make it good for both sexes. An extremely competitive environment with its corresponding behaviours is not the best environment for all. Most of the male dominated tech world does not walk the talk by actually helping women in tech in multiple ways, including changing their own culture- this itself could have become the focus of the discussion. Google could turn its gaze inward and say this is happening because it was too late or not doing enough, and use this as a wake up call- letting people be heard, yet quietly redoubling its efforts as some contrary voices explain how the current situation happened, is another way to respond effectively that eluded Google.  ...

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Easy steps to happiness are to conquer negative thinking, be easy on yourself and forgive lapses that happened in the past to focus on the present, finding real satisfaction in work, and not focussing on money as the way to happiness beyond a point that is needed for financial stability.

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CEO Ryan at CVS/Caremark. An unassuming man with a sharp focus on things, joined CVS right out of pharmacy school at University of Rhode Island. At 29, CVS owner Stan Goldstein gave him the chance to run pharmacy operations for CVS, then a regional drugstore chain in the eastern USA. Over the years CVS has made a number of successful acquisitions, the latest being the acquisition of Longs Drug store chain on the west coast, and it is now one of the largest chains in the USA. It has nearly 7000 stores and more than 50 million users of its CVS loyalty card in the US. As the pharmaceutical business evolved pharmacy benefit management (PBM's) companies like Caremark, Medco, and Express Scripts, came into being to manage burgeoning prescription costs. PBM's work with companies to save money, by filling recurring prescriptionsin 90 day quantities through the mail at reduced per pill cost. Now drug store chains instead of competing with PBM's are either creating or acquiring these larger PBM's. THe result is that a company like CVS which acquired PBM Caremark in 2007 for $27 billion, now has extensive computerized databases with patients information and drug usage histories. Ryan's clear focus is on these IT records as a distinct advantage, if he can use it to help the Obama administration's efforts to control health costs of chronic diseases like diabetes and arthritis, and back or neck pain, high blood pressure, and others, that end up clogging the hospital system and raising health care costs. By using these IT records to flag when a patient is not compliant or taking his medications and call the patient, Ryan can increase drug sales, get more visits into drugstores if the drugs can also be picked up at CVS stores, and increase sales through ancillary purchases during visits. This is now his strategy. It also includes setting up more clinics at stores and at corporate locations that divert the patient flow for small care like sore throats, flu and the like. As this is the way health care costs can be controlled, Ryan sees himself as helping achieve national goals while keeping CVS in the sales and profit picture for the US, even as health care as we know it goes through a complete transformation that removes the waste and unnecessary cost, and improves effectiveness and health. He sees CVS/Caremark right where it wants to be with its large patient drug database from about 1 billion prescriptions it fills each year, and as the largest single buyer and dispenser of prescription drugs in the country. ...

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US antiship missiles Nmesis are placed in the Philippines islands to protect parts of the Pacific region in 2025. During the period of US engaged in wars in the Middle East under Bush and then Obama, the US Navy lost time and China built up its Navy. The lack of foresight of US business and focus on profits of firms like Apple shipping manufacturing to China meant loss of the manufacturing knowhow as other companies followed Apple for 2 decades. The result is that it takes long lead times for the US to build the ships the US Navy needs, a repeat of the situation the US faced with Japan by 1935 when the US was focused on tackling the Great Depression under FDR. At that time at a Naval Conference in London in 1934 the Japanese walked out rejecting the Washington Naval Agreement of 1924-25 that limited Japan to 60% of the US and British Navies ships tonnage. By 1941 the Japanese Navy was its main reason for its efforts to control Asia. FDR who had been Secretary of the Navy was not far behind so that America launched its own efforts in 1937- in an 18 month period 1942-1943 the US destroyed the Japanese Navy and protected China, India, from the worst Japanese Kwantung army elements that ran the government leading to 14 million lives lost in China. ...

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About 7 million people or 10.3% of people living in France in 2021 were immigrants, says national statistics agency INSEE. Compare that with 6.5% in 1968. About one third have acquired French citizenship. What this has done to French society is to shift sentiment away from protecting workers and families struggling with a cost of living crisis by splitting the vote of traditional parties supporting working class families. Shifting some of it to the far right anti-immigration parties that have emerged since 2010. This has added to the fracturing of society that happened from neglect of manufacturing communities across France as more manufacturing was concentrated overseas in  China. Neglect of rural areas and smaller towns, the emergence of tech hubs disconnected from the larger community across France has added to this. This is true of other European countries and a similar situation happened in the US. Denmark's prime minister is very candid about this, saying immigration of this type hurts the working class families in Denmark. Mette Frederiksen of the Social Democrats is the first to have clearly stated this problem and is providing a new way of protecting Danish workers and families from these social and technological changes in society from which they have no protection. President Biden in the US has also grasped clearly the dimensions and magnitude of the problems facing workers and families in the US. The problem is not limited to worker loss of income security, it affects the whole society and the public as a whole in other ways. Opportunistic politicians using anti-immigration appeals without a true commitment to democratic principles and ideas have tendencies that threaten democracy itself. This is the real danger of concentrating manufacturing in one country such as happened with China. And of neglecting rural areas and small towns. For this reason Frederiksen in Denmark, Biden in the US, and other leaders in Europe are looking for ways to send aid and industry promoting assistance to poor countries but restricting illegal immigration. This requires handling cultural issues which have further hit society with care- "with malice towards none, with charity for all," so that the focus can be kept on the real issues affecting workers and families of the cost of living crisis and a better life, better education, health care and public services for all, to improve the quality of living. It requires a new state of mindfulness from leaders in North America and Europe, as well as from allied countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa.  ...

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Warnings to governments and leaders in industry and pharmaceutical research about epidemic preparedness by Bill Gates were ignored. He spent hundreds of millions of dollars to develop new vaccines and create disease tracking systems. But only governments could tackle this problem. He tells the WSJ in an interview that he feels terrible and that he wishes he had done more. His fear that a once in a century pandemic has come true. Governments did respond to the public health preparation needs as reported in France 24 to both SARS and the H1N1, both in Britain and France. It was the disbanding of this effort in the period of the global financial crisis and the eurozone financial crisis that led to the level of unpreparedness that Western Europe finds itself in today. This was caused by irresponsible banking practices. The response was austerity measures in Britain, France, Germany and Spain that led to leaving public health system investment being neglected, without fixing the original source of the problem. Misallocation of capital and lopsided priorities continued through most of the period leading up to the pandemic. There is a lot that Gates and other public spirited leaders could do now do in the new reordering of priorities and shifting the allocation of capital to public services and investments in infrastructure, and supply chain renewal to safeguard national interests. Today he is working with pharmaceutical executives and governments to produce billions of doses of vaccines while they are being tested. His foundation has reserved space in a manufacturing plant so that production can begin quickly once an effective vaccine is found. He says nobody has made 7 billion vaccines so that it will need all the help that it can get and international cooperation.  In an earlier interview with WSJ he told the interviewer in November 2014 that the world as a whole did not have preparedness. France and Britain prepared and then abandoned the effort for epidemic response by 2012 following the global financial and eurozone financial crises. Gates repeated the warning to 2016 presidential candidates in the U.S.  In 2017 at the Munich Security Conference he reminded people- "getting ready for a global pandemic is every bit as important as nuclear deterrence and avoiding a climate catastrophe." One focus of Gates was to come up with faster ways to a vaccine by using ready made components and then customizing it. This is an approach being adopted today by Oxford scientists and by Quidel Corp. in the U.S.   ...

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Elections are won on messages that can be put in one line. FDR's in 1932 he stated clearly and applies to Biden in 2024- it has Abraham Lincoln's message from his writings. FDR said in 1932 "Give me your help not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people." America in 2024 during the pandemic resembles America in 1932 during the Depression with widening gaps between the upper and lower classes and in opportunity for better life. Philip Bump in his Analysis in the Washington Post points out that the 2024 US election remains a referendum on the former president Trump. This is because as is already evident the voters have made up their minds, on Biden's side people that have decided they will not vote for Trump, and on Trump's side people who will vote for Trump. Biden has a stable vote when the election is referendum on Trump. Crime has come down so that crime is not so much of an issue. Immigration is also coming down and the Lankford- Biden immigration legislation did not pass to close the border as it was seen not attractive for the reelection bid on basis of immigration fears from the former president. Biden has take steps to close the border using executive action in the absence of Congress stalling on advice of the former president. The other issue is abortion and the selection of J.D. Vance for VP creates more fears about abortion bans for suburban women in all 51 states. Climate Change action is another issue and if stalled for 4 years it would cost the US upward of 1 trillion dollars to make up for action not taken till 2028. Donilon has said elections are fought on issues that can be put in one line for focus and concentration. For Democrats it is democracy in the words of FDR in his 1932 address: "Give me your help not to win votes alone but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people." It is good to reflect and know that this is what president Abraham Lincoln would also have said knowing Lincoln's views from his writings on the this aspect of freedom in the Civil War in fighting the plantation economies of the Southern states. ...

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Based on this Washington Post sample of reader views on the presidential Debate, 4 of 5 readers in the sample are critical of the way the Post, NYT, WSJ are acting against the elected and popular transformative president of the US. What do Washington Post readers think of the way media magnates running Post, NYT, WSJ are trying to run the country in the face of a elected president who remains popular for the action he has taken on cost of living, climate change, manufacturing jobs, factories and supply chains, and is investing trillions of dollar in renewing America's manufacturing, Chips and science, and Infrastructure? Their campaigns are there for all to see against the president, even as the British election shows Keir Starmer of Labour saying "from 20 points behind to 20 points ahead," achieving a landslide even with only 2% increase in votes since 2019. Starmer too was written off just twelve months ago. The first letter is from Little Rock stating the Post, NYT, WSJ position. The second is from Linda Barnes of Ashland, New Hampshire, who faults the Post for not having the headline about "Disastrous debate performance by Trump who failed to answer most questions and lied relentlessly." Lauri Costello of Las Cruces, New Mexico, says every American would have benefitted from an in depth analysis of the debate rather than a focus on how each debater looked and spoke. Diana Hasuly of Ashburn, Virginia, says the debate was an opportunity to see two men's perspectives about the future of America, and the Post had done a great disservice to America, as have the NYT, WSJ and the Media in general, by not spelling what each man was offering America for the future. To take just three Climate change, manufacturing investment and jobs, infrastructure spending, Biden is getting so much done and has the plan for 2030, the former president has none, simply none and did not talk about this. Mark Parkhurst of Silver Spring, Maryland, says of the June 28 front page in the Post that the Post uses "falshoods" not "lies" when a lie needs to be called a lie from the former president. And says to be fair the Media needs to point out the actual achievements of president Biden not dwell on MAGA rhetoric. Is the Post or the Media in general overreaching, is it listening? What would Washington, Lincoln or FDR say?   ...

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The French refusal to make concessions on subsidies to farming for a new trade accord comes from cultural and emotional factors. Food is important in France, and farming and quality farm product is take quite seriously. One reason is the varied climate which is very conducive to different kinds of farming, dairy, cheese, grapes and wine, olives, wheat depending on the climate. Compared to US and Britain, France is serious farming country in an emotional and cultural sense, and different regions have their own best farming product. Historically also France has protected its farmers and farm products, both during the monarchy when farmers were seen as a conservative element and late nineteenth century with high tariff walls, and after the Second War when a common program to support farming was written into the founding treaty. Useful information: France has 26,000 local farmers markets vs 500 in the UK. The regional focus for farm products has a term: terroir. Farm unions are amazingly well organized and command widespread support, upto the point that a former trade minister says "the politicians are frightened." One could say farming is part of the French culture....

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The effort to shift China's economc growth away from the rampant overbuilding in housing and industrial capacity of the past to domestic consumption, and focus on meeting the demand for better medical care, quality of food, education and other quality of life products. China's leaders met at the Central Economic Work Conference in Beijing in Dec. 2015 to work out ways to make this shift so that growth rate of 6.5% and other goals can be met. Plans include reducing industrial overcapacity, dealing with overinvestment and unused inventory in housing, reducing financial risks from high corporate debt to GDP ratio approaching 160% estimated by Standard and Poors Ratings Services. By comparison the U.S. debt to GDP ratio is 70%. A steep rise resulted from the huge China stimulus program of 2008-2009, when the ratio was 98% for China. Experts such as Derek Scissors of the American Enterprise Institute are pessimistic about the prospects of successfully implementing reforms, saying reducing industrial overcapacity was a goal of the new Jinping Li-Keqiang leadership in 2013, but not much progress has been made in 2 years....

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House Majority Leader Eric Cantor talks with Joseph Rago of the Wall Street Journal. There is a fundamentally different world view between Obama and Cantor. Cantor does not hesitate to present his view and says President Obama did not like to be challenged on policy grounds in debt negotiations, leading to the famous "I'll call your bluff Eric" remark by Obama. Cantor sees no chance of reaching an agreement with Obama that would go towards solving the fiscal crisis and feels it would be best to focus on incremental wins. He says of the Obama-Boehner deal that it did not address the problems with Social Security and Medicare. Without the transformational changes that are needed in those programs he did not think it was worth the cost. Cantor is mainly responsible for the Republicans not agreeing to include revenue increases in the negotiations or the final deal. Cantor says the super-committee part of the deal which has to come up with savings, will only lead to incremental progress- considering the huge divide that separates their world view and that of President Obama. The real fight says Cantor is to prevent President Obama from getting re-elected....

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Abbott Labs will split into two publicly traded companies, with a medical products company including products such as Similac, Ensure and stent devices, and a pharmaceutical company that would have its Humira rheumatoid arthritis therapy Humira. Humira generates about $8 billion in sales, but faces patent expiration in 2016 and competition from a new drrug expected from Pfizer, as well as generics. Abbott's CEO sees the opportunities in the two products falling in different areas. The medical products business has greater potential in emerging markets, and will require a different focus from the slower growing pharmaceutical business facing competition and payor cost pressures. The medical product company includes a drug coated stent Xience, with $1.5 billion in sales, which has improved prospects as J&J is leaving the stent business. The medical products business sales are 40% from emerging markets, and 40% of revenue comes from patients not from cost conscious governments or insurers, according to CEO White. Its the emerging markets emphasis that convinced White to go with the split. Richard Gonzalez who runs the pharmaceutical business will head the pharmaceutical company, and CEO Miles White will run the medical products company....

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New UBS CEO, Sergio Ermotti, plans to scale down UBS investment banking operations because of stricter regulations and a changing market environment. He said in an interview that UBS will go back to what it was in the 1990's, that he now sees the investment banking boom of the last ten years as an aberration. He also sees rival banks taking the same route. The plan is to shrink risk-weighted assets from 300 billion Swiss francs today to 145 billion Swiss francs by scaling back or exiting in areas such as asset securitization, complex fixed income structured products and trading in some equity products. UBS will cut 2000 investment banking jobs to 16,500 in 2013. The focus will shift to foreign exchange, commodities and mergers and acquisitions. Investment banking made a profit for only one of the last 4 years, taking up two thirds of the bank's capital and earning 26% of the group's the pretax profit in the last year. The new plan will reduce the size of the investment bank so that it makes up less than half of the group assets by 2016....

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Ford's efforts in the Asian markets, boosting capacity by 50% in China and 100% in India since 2007. Capacity is 450,000 cars in China in 2010 and 200,000 cars in India. In China Ford is tied for No 11 with Geely and FAW, 2 local companies, VW, GM, Suzuki and others are way ahead of Ford. Suzuki dominates the Indian market with 53% share. To keep up with demand Ford is sourcing heavily locally with 85% of Figo components sourced locally in india and 90% of parts purchased locally in China. The lack of early focussed effort in China is evident from the lack of choices- only Fiesta, Focus, Mondeo and S Max Minivan are available as choices. And one new model choice is to be added each year from now till 2013. Ford is betting heavily on the $7600 Figo for motorbike users who shift to autos, but GM has the Chevy Beat and VW has the Polo in this small car segment. And VW plans to launch seven locally produced models in 2010 and GM plans 10 new models this year. In fact GM now sells more cars in China than in the USA....

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Kraft is looking at its staple pantry products in a different light to give them new life. Kraft products like Bull's Eye barbecue sauce, Chips Ahoy, Oscar Mayer, Miracle Whip and Philadelphia Cream Cheese are all getting new marketing campaigns. This is similiar to what is happening across the food industry, as companies like Campbell, ConAgra, General Mills, Heinz, Hershey, Hormel, Kellogg and Smucker, all of which have staple pantry products, are trying to give new life to old staples. Kraft marketing executives say the idea is to work not just on the rational side as they have done in the past by emphasizing price. For Macaroni and Cheese, Kraft would say to cost conscious consumers in this recession, it costs about 1 dollar a box. One headline even described this as a small price for a big cheese eating grin. Now the advertsing budget has been increased by 30% to $50 million, and the focus has shifted to bringing out the emotional attachment to this product of young and old alike. Now the thing is to add fun aspects to the lives of parents and children who have used it in the past. ...

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The efforts in Alsace on the border between Germay and France to make the European experiment work with two systems, cultural experiences and lifestyles. This happens at a time of high unemployment in French Alsace and many job openings in German Alsace for German speaking people of Alsace. The debate in France is underway on what things need to change for the French system to work taking into account cultures and different national experience. A keen awareness on both sides of the border- in German Emmendingen and French Selestat- that the European experiment works best when people on both sides of the border do well. It is also a microcosm of the debate underway in the larger European society with different cultures in Northern and Southern European countries, with a focus on improving competitiveness while respecting and not denigrating cultural differences. After reunification Germany faced high unemployment and the costs of unification, and made changes in the economy, with close cooperation between business, universities and the government. It is often forgotten that Germany's low unemployment took years to achieve. A similiar process is in its early stages in France....

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Growing the banking business right into the 2008 financial crisis - with the effects of the crisis playing out over the next decade- is one decision GE CEO Immelt has described as one he didn't do right. Moves in 2014 and 2015 were designed to focus GE on areas of its historic strengths. GE plans to sell $26.5 billion of office buildings and commercial real estate debt to Blackstone Group and Wells Fargo. This is after moves to spin off the private label credit cards and retail finance business as a separate company called Synchrony Financial. Most of GE Capital's $500 billion business will be sold off or spun off in 2015-2016, except for aircraft leasing and financing for energy and health care, which are related businesses. GE shares were up to $28.38, up 10%, in trading on April 9, 2015. GE Capital's shares were down to $6 in the 2008 financial crisis requiring an injection of government funds. Immelt's 13 years as CEO would end on a positive note with this move, as the role of GE Capital in contributing to the crisis is considered a blemish on his record....

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Instructions in a 2012 law say the money from fines paid by banks for LIBOR related offenses should go to communities throughout Britain. A program in North Yorkshire teaches military veterans how to use "therapeutic baking" as a way to ease stress through cooking and by kneading dough. The same social housing charity, Riverside ECHG, says its focus is on making sure people are not sleeping in bushes or cars. A program in Harrowgate uses these funds to resurface tennis courts at a treatment center for injured police. British prime minister Cameron promised during the recent election to use 227 million pounds from fines paid against Deutsche Bank in April 2015 for financing 50,000 apprenticeships. Critics say the money should have gone to people who were harmed by the banks actions, yet in the case of LIBOR related offenses it is not clear who was harmed and by how much. The idea for the 2012 law come from Chancellor George Osborne. Osborne said about sending money back into local communities- "It is fitting that the money paid in fines by people who demonstrated the poorest values in our society is used to support those who demonstrate the very best."...

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Republicans and Democrats decided to tackle the U.S. fiscal cliff in several steps. The first step for the Bush tax cuts to be extended to single earners with income under $400,000, and couples earning under $450,000 was part of the agreement reached Jan. 1, 2013. Republicans see this as protecting small business owners who generate jobs in the U.S. economy. Democrats see this as progress in taxing the wealthy to reduce spending cuts in other programs. As expected the deal was reached between Senate colleagues Republican Mitch McConnell and former Democratic senator and Vice President Joe Biden, as rapport is missing in the relationship between Speaker Boehner and president Obama. The $110 fiscal cliff spending cuts on entitlements and defence will be postponed for 2 months till early March under the deal. Debt ceiling will not be raised and negotiations will be needed again by the end of Feb. 2013 to raise the debt ceiling. By March 27, 2013 short term funding measures lapse. Republicans see accepting tax cuts on the wealthy as a way to remove this issue in future negotiations to focus on spending cuts needed to improve U.S. finances. ...

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GM says that 19,000 employees have taken buyout or early retirement offers and most of them will leave the payroll by July 1, 2008. This will cut GM's workforce by 24%. GM is considering idling at least one plant and discontinuing some product lines as SUV's and truks go into deep sales decline. Most significant is the fact that is incredible but true that with this round of buyouts and retirements about 53,000 workers or roughly half of its workforce has agreed to leave the company since the beginning of 2006. It shows how the bubble in automobiles (see the link to a recent WSJ article on this) has resulted in such severe impact, and moved to create a structural shift in the USA market for automobiles, making them smaller in size and the total number sold in a maturing market smaller also. This is something already ocurring gradually in Japan and Germany from their peak years in auto sales and a shift to overseas slaes as is happening with GM and Ford also as they shift focus to overseas markets. Sales in Brazil were cited by GM CEO Wagoner recently as helping improve GM's otherwise poor results....

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Spotlights the shift to lighter materials and focus on fuel efficiency in the airplane industry. Henri Courpron, executive vp procurement at Airbus, says that it will double the use of titanium in the next 3 years to about 8 tons annuallyand will use most of it to make the A380 its largest plane. About 9% of the planned weight for the A350 (to compete with Boeing's 787 Dreamliner) will be titanium. Titanium prices have about doubled in past 18 months, about 100,000 tons are produced annually, with that going up to 150,000 in the next 5 yrars. Airbus finalized deals of $1.4 billion for supply to 2015 with RTI Internation Metals of Niles, Ohio, with a deal with Kamengorsk Titanium-Magnesium Plant of Kazakhstan to supply titanium ore. And a deal with OAO VSMPO-Avisma of Russia.

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A $300 million retooling investment at Michigan Truck plant three years ago will make it possible for Ford to convert the plant to production of as many as 8 new models some from from Europe with a relatively small investment of $75 million. Michigan Truck Plant is in the midst of a 11 week shutdown because of unsold inventory of SUV's and trucks. Next spring Ford will move production of the Expedition and Lincoln Navigator to its Kentucky Truck Plant and then begin retooling the Michigan Truck Plant, with all of the plant's 1000 employees transferred next door to make Focus cars at the Wayne Assembly Plant where its adding a third shift in January. Truck and SUV plants in Kentucky and Mexico will probably undergo similiar makeovers at a cost of about $250 million each to rettol according to company estimates.