Toyota plans ultra-inexpensive car

Toyota plans ultra-inexpensive car

Toyota Motor Corp. plans to build a low-cost car undercutting Renault’s emerging-market Logan through a “radical” rethink in design and production, the president of the fast-growing Japanese automaker said.

“The focus is on low-cost technology,” Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe told Britain’s Financial Times newspaper in an interview published Monday.

He declined to set a price for a low-cost car but said it would be “at least” less than the Logan.

Renault has started production of the Logan, which will cost from 5,000 euros (6,200 dollars) on up, touted as a budget model for consumers in emerging economies such as China and Russia that conforms to European standards.

Watanabe said that Toyota could slash the price by targetting costs throughout production.

“Everything from design to production methods will be radically changed and we are thinking of a really ultra-low-cost way of designing, using ultra-low-cost materials, even developing new materials if necessary,” he said.

The plan would create a new challenge to struggling US automakers.

Toyota is set this year to overtake General Motors as the world’s largest automaker.

The Japanese automaker has cashed in by pioneering environmentally friendly hybrid cars and has also seen success with its luxury Lexus line.

This would totally rock the small car market.   Would I buy a $6000 car with the reputation of Toyota to zip around town and save gas?  Absolutely.

Better ideas to deal with property taxes

Fargo Forum - January 21st, 2007

For all the debate surrounding how the state can provide relief from rising property taxes: Numerous alternatives to Gov. John Hoeven’s absurd “trust the counties that are overtaxing you” plan in no way guarantees that the taxpayers themselves will actually see tax relief.

On the state level, an idea worth considering would be to abolish the practice of annual assessments altogether. Properties should be reassessed for tax purposes only when sold or ownership is otherwise transferred. The current system poses problems for senior citizens who are forced to pay more and more each year, on a fixed income, with no idea where they will find the money.

What happens when senior citizens start to follow the youth out of the state when they simply cannot afford to continue to shell out more each year to the government?

On the federal level, Congress can allow taxpayers to deduct every penny paid in property tax without itemizing and still utilize the full standard deduction. This will allow average and low-income taxpayers to take advantage of the same deduction that high-income taxpayers with complex deductions already receive.

A government of the people just should not have the ability to increase the living costs of its people on a whim. The people themselves need to wake up to the way their local officials are spending their money, but until that happens, it is the duty of state legislators to do what they can to create long-term relief from rising property taxes.

(Don’t bother asking why the first paragraph is so bad, I don’t know why I sent it that way. The bigger question is why did they print it that way?)

The Case Against Lower Student Loan Interest Rates

Sam at SavetheGOP has about the only logical point against cutting the rates.

As long as there is a strong demand by students to attend a university there is no incentive for administration to get their costs under control. If you can raise tuition 5% every year for some new pet project and the students continue to pay and enrollment thrives, why not keep raising it every year? Want to build a new football stadium with all the latest and greatest amenities? Raise the tuition. Want to add a new set of worthless classes and pay a pompous professor to pontificate about the power of the penis? (No, seriously) Raise the tuition. I can go on, but you get the idea.

Students will pay the increased costs for the same reasons the universities raise them. They too, can, which is why I am troubled by this cut in the interest rates making these loans more affordable. As long as it keeps getting easier and easier for college students to buy their education on credit, the higher tuitions will continue to increase making it more and more expensive. We’re already at the point where tuition at some schools surpasses the cost of a house. While those with a degree do generally make more money over their lifetimes than those without, at what point will the cost of obtaining the degree outweigh the financial advantage in the workplace?

Essentially, tuition rates are the easiest taxes to raise. The people that pay them have zero political power and no one in power seems to care how much debt they have to start life with.

So by lowering in the interest rate, the government makes it easier for schools to finance their tax increases on people that don’t make or have any money.

It’s definately a more convincing argument than lower finance rates = higher subsidies.

Maliki denies helping U.S. in Sadr Raid

So why are we supporting this guy?

CBS News

U.S. and Iraqi forces arrested one of Muqtada al-Sadr’s top aides Friday in Baghdad, his office said, as pressure increased on the radical Shiite cleric’s militia ahead of a planned security crackdown in the capital.

An adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, however, denied the government knew in advance about the raid, in which Sheik Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji was captured and said the detention was not part of the new operation aimed at quelling Baghdad’s sectarian violence.

“There was no coordination with the Iraqi political leadership and this arrest was not part of the new security plan,” the adviser, Sadiq al-Rikabi, told Al-Arabiya. “Coordination with the Iraqi political leadership is needed before conducting such operations that draw popular reactions.”

Chinese missile destroys satellite in space

UK Telegraph

The prospect of “Star Wars” between China and the West loomed last night after Beijing used a ballistic missile to destroy a satellite in space.

The missile, which hit a 4ft-wide obsolete Chinese weather satellite 530 miles above the Earth, is thought to have been launched from the Xichang space centre in -China’s Sichuan province.

It suggests that the Chinese have developed a major new capability that underscores the communist regime’s desire to use its military might as well as burgeoning economic power to expand its influence.

“The US believes China’s development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of co-operation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area,” said Gordon Johndroe, spokes-man for the US National Security Council, yesterday. “We and other countries have expressed our concern regarding this action to the Chinese.”

It is understood that Australia and Canada have also protested to China.

The ability to destroy satellites with such precision could undermine the US National Missile Defence programme, a network of rocket interceptors, computers and satellites intended to protect America and its key allies from nuclear attack. It became known as “Son of Star Wars” after President Ronald Reagan’s so-called “Star Wars” programme proposed in the 1980s.
[...]

China is seeking to challenge American military strength in the Far East, including its vital trade routes in the South China Sea and Straits of Malacca.

Short- and medium-range ballistic missiles have been developed with the potential to take on American aircraft carriers.

There has also been investment in new nuclear submarines. The People’s Liberation Army Navy has launched as many as 60 ships in the past five years and last March announced that it would build an aircraft carrier.

Chinese military spending more than doubled between 1997 and 2003 and is now estimated to be second only to the US as a percentage of GDP.

One study last year projected that China’s annual military budget would be $185 billion by 2025.

Yeah, neo-cons, lets keep doing business with these people. Good Plan!

If we didn’t treat Russia and China with kid-gloves, maybe these tin-pot dictators would think twice.

 

Oliver North: Buy American, Save Jobs

Human Events

It’s going to be one of the biggest “single buy” Air Force acquisitions since World War II: 179 aircraft at a cost of $200 billion over a 20-year period. The plane — a “flying gas station” — will replace the half-century-old U.S. fleet of KC-135 and KC-10 refueling tankers. Designated the KC-X by the Air Force, it’s been on the drawing board for years. Not one of the new tankers has been built, but it’s already in serious trouble. The problem: Some Americans seem intent on ensuring that a foreign aircraft manufacturer is awarded the contract to build these planes because it will bring a handful of jobs to their state. If they succeed, it will be a major disaster for American taxpayers and American jobs.

For more than a decade Air Force wonks have been tinkering with the design and specifications for a new aerial tanker. The planes are an absolute necessity for the kinds of worldwide deployments being conducted in the global war on terror — or “The Long War” — in Washington’s new vernacular. In fairness, there are numerous factors beyond size, speed, range, payload and price that must be considered by the decision makers, including arcane procurement rules and regulations dictated by the Office of Management and Budget, Congress and even the World Trade Organization (WTO). Not the least of these is the Berry Amendment, which mandates that our armed forces must “Buy American” unless no U.S. product or equipment is available.

I for one can’t wait to see the “Free Trade at Any Cost” crowd has to say about this.

Congressman battles North Americanization

Introduces resolutions aimed at stopping SPP from integrating continent

World Net Daily

Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va., is preparing to introduce a series of House resolutions aimed at stopping the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America from integrating the continent into a trilateral U.S.-Mexico-Canada structure of administrative law.

Goode also intends to block the previously undisclosed, but already signed, Social Security agreement to “totalize” U.S. Social Security benefits with legal and illegal Mexicans working in the U.S.

“I hope our effort will be successful in stopping the implementation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership,” Goode told WND. “If we are not successful in stopping SPP, we are going to see further erosion in the sovereignty of our country.”

Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va. (Photo: University of Virginia)

Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va., is preparing to introduce a series of House resolutions aimed at stopping the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America from integrating the continent into a trilateral U.S.-Mexico-Canada structure of administrative law. Goode also intends to block the previously undisclosed, but already signed, Social Security agreement to “totalize” U.S. Social Security benefits with legal and illegal Mexicans working in the U.S.

“I hope our effort will be successful in stopping the implementation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership,” Goode told WND. “If we are not successful in stopping SPP, we are going to see further erosion in the sovereignty of our country.”

As WND previously has reported, SPP has laid out plans for increased regulatory cooperation between the three nations in new, full-color, trilingual publications of the 2005 and 2006 SPP Reports to Leaders, which is archived in electronic form on the Department of Commerce SPP website.

Goode objected that the open borders philosophy of the Bush administration “will level down the United States. SPP will enhance neither the security of the United States nor the prosperity of our economy.”

Goode also told WND that he plans to re-introduce in the 110th Congress H.C.R. 487, a resolution he introduced previously to block both NAFTA Super Highways and the formation of a EU-style North American Union.

In an e-mail to WND, Goode’s office affirmed the re-introduction of H.C.R. 487 can be expected perhaps as early as today.

“The NAFTA Superhighway will bring more trucks and vehicles from south of our border into our country,” Goode explained to WND. “It will cost American jobs and decrease safety for our traveling public. The NAFTA Super Highway will end up opening further opportunities for illegals to be smuggled into the United States.”

The North Dakota Education Funding Debate: Ignorance of the Law is Not a Defense

I have to plead prior ignorance of the law, however that is not an excuse for not accepting what the law is.

Article VIII, Section 2 of the North Dakota State Constitution reads as follows:

The legislative assembly shall provide for a uniform system of free public schools throughout the state, beginning with the primary and extending through all grades up to and including schools of higher education, except that the legislative assembly may authorize tuition, fees and service charges to assist in the financing of public schools of higher education.

When parents “provide for” their children, they are not creating a framework for the child to go out to raise his or her own revenue to live on, it means that parents have the actual responsibility for financially caring for the child until he or she reaches the age of majority (18).

If the section read as follows, the intent of the law would be for the legislature to establish the framework it would read:

“The legislative assembly shall provide for a uniform system of free public schools throughout the state, beginning with the primary and extending through all grades up to and including schools of higher education, except that the legislative assembly may authorize tuition, fees and service charges to assist in the financing of public schools of higher education.”

As the passage currently reads, the legislature is required to “provide for” a uniform system of free public schools just as a parent must “provide for” his or her child.

The word “for” makes a huge difference in the meaning.

This portion of the constitution must be amended to prevent the state from dictating to the local school boards.

What is property tax relief?

What does it mean for the state to “fund property tax relief?”

The state generates its revenue through the state income tax, the state sales tax, and the countless other “service fees” that it imposes. None of these are taxes on wealth. They are all taxes on either income or consumption. The only tax on wealth currently available to government is the property tax.

The simple problem of this “property tax relief” plan is that it shifts the burden away from property owners, whom we will label “the rich” for the purposes of this point; and it shifts that burden to those who pay income tax, whom we will label “the working class.”

Most Republicans have never met a tax cut that they do not like, which is good since all taxes are too high. But the Democratic Party historically attacks “tax cuts for the rich.” They get away with this because most people don’t realize that – of course the rich will benefit the most from tax cuts, under the progressive tax system, the more you make; the more you pay.

Now, not everyone in society owns their own home, which is still part of the American Dream. However, politicians including Governor Hoeven have devised a plan to take some of the surplus and hand it to local governments for the hope they will pass along the savings to you, the taxpayers. Everyone cites the latest oil boom for the excess revenue, but the simple fact is – that surplus is over taxation of the citizens of North Dakota.

More specifically, it is over taxation of the working people of North Dakota. The median income in the state is somewhere around $31,000. The first tax bracket of 2.1% extends to an income of $30,650 for a single wage earner. This means that barely less than half the state’s workers pay around $643 per year in state income tax, and just over half pay more. Once it reaches the state coffers, the money isn’t segregated so there is no way to tell whose is where. For this fact, the surplus belongs to all taxpayers – not the governor, not the legislature, not the teachers that are underpaid, and not the state workers that do deserve a raise like anyone else.

So this grand plan that the governor proposes and much of the legislature seemly likes really is a “tax cut for the rich” paid for by “the working class.”

Hopefully the governor will realize that all taxes are just to high, if they weren’t there would not be $600 million dollars wanting to be spent by politicians. Income taxes are too high because the state is bringing in more money than it needs, and property taxes are too high because local officials are spending too much. It really is that simple.

Ron Paul: Beware of Iranian version of Gulf of Tonkin

Escalation in the Middle East

The president stated last week that, “Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity- and stabilizing the region in the face of the extremist challenge. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria.”  He also announced the deployment of an additional aircraft carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf, and the deployment of Patriot air missile defense systems to countries in the Middle East.  Meanwhile, US troops stormed the Iranian consulate in Iraq and detained several Iranian diplomats. Taken together, the message was clear: the administration intends to move the US closer to a dangerous and ill-advised conflict with Iran.
[...]

I am concerned, however, that a contrived Gulf of Tonkin- type incident may occur to gain popular support for an attack on Iran.

Meanwhile, James Ostrowski t the LewRockwell Blog says:

Ron Paul is Hillary Clinton’s worst nightmare. Forget about the establishment describing his campaign as “quixotic.” Ten or twenty years ago, maybe so. Not now.

Hillary will be the Democratic nominee once the Obama fantasy subsides. Bet the ranch on that one.

Hillary wants to run against the old neocon warhorse, John McCain. As I said in September, she wins that one 52-48. She wants to run against someone whose moral culpability for the war is greater than her own. She outflanks McCain on the war.

Ron Paul outflanks Hillary on the central issue of the campaign, the war. He was one of the few Republican congressmen to oppose it.

He also outflanks Hillary from “the left” on the drug war and civil liberties.

In Ron Paul, Hillary faces a candidate who can outflank her on the left and right all at the same time. Will the center hold?

I will ask Free New York, Inc. to invite both of them to a debate in Buffalo (along with the rest of the centrist team of candidates).

I can’t wait for that one. It will be almost surreal to have both of them on the same stage.