John,
Just a couple of notes: At the Dubai Air show just over, AIRBUS received 5 times more plane orders than Boeing! Why? Is this an omen of the beginning of a EU advanced products resurge over US products? Germany has already overtaken the US in solar panel technology and sales. All the advanced train transport systems being ordered for NY city are coming from Siemens Germany. The US is rapidly falling behind in many areas of industrial product, transport and alternate energy product design knowhow to Europe. I'm a little worried when I hear Exxon carrying soothing TV advertisements about their sudden exciting discovery of ALGAE as a prime source of fossil fuel. Europe, and especially Holland, has been on the reserach forefront of this alternate fuel source development for many years. Exxon's initiative reminds me of GM's initiative on electric engines over 20 years ago -- an initiative they deliberately and slowly controlled, hesitated on and eventually cancelled to stay with conventional fuels for oversized vehicles. Exxon's goals may be the same .... discouraging the entrepreneurail alternative energy developer forces to buy time for their enriching conventional fuel business with the Arabs.
Opel has announced that 10,000 employee jobs must be eliminated in Europe or 20% of the current 50,000 GM-Opel workforce in Europe. About 50% or 25,000 GM workers are employed in German production facilities. I plan to keep close tabs for you of what happens here to compare the final social arrangements for Opel Germany workers adversely affected by summary dismissal compared to the thousands of GM US workers released recently in Michigan.
Best,
Frank
