Eideard

Everyone in business knows that selling on price is a downward slope to non-profitability, but with profit out of reach for many automakers these days, ignoring price-oriented marketing is pure folly.

In this respect, Toyota appears to be in a conundrum. Its Prius, the darling of eco-minded consumers everywhere and by far the best selling hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) anywhere in the world, finds itself a bit overpriced now that Honda has shown up with its similarly styled and configured, albeit smaller sized Insight. Starting price for the Insight, when it goes on sale globally on April 22, Earth Day not coincidentally, will be a mere $19,800 in the US. That’s $2,200, or about 10-percent less, than the US-market Prius.

Rather than reduce the price of its already value-packed Prius, Toyota may have another solution, or so says industry insider Automotive News. The Detroit-based news service is reporting that Toyota is planning a Yaris hybrid to undercut Honda’s newest HEV, information garnered from Toyota’s chief engineer Akihiko Otsuka.

See a pattern here? Obviously prices won’t drop by 10-percent with every new model, as has been the case since the hybrid’s inception, but like electronics technology, hybrid technology is maturing, build processes are becoming more streamlined and sales numbers are increasing, allowing for better value to the consumer and more profit to the manufacturer, theoretically, at least…

The question that remains isn’t whether or not the Yaris hybrid will do battle against the upcoming Insight, as they’re two HEVs targeting very different market segments, but rather at what price point the new Yaris HEV will go out the door for when it takes on Honda’s upcoming Fit hybrid, a model that Honda CEO Takeo Fukui announced during his mid-year address in Tokyo, May of last year, when also announcing the upcoming CR-Z sports coupe and a small hatchback HEV we now know of as the Insight.

I like it, I like it. Competition producing better product, more affordable vehicles for consumers. Too bad there isn’t much evidence for American auto manufacturers getting into the scrap – at a competitive level.

Daylife/AP Photo

Barack Obama has unveiled his administration’s new strategy in Afghanistan, including the deployment of an additional 4,000 US troops to train Afghan forces, following a review of policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The new strategy includes proposals to counter a persistent Taliban and al-Qaeda campaign that spans the two countries’ shared border, and additional development aid for both nations.

Obama, who ordered the review of Afghanistan and Pakistan shortly after taking office in January, said a new strategy was essential because intelligence indicated al-Qaeda was “actively planning attacks” on the US from Pakistan.

“This is not simply an American problem, it’s an international security problem of the highest order,” he said.

Here’s the full text of his statement.

I watched it live. Something I rarely do with press conferences. I think it’s pretty much on target – and about seven years overdue.

Banker chic can be described in so many ways: conservative, unimaginative, boring and, next week, downright dangerous. On Tuesday, the mere act of wearing a plain grey suit – be it from Savile Row or Reiss – anywhere within the confines of the London EC1-EC4 postcodes, will apparently be as provocative as donning a flamboyant matador’s costume in a bullring, at least in the eyes of a G20 protester. So think the Metropolitan police, who have advised City workers to dress down on Tuesday and Wednesday to avoid being identified as bankers.

This is likely to present a sartorial challenge to those whose wardrobe skills usually involve deciding which Sketchley’s plastic wrapping to remove. And it is a conundrum that the police seem to be grossly unqualified in giving advice on. So far, City workers have simply been told to avoid suits and dress down in chinos and loafers. That’s it. No word on what to do about the top half, complete silence on accessories, no styling diktats whatsoever.

Not only is the advice incomplete, it is, as anyone who has ever given the glossy pages of Tatler a cursory flick knows, possibly the worst wardrobe advice ever. Chinos and loafers simply reek of money and poshness. Bankers who choose this option might as well wear a T-shirt with a slogan that reads “I spent my bonus on a yacht”. Consider the poster boy for this look: Prince Harry, regularly spotted leaving any given Kensington nightclub wearing beige chinos and brown Sebago loafers – hardly the best disguise with which to fool those anti-capitalist protesters, is it?

Even though I have no personal acquaintance with most of the brands Imogen references, I get the point. RTFA for her suggestions for women bankers, as well.

All of it humorous, though the premise that G20 protestors will all behave like football hooligans is a bit of a stretch. Even dull-normal anarchists who may come from the same gene pool cul-de-sac as, say, the dolts who occasionally embarrass Swansea supporters – generally haven’t the courage to attack much of anything much more likely to retaliate than a shop window.

Aides to former Republican presidential nominee John McCain questioned running mate Sarah Palin’s ongoing second-guessing of the McCain campaign.

The McCain aides were responding to a report on CNN that the governor got a laugh when she told a GOP audience in Alaska she had declined to pray with McCain staffers prior to her debate with Joe Biden, who was elected vice president in November.

Describing the pre-debate atmosphere, Palin told the crowd last Friday, she was “looking for somebody to pray with, I just need maybe a little help, maybe a little extra.”

Should not-so-Christian Republicans prepare to follow sacred writ?

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. vetoed two bills Wednesday, including one aimed at cracking down on retailers who sell violent or sexually graphic video games to minors.

“While protecting children from inappropriate materials is a laudable goal, the language of this bill is so broad that it likely will be struck down by the courts as unconstitutional,” Huntsman wrote to legislative leaders notifying them of his decision.

Huntsman also said that, rather than risk the liability, retailers would choose to stop putting the rating labels on their products.

“The unintended consequence of the bill would be that parents and children would have no labels to guide them in determining the age appropriateness of the goods or service…”

Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said Wednesday that his office had “raised concerns with several different iterations of the bill” while it was under consideration by the Legislature. “Ultimately, we could probably make an argument to defend it, but we will be sued, it will be costly. If we lose we will pay attorneys fees. Wouldn’t you rather spend that money educating people about the rating system?” he said. “The governor apparently decided it wasn’t worth the risk.”

Right-Wing nutballs like the Eagle Forum have been working many conservative state governments this legal season in their quest to sanitize the minds of American gamers. By removing choice from parents and consumers alike.

Results of the first human clinical studies confirm that a new yogurt fights the bacteria that cause gastritis and stomach ulcers with what researchers describe as almost vaccine-like effects, scientists in Japan have reported.

Researchers have long known that yogurt, a fermented milk product containing live bacteria, is a healthy source of calcium, protein, and other nutrients. Some brands of yogurt are now made with “probiotics” — certain types of bacteria — intended to improve health. The new yogurt represents a unique approach to fighting stomach ulcers, which affect 25 million people in the United States alone, and is part of a growing “functional food” market that now generates $60 billion in sales annually.

“With this new yogurt, people can now enjoy the taste of yogurt while preventing or eliminating the bacteria that cause stomach ulcers,” says study coordinator Hajime Hatta, Ph.D., a chemist at Kyoto Women’s University in Kyoto, Japan.

The new yogurt is already on store shelves in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. The study opens the door to possible arrival of the product in the U.S..

There are warnings for side effects for people who are sensitive to eggs. Aside from that – you know me – I’m looking forward to trying it. I’m not in a high-risk group for stomach ulcers; but, I’d like to see what the yogurt tastes like, how it rattles through my ancient system.

A hunt for a killer in Germany was hampered because police were chasing DNA that belonged to a factory worker who packaged the cotton used to collect evidence.

Authorities said the factory worker’s DNA was found at 39 crime scenes. Police pursued the trail for two years before realizing that the DNA collected at the crime scenes came from the cotton ball maker.

Bild reported Thursday that police had linked the killer to seven homicides, including a 2007 slaying in which a 22-year-old policewoman in Heilbronn was shot dead and her colleague was seriously injured.

Bernd Meiners, a spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office in Saarbrucken, acknowledged the mistake Wednesday. “There are considerable doubts about the existence of the ‘phantom killer’. The DNA has instead been linked to investigation materials,” he was quoted as saying.

These guys will never get a job in CSI.

A woman may have been distracted by talking on her cellphone when she walked into the side of a truck and was crushed to death under its wheels on Front Street in downtown Toronto, police said.

According to investigators, a delivery truck was making a turn from Blue Jays Way onto Front Street just as the 28-year-old woman started across Front Street. Because she was on her cellphone at the time, police said, she didn’t notice the truck, and walked right into the side of it. She fell to the street and was run over by the truck’s rear wheels, police said.

“There’s no way to say definitively yes or no, but it certainly didn’t help that she was talking on the phone while trying to cross a relatively busy street,” said police Sgt. Steve Burrows.

She was pronounced dead at the scene. Police have not released her name.

Police have not announced any charges against the driver of the truck.

She certainly qualified.

Daylife/Getty Images

A G20 summit next week will test leading countries’ appetite to fight climate change after spending trillions bailing out banks and shoring up the global economy…

“We need a very clear signal that the G20 views this as broader than fixing a financial crisis,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Program.

“When you see $100 billion going into rescuing one or two companies you have to ask yourself is this the most rational way of dealing with a (climate) threat that will have far greater economic consequences and human suffering…”

G20 powers could confirm next Thursday their commitment to forge a new climate treaty in Copenhagen, and urge spending wherever possible of a $2 trillion-3 trillion global stimulus on “green” causes, analysts say…

Applying environmental conditions to stimulus spending may also pare state aid and protectionism fears. But the fight against recession inevitably means that the climate cash left will have to lever private sector money.

Governments could get more for their buck by guaranteeing private sector loans, or under-writing “green bonds” where pension and insurance funds invested in clean energy…

“(Making) government spending work very, very hard in terms of leveraging private capital… that fits very much with the Copenhagen agenda,” HSBC analyst Nick Robins said.

It all begins to look like the world’s largest PR campaign and balancing act.

Though – I think – it is possible to use the Keynesian amendments to government support dependent upon Green conditions. I think we can count on that from the Obama delegation and at least lip service from Gordon Brown and Angela Merkel. The latter two are sneaking up on elections and look ready to topple over to the Right at the drop of a single molecule of fossil fuel.

BTW – watch the video all the way to the end

When Sean Dolan saw signs being carried by homeless people, he saw an opportunity.

He and his father wanted to drive people to a Web site, so they created PimpThisBum.com as a marketing tool and gave a homeless man a sign with the Web site’s address to hold while panhandling in Houston.

Their idea worked.

Visitors seeing the sign flocked to the site and in less than two months Dolan received $50,000 in donations and pledges through the site for the man, including a five-week alcohol treatment program donated by Sunray Treatment and Recovery based near Seattle, Washington.

“We knew that the same campaign with a sincere appeal and a Web site like helpthehomeless.com would be ignored,” he said. “We knew that if we insulted people’s sensitivity or appealed to their humor on a subject as sensitive as this we would get their attention.”

Kevin Dolan, with more than two decades of marketing and sales experience and his son, Sean, a Web-savvy college student with a small video camera and a passion for volunteer work, got the site off the ground with the help of Timothy Dale Edwards. He has been homeless and living under a busy Houston overpass for more than four years.

The Dolans’ offer to Timothy Edwards would be a hard one for any homeless person to refuse: $100 cash per day guaranteed, perhaps even more if the campaign was successful. All Edwards had to do was carry a homemade sign advertising www.PimpThisBum.com while he panhandled each day.

Interesting tale. There’s a lot more to it than I’m posting here as a teaser. Read it and reflect.