Recently, I wrote about the Big Three Auto companies and how they need to change, and change their product lines if they wanted to stay “big”.   Since those columns there has been even more evidence that these companies are struggling to keep up with current realities.  Additional plants have closed, the production of trucks has been dramatically lowered, the projected number of vehicles to be sold this year has been lowered and now Chrysler has gotten out of the leasing business because the resale value of the big vehicles leased has plummeted.

Earlier in the year I wrote several columns about Brazil and how it will be one of the countries leading the world with economic growth, vision and innovation.  It is a country that leads the world in smart use of ethanol.  It is a country that has a sustained rate of economic growth and a country that seems to be finally realizing its potential as being the country of the future.

A good friend sent me a video about a Ford plant in Brazil that shows what the new and future auto manufacturing plants of the world can and will look like.  It is interesting that this Ford plant is in Brazil and not in the U.S.    Brazil is in the stage of becoming a new model country for manufacturing while the U.S. is stuck in institutional constructs of the last century.  The good news is that Ford has found a new way to …

There is a lot of pessimism in the air.  As we come to the end of the first month of 2008 it seems that many are in a negative, hunker down state of mind.  The stock markets are being fueled by fear.  The commentators are speaking as though a major recession has begun. Casualties continue at too high a level in foreign combat, and of course it is cold and dark outside for much of the country.  All this in a country that seems to have optimism in its national fiber. 

The Pew Research Center just published a study that basically states that people are more pessimistic than usual coming into 2008.  The Pew Center has consistently polled Americans in December about whether they think the following year will be better or worse that the year just ending.  The numbers for December 2007 were that 50% of the people thought 2008 would be better, and 34% thought it will be worse.  This compares to 57% and 28% in December 2006.  In December 1998 the numbers were 59% and 25%.  Finally, in the middle of the Internet bubble, 66% thought that 2000 would better than 1999 while only 19% thought it would be worse (in spite of the looming Y2K fear that was rampant that month).

 Fear seems to spread virally …