No Soup for you GM!
The new U.S. president is now playing hard ball with GM, and telling them to shape up or he will let them go under. This is an interesting tactic (that maybe should have been used with the Financial folks, but that is many trillions of dollars under the bridge already), which could spell 3 million more people on the unemployment line if threats of letting GM go down, transpire.
Will this happen? Nope, but it is an interesting sabre rattling tactic by the new regime in Washington. I could be wrong, but in a better optics move the GM Chairman stepped down, which shows change is coming in some fashion, but what kind of change? The bad optics is Mr. Wagoner is taking with him a compensation package of about $23 Million, where did THAT money come from?
Skype Your iPhone
That one surprises me, I thought Apple would keep the iPhone VoIP free for a while to appease their Big Phone company clients, but Skype announced yesterday a VoIP client for the iPhone. Right now it will only work on the Wi-Fi side of things, however this does mean the iPhone users will be able to save money by not using their precious talk minutes, or Big Phone Company data network minutes either, they will use their Skype client instead.
I suspect this is yet another step towards a ubiquitous network, and it should be interesting to see what new technology brings it all together (remember VoIP is about 10 years old already).
Stock Market Roller Coaster Continues
Back down the hill we go, with stock prices continuing to be quite volatile, it should be interesting to see where the prices go again this week, with talk of bail outs being cut and such. Stay tuned the very bumpy ride looks to be continuing for a good while longer.
Eating out and Drinking Out More
Marginally, up about 0.1% in January (according to Stats Canada), which is another interesting view. Why are we eating and drinking out more, even though we are in a financial crisis? To boost our spirits (pardon the pun)? We deserve a night out? Interesting statistic, but that means the food and beverage business will continue to be hiring folks and keeping them employed, which is a good thing. A new pub is opened near our house, and it does seem very busy (the Senior Citizens bus there on St. Patty’s day at 1:00 PM was a nice touch), maybe it’s time to do some investigative reporting.
Unfortunately Skype for iPhone is US only at the moment. At least I haven’t managed to coax it out of anywhere sensible yet. If you know how to get it in Canada, please let me know.