Next to news that Ford lost almost $6 billion dollars in the 4th quarter, was South Florida based retailer AutoNation. Their 4th Quarter net was up 30% but sales were down 34%. How they earn more money on less sales in a down market is a testament to successful business modelling and sheer vision. AutoNation [...]
Tag | Florida
Wayne’s World of Auto Gold
Posted on 29 January 2009 by Denis Campbell | Comments (0) | Tags: 4th Quarter net up 30% but sales were down 34%, across the USA, Alamo and National Car Rental, AutoNation, AutoNation is the brainchild of South Florida’s Wayne H, Blockbuster Video, Blockbuster was simple enough, business creations, Buy the fleet at a deep discount from automakers direct, buy the video, Crystal Water, Depreciate and rent the asset recovering a huge amount, earn more money on less sales in a down market, find cash businesses and re-use/re-sell assets as many, Florida, Florida Marlins Baseball, Ford lost almost $6 billion dollars in the 4th quarter, golden boy Don Smiley (yes his real name), Huizenga is not a household name outside of Florida, invented or brought to great heights and then moved on, invest in and build the franchise, I’m just a garbage man, Make money on depreciation, make sure it is something people want/need, recover up to 50% of the purchase price at sale, rent it for a specific amount of time, renting the asset, South Florida based retailer AutoNation, testament to successful business modelling and sheer vi, The Miami Dolphins, then sell the asset (the DVD or game cartridge) at a di, vantage point the operating philosophy was simple, Waste Management, Wayne's World of auto gold, well-recognised global brands
It’s The Ballot Count, Stupid! Florida Déjà Vu in Arizona
Posted on 23 December 2008 by Denis Campbell | Comments (2) | Tags: $2-billion RTA highways measure, 000 counties use machines, 000 early and mail-in ballots scanned in the system, 2003 fund raising letter, 2007 top to bottom review of all voting machines, 3rd rail for state officials, 5, 70 memory cards failed, 8, ability to print complete election summary reports, accuracy, accurately counting 100-million votes, actual election data, actual votes cast, again?, allow anyone to manipulate results, Americans United for Democracy Integrity and Transparen, Anyone can create the result they wish to see, Arizona, Arizona native son John McCain, Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer, as ballots come in, asked questions about broken seals and ballot handling, AUDIT AZ, AZ civil election law, ballot machine audit tapes, between January 2004 and 2006 every election had someon, Bev Harris, Bill Risner, BlackBoxVoting.org, blatant internal manipulation possible, brief expanded to include voting systems, broken election system, Bryan Crane, CA Secretary of State Deborah Bowen, cards store ballots scanned, citizen public information requests, Comedian George Carlin, company known for bank cash machines, computer code, conspiracy theorists, database manipulation, databases, definitive election result, déjà vu, disappear from their website, disputes AUDIT AZ’s claims, downloaded it and with a team of scientists saw how rid, Dr. John Moffat, dumbfounded at the outcome, early voting, Election officials, election officials printed two copies of the Election S, elections stolen without a trace, Elections Unit, elite Bush fund-raiser, Emmy-Award nominated HBO documentary film “Hacking Demo, even worse, every security flaw our group reported was there, every vendor’s machines failed, ex-aerospace engineer, federal government standards ignored, Film producer, findings can only be confirmed by hand re-count of the, Finnish computer scientist, Florida, flummoxed why Attorney General Terry Goddard refuses to, for whom, forensic accounting trail, former CEO Walden O'Dell, fought every scrap of information, found irregularities, gaping back-door data holes, GEMS tabulation system, GEMS’ foundation program for calculating results, General Election, George W. Bush, hacked scanner memory cards, half of US counties use Diebold GEMS tabulation system, hand count audit of the AZ Primary Election, hard election data, Harri Hursti, how many ballots were cast, Hursti manipulated a memory card, if someone of moderate technical ability tried the Hurs, illegal to view, intensely divided, interim reports. official excuse... laziness. purchased, Jim March, John R. Brakey, Katherine Harris, last-minute external pressure strategically placed to s, lawsuits, lax data security, limit ballot challenges, live, mad rush to sell systems, made their own party sue them, manipulate enough memory cards to affect a result, manipulating a crop scanner’s memory card, mansion in Columbus’ Upper Arlington suburb, marathon 18+ hour long day, May 2006, Microsoft Access Programmer’s Manual, mistrustful, MS Access, needed the assurance of security, network cables into room off the main tabulation room., no controls, no sign out procedures, not Democrat vs. Republican, not enough care taken to protect data, Office of Strategic Technology Planning, officially registered Democratic and Libertarian Party, Ohio Republican Party, on-camera experiment, ordered arrested in Tucson, otherwise share this report, O’Dell "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral, partisan, personal invitations fund-raiser, Pima County, Pima County Democratic Party attorney, placed in sealed envelopes, polarised, pored over the data, preliminary totals, prima facie case for looking into possible problems, print, pro vs. anti-development, procedures, produced correct total number of ballots scanned, proprietary and secret, pushed All-In, removed as chairman in 2005, removed from machines, renamed it twice, report is valuable, revelations of improprieties during his tenure, rubber stamp, Russell Michaels, save time, sent to County offices after polls close, showed Counties back-door ‘tricks’ to get around system, software code, spit out a vote count radically different from that of, standards and training barebones at best, state chair Bush-Cheney 2000 and 2004, State Rep. Ted Downing, summer of 2005, Supervisor of Elections, system design, system logs via court order, systems repeatedly failed basic security tests, systems will undergo strain, table creation/manipulation, transparency, unable to sell it, uncovered election fraud, uncovering vote machine/county worker fraud, under increased time pressure, Vendors, was until BlackBoxVoting.org’s Bev Harris found it sitt, what happened, where, wipe it on flaming wood, worry about ballot security, Zogby poll from hell, ‘illusion’ of Ballot Box security, ‘Rangers and Pioneers’, “Hursti hack”
(Reprise article)
(Pictured L to R: Jim March, Bill Risner, John R. Brakey of AUDIT AZ)
Millions will soon begin early voting in the General Election. Nearly half of all US counties will use Diebold GEMS tabulation system. Election officials have the ability to print off complete election summary reports throughout voting as ballots come in. This [...]
On the Road: I-4 Corridor, Florida
Posted on 03 November 2008 by Denis Campbell | Comments (0) | Tags: "You're all lawyers, 000 lawyers to FloridaHillsborough County, a Boston criminal defense lawyer who had long backed Jo, a Florida attorney who does inside poll watching in Bro, Barack Obama supporter Mike Vitali, Barack Obama's "Lawyers for Change" link, bought a plane ticket, came to Florida to "make sure nobody is disenfranchised, College students need the housing, correspondent for fivethirtyeight.com, Craig Winters, Everything is on his own dime, Florida, he laughed, He personifies hope for a better future for our fractur, I-4 Corridor, In Florida the vote needs to be protected, Iowa, Jane Sender, Lawyers for Change, met with a group of Boston-area lawyers to schedule vol, most popularly for the proximity, New Hampshire, Ohio, On the Road, out-of-state volunteer coordinator, Sean Quinn, Some went to Pennsylvania, the campaign planned on bringing 5, took off two weeks, which includes Tampa
by Sean Quinn, correspondent for fivethirtyeight.com.
“I slept and woke to the crazy exultant sounds of music and Dean and Marylou talking and the great green land rolling by. ‘Where are we?’ ‘Just passed the tip of Florida, man. Florida!”
– Jack Kerouac, “On the Road”
In Florida, the vote needs to be protected. Barack Obama supporter [...]
McCain Aide Acknowledges Voter Suppression Strategy
Posted on 22 October 2008 by Charley James | Comments (3) | Tags: adding “It’s our last hope”, challenge ballots, Charley James, colorado, Florida, Hell, I may resign in the next day or two because I want McCa, I think it’s because they know the election is lost in, Just Like Zimbabwe, McCain, McCain Aide Acknowledges Voter Suppression Strategy, my contact said then, Pennsylvania and maybe a few other states creating a st, people at the RNC and groups out in Ohio, relatively important person inside a presidential campa, they want to cast doubts on the legitimacy of Obama’s v, This isn’t what I signed up for and I don’t want to be, voter harassment, Voter suppression and wonky Diebold machines, we’re losing it in an unfair fight in spite of the bull, why
by Charley James
Six days ago, I wrote about how a solid contact inside the McCain campaign explained to me what’s left for McCain in the remaining days of the election battle after his terrible performance in the third debate.
“Voter suppression and wonky Diebold machines,” my contact said then, adding “It’s our last hope.” He stuns me [...]
Senate Plop-plop, Fizz-fizz
Posted on 02 October 2008 by Denis Campbell | Comments (1) | Tags: 000 cut in his bank business credit line, 1991, 80-years as Florida’s corporate bank, Bank of America, Bank of Boston, bi-partisan decision to save global credit markets, Blue collar Brockton, California, captain of the Exxon Valdez, cardboard boxes, cavalier attitude, Charley James, Comptroller of the Currency, credit crack addicts, decimated, do without the hassle, First Union Bank acquired fire sale assets, Fleet Financial, Florida, founded in 1784, gobbled up by Wachovia, hard to feel sorry, hatred for bankers, London City HQ, mailing free credit cards to students and infants, Miami’s Southeast Banking Corporation, new-found religion of ‘prudent restraint’, real estate broker, rescued by Citigroup for the fire sale price of $1 a sh, school bully, Senate, shut off the lending spigot, Southeastern Massachusetts, strangling markets, Terri Tobin-Young, trying to sleep it off, typically over-reacted, unilateral $10, USA’s oldest chartered bank, Wall Street, who kicks your butt seven ways to Sunday to get ‘them’, years of irresponsible lending
by Denis Campbell
$700,000,000,000… oh what a relief, it is! With apologies to Alka-Seltzer, one chamber crawled out of the sandbox and reached an unpopular but bi-partisan decision to save global credit markets last night as banks held a Russian Roulette pistol with six chambers full to our heads and yelled, “stop me before I shoot.”
Crisis [...]
They’re All Bloody Swing States!
Posted on 09 September 2008 by Denis Campbell | Comments (0) | Tags: 22 months, cannot have both candidates together on the road for th, Chuck Todd, CNN, colorado, cool new toy from Microsoft, decision '08, demanding access, easy to classify the races as urban vs. rural, eighteen state strategy, election is a dead heat, electoral map, fairly well grounded prognosticator, Florida, GOP stronghold states, hot-spots, lo-tech dry erase white board, master of polls, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, moved decidedly Democratic, MSM, NBC political director, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, obama, Ohio, Pennsylvania, rivals Anderson Cooper, Sarah Palin, South Carolina, survives the scrutiny and arrogance of her own party, Swing States, Tim Russert, too close to call, Virginia, white vs. black, Wisconsin
Tim Russert and his lo-tech dry erase white board will not be with us this election night. Chuck Todd, NBC political director, master of polls and fairly well grounded prognosticator has a cool new toy from MSNBC’s partners at Microsoft. It rivals the cool touch screen Anderson Cooper plays with over at CNN.
The problem, [...]
Obama Dominating the ‘Cool Stuff’ Race
Posted on 21 July 2008 by Denis Campbell | Comments (0) | Tags: 18 swing states, 5:1 cool lead, Alaska, Bob Barr, Bush stronghold states, colorado, commemorative art, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, McCain, merchandises, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, obama, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Ralph Nader, Virginia, websites, Wisconsin
Forget global tours and best global warming policy. The real race this fall is the ‘chatzky’ race – which candidate has and sells the best ‘stuff’ on their website. In that key race Team Obama has a 5:1 merchandising lead. His well organised field staff knows how to blanket and flog every area to raise [...]
Nuclear Options Have Unpredictable Fallout
Posted on 22 May 2008 by Denis Campbell | Comments (0) | Tags: clinton, Convention, delegates, Democratic National Committee, DNC Chairman, Florida, Howard Dean, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, nuclear option, obama, rules and bylaw committee
We wrote about the so-called “nuclear option,” Senator Hillary Clinton is hoping to invoke during the 31 May Convention Rules and By-Law committee meeting. Simply, she wants to use her 13-supporting delegates to push through the seating of the entire Florida and Michigan delegations at full strength.
Florida and Michigan did not play by party rules [...]
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