From owner-xj-digest-at-digest.net Fri Mar 9 14:53:38 2007 From: xj-digest xj-digest Friday, March 9 2007 Volume 01 : Number 2526 Forum for Discussion of XJ cherokees and wagoneers Brian Colucci Digest Coordinator Contents: Re: xj: toon town face lift? xj: Official: Firms Examining Chrysler Books (fwd) xj: Bush to Sign Biofuels Pact in Brazil (fwd) XJ Digest Home Page: http://www.digest.net/jeep/xj/ Send submissions to xj-digest-at-digest.net Send administrative requests to xj-digest-request-at-digest.net To unsubscribe, include the word unsubscribe by itself in the body of the message, unless you are sending the request from a different address than the one that appears on the list. Include the word help in a message to xj-digest-request to get a list of other majordomo commands. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 20:08:38 -0600 From: "David Bierschank" Subject: Re: xj: toon town face lift? Interesting shots. Reminds me of some shots I took in Leadville, CO last Summer. A group of five or six cars, all identical, came driving through town right in front of me, all dressed up in the prototype getup. I don't know what they were but I got several shots as they drove by. The Jeep in your post shows signs of Disney influence. Must be some cartoon guys that have been replaced my computers getting into auto styling. It will have to grow on me, but my first impression is better than that of the first Liberty I saw. Could be the enlarged eyes. Sounds like Diesel is late 08 model or maybe 09. David On 3/6/07, john wrote: > > wonder if it comes with a Diesel? > > http://www.allpar.com/trucks/jeep/liberty-2008.html > > ----- > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > Snohomish, Washington -o|||||o- where Jeeps don't rust, they mold > http://freegift.com ** http://wagoneers.com ** > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > - -- David Bierschank Okiebinder okc67mustang-at-gmail.com okiebinder-at-cox.net ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 10:09:26 -0800 (PST) From: john Subject: xj: Official: Firms Examining Chrysler Books (fwd) fyi ----- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Snohomish, Washington -o|||||o- where Jeeps don't rust, they mold http://freegift.com ** http://wagoneers.com ** - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sent from Express News DETROIT - Daimler-Benz AG paid $36 billion for the company in 1998, but industry analysts now place its value at anywhere from nothing to $13.7 billion. As two private equity firms examine Chrysler's books and consider making offers to buy the company this week, they'll be grappling with a question whose answer is uncertain: How much is the automaker worth? Estimates vary with the value placed on assets such as brand names, factories and materials, all weighed against Chrysler's estimated $19 billion long-term liability to pay health care benefits for unionized retirees. Some analysts say the liability exceeds the value of the assets, meaning that German parent DaimlerChrysler AG would have to pay someone to take Chrysler. Others say the company is worth more to the right buyer. "It's a hard thing to really figure out, and the uncertainty is what the health care liability really means," said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. "If that were removed, then it's a wholly different game." Experts from one of the equity firms, Cerberus Capital Management LP, were at Chrysler's Auburn Hills headquarters on Monday, said a company official who requested anonymity because the talks are confidential. Representatives of the Blackstone Group are to arrive later in the week, the official said Tuesday. In regular trading Tuesday, DaimlerChrysler's U.S. shares rose $2.81, or 4.3 percent, to close at $68.61 on the New York Stock Exchange. The visits are the latest developments since DaimlerChrysler Chairman Dieter Zetsche said Feb. 14 that all options are on the table for the Chrysler business and that he would not rule out a possible sale. Also said to be exploring a purchase of the struggling Chrysler are General Motors Corp., Canadian auto parts giant Magna International Inc., and private equity firms Apollo Management LP and the Carlyle Group. GM won't comment but won't deny the reports, while all four private equity firms have refused to comment. Cole said Chrysler's value varies with the potential buyer. A private equity firm could take the company into bankruptcy, shed its union contracts and then break it into pieces for sale at a handsome profit, he said. GM could sweep its estimated $50 billion retiree health care liability into Chrysler's and negotiate a deal with the United Auto Workers union to take on the cost at a discounted rate. GM, Cole said, could save billions of dollars on its health care liability by buying Chrysler. "If that were done, you could, I think, make a pretty good case that GM would be the ideal suitor," he said. Chrysler spokesman Jason Vines discounted analysts' estimates of a negative value, saying that Chrysler earned $4.92 billion between 1998 and 2006. He would not place a value on the company, but said it also is cutting expenses and will introduce 20 new vehicles over the next three years as well as 13 updated cars and trucks. The new products are a response to consumers' shifting from truck-based vehicles to more fuel-efficient car-based models, he said. Zetsche, speaking Tuesday at the Geneva Motor Show, said he is confident Chrysler Group's restructuring plan will work. He also said that the finance arm of Chrysler could be sold. Chrysler on Feb. 14 announced plans to shed 13,000 jobs, including 11,000 hourly and 2,000 salaried workers in the U.S. and Canada as part of its restructuring plan. The company plans to close one manufacturing plant and make cuts at several others in order to reduce factory capacity to match lower demand for its products. Chrysler lost $1.475 billion in 2006 and said it expects losses to continue through 2007. - --- By TOM KRISHER AP Business Writer ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 14:52:49 -0800 (PST) From: john Subject: xj: Bush to Sign Biofuels Pact in Brazil (fwd) ethanol and biodiesel should keep us in our mobile units. :) john Sent from Express News SAO PAULO, Brazil - President Bush sees the new agreement with Brazil on ethanol as a way to boost alternative fuels production in the Americas and get more cars running on something other than gasoline. Demonstrators upset with Bush's visit here worry that the president and his biofuels buddy, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, really have visions of an OPEC-like cartel on ethanol. While Bush's nemesis in Latin America, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, is using his vast oil wealth to court allies in the region, Bush is sealing the deal Friday on an ethanol agreement with Brazil where nearly eight in 10 new cars run on fuel made from sugar cane. Call it ethanol diplomacy. Brazil is the first stop on Bush's eighth trip to Latin America, which also includes visits to Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico. On his 45-minute ride from the airport to his hotel on Thursday night, Bush's motorcade sped by a dozen or so gas stations where drivers in this traffic-clogged city can pump either gasoline or ethanol. Bystanders gawked at Bush's limousine, but only a few people waved. Anti-American sentiment runs high in Brazil, especially over the war in Iraq. Bush missed the demonstrations earlier in the day protesting his visit. Riot police fired tear gas and beat some protesters with batons after more than 6,000 people held a largely peaceful march through the financial district of Sao Paulo. About 4,000 agents, including Brazilian troops and FBI and U.S. Secret Service officers, are working to secure Bush's stay in the city that lasts about 24 hours. Undeterred by protests, Bush says he's on a goodwill tour to talk about making sure the benefits of democracy - in the form of better housing, health care and education - are available to all Latin Americans, not just the wealthy. He's visiting a community center in a neighborhood where the ultra rich live in close proximity to the desperately poor. U.S. companies have donated equipment to the center where Bush plans to highlight programs to give poor and disadvantaged youth a way forward in life. In Latin America, however, Bush's trip is widely viewed as a way for the president to counter the influence of Chavez, the populist ally of Cuba's Fidel Castro, who has led a leftward political shift in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua. To taunt Bush, the Venezuelan leader will speak at an "anti-imperialist" rally in a soccer stadium on Saturday in Buenos Aires, Argentina, about 40 miles across the Plate River from Montevideo, where Bush will meet Uruguay's president, Tabor Vazquez. While in Sao Paulo, Bush also will visit a fuel depot, operated by a subsidiary of the state-owned Petrobras, where about 100 trucks come and go daily. Some protesters, carrying stalks of sugar cane, protested the ethanol agreement, which is being formally signed by officials with the State Department and the Brazilian foreign ministry. The demonstrators warned that increased ethanol production could lead to social unrest because most operations are run by wealthy families or corporations that reap the profits, while the poor are left to cut the cane with machetes. "Bush and his pals are trying to control the production of ethanol in Brazil, and that has to be stopped," said Suzanne Pereira dos Santos of Brazil's Landless Workers Movement. The White House dismisses talk that the ethanol agreement between Bush and Silva is aimed at setting up an "OPEC of Ethanol" cartel led by Washington and Brasilia. Bush says he wants to work with Brazil, a pioneer in ethanol production for decades, to push the development of alternative fuels in Central America and the Caribbean. He and Silva also want to see standards set in the growing industry to help turn ethanol into an internationally traded commodity. "It's not about production-sharing, it's about encouraging development and encourage the Caribbean and Central American countries to get into the game," Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said. In January, Bush called on Congress to require the annual use of 35 billion gallons of ethanol and other alternative fuels such as bio-diesel by 2017, a fivefold increase over current requirements. To help meet the goal, the president also is pushing research into making ethanol from material such as wood chips and switchgrass. One roadblock in the Bush-Silva ethanol talks is a 54-cent tariff the United States has imposed on every gallon of ethanol imported from Brazil. Bush says it's not up for discussion. The administration says the tariff, which makes sugarcane ethanol more expensive in America, is needed to subsidize U.S. corn growers ramping up production of ethanol in the United States. Silva, who has been invited to the Camp David presidential retreat on March 31, says he'll complain to Bush about the tariff, which he likens to other agricultural trade barriers the United States and Europe have in place. Also on the agenda were efforts to salvage the World Trade Organization talks - the so-called Doha round - that collapsed in discord last summer over farm subsidies and other disputes. - --- By DEB RIECHMANN Associated Press Writer ------------------------------ End of xj-digest V1 #2526 *************************