Saturday, October 22, 2005

GM's call for health care reform the latest push by auto industry

When General Motors Corp. struck a tentative deal with its union to
cut health care benefits, it renewed a call that has been pushed by
automakers in recent years for more help from Washington on health
care.

GM, the world's No. 1 automaker, expects to spend $5.6 billion on
health care this year and says the escalating costs places it at a
disadvantage competing against foreign companies whose national
governments largely pay for health care.

"Health care costs in this country are out of control," said GM
Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner, announcing the agreement with the
United Auto Workers on Monday. "We would really like to see much more
focus and leadership from elected officials, especially in
Washington."

Wagoner's pitch comes amid trying times for the U.S. auto industry and
the decision by GM's financially troubled parts supplier, Delphi
Corp., to seek bankruptcy protection. This past week, GM posted a $1.6
billion third-quarter loss, while Ford reported a loss of $284
million.

Ford Chairman and CEO Bill Ford also brought up health care in talking
about his company's losses.

"We need to have a debate nationally that includes business and
obviously includes the politicians," said Bill Ford, who argues that
health care costs cannot be dealt with simply by shifting them around
between companies and workers. "It's got to come up and it's got to
come fast."

While members of Michigan's congressional delegation support steps to
help the auto industry and other manufacturers saddled with mounting
costs for health care and pensions, it's unclear whether the
automakers can rouse enough support in Congress to address a problem
much larger than the industry.

Some members of Congress say interim steps can be taken, such as using
technology to reduce medical paperwork costs and helping companies and
insurers pay an employee's catastrophic medical costs in exchange for
firms holding down premiums.

But with Congress facing many other obligations -- such as paying for
the post-Hurricane Katrina recovery -- special treatment is not
likely.

"The federal government isn't going to come out and bail out their
health care -- the government isn't going to assume their health care
costs," said Rep. Mike Rogers, a Brighton Republican. "It has to be a
partnership."

Under the tentative agreement, the UAW would reduce GM's health care
costs by $3 billion a year before taxes and cut its retiree health
care liabilities by $15 billion, or 25 percent.

GM retirees, who now pay nothing for their health care coverage, would
be required to pay up to $752 annually in premiums for health care for
a family, while active hourly workers would pay more for their
prescription drugs and defer $1 an hour in future pay increases to
help pay for retirees' health care.

David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann
Arbor, Mich., said mounting health care costs have become a problem
larger than the auto industry and are amplified by increased
globalization. He argues the long-term issues have yet to be tackled.

"I think we haven't really connected this to quite the level we should
with the sense of urgency to really begin to deal with this in a
fundamental way," Cole said.

Health care premiums have grown dramatically in recent years. A survey
released last month by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that
premiums have soared 73 percent since 2000 and grew an average of 9.2
percent in 2005. The rate of growth this year is more than three times
the growth in workers' earnings.

"There has to be a major restructuring of how we fund health care and
all that takes is political will," said U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a
Democrat from Lansing.

Stabenow is backing legislation that would help computerized health
care information systems, providing $4 billion in grants and tax
incentives over five years for hospitals and other medical facilities.
The program could save the nation's health care system $300 billion a
year, Stabenow says, and the funding would offset the cost of putting
the new technology in place.

Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn, has long supported a national health
insurance plan. He said an improved health care system remains a
pressing need, but notes there are many obstacles.

"You've got to get the support of the administration, get support of
Republicans and overcome the opposition of the insurance lobby and
pharmaceuticals," he said.

Other political leaders are beginning to focus attention on the
problems of the auto industry. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New
York, urged President Bush on Thursday to convene a national auto
industry summit to look at issues such as health care and pension
costs, fuel efficiency and foreign competition.

GM said it plans to work with the UAW to ask the federal government to
help reduce health care costs. It does not back the union's support
for a national health care plan.

Art Luna, president of UAW Local 602, which represents nearly 3,000
UAW members who will be working at GM's new Delta Township plant just
west of Lansing next year, said labor agreements can only do so much.

"The Big three needs to understand that health care issues aren't
something that can be negotiated across the bargaining table. They can
be bandaged, but they need to be fixed in Washington," Luna said.

www.freep.com

US Discriminates in Medicines for Minorities

People of Color (Latinos, Afro-Americans, and other minorities) in the
United States are victims of secondhand medicines and non-inclusion in
medicine research.

California legislators and the NAACP recently denounced that only 10
percent of Latinos, Blacks or Asians are included in research on
effects of medicines, which is responsible for greater mortality among
minorities.

The American Medical Association has found great disparities between
the health of Anglo-Saxons and the rest of the population caused by
failure to include other groups in research of medicines.

At the "Evidence and Impact of Medicine on Communities of Color" forum
in Los Angeles this week, Dr. Randall Maxey, an internal medical
specialist, explained, "What is good for the Anglo-Saxon organism is
not necessarily good for an Afro-American, Latino, or other group."

He added that some medicines react better on Afro-Americans but they
are not selected because they were not the majority during the testing
process."

The physician said that generally, decisions on which medicines to
produce are made based on the reaction they cause in the majority of
the population, so adequate remedies for minorities are never chosen.

The NAACP has proposed inclusion of these groups in research to close
the existing gap in mortality rates between whites and other racial
groups.

www.plenglish.com

Google's Stock Scales New Heights

Google Inc.'s market value briefly surpassed $100 billion for the
first time Friday, its stock scaling new heights after an earnings and
revenue spike that astonished investors.

The online search leader's shares traded as high as $346.43 on the
Nasdaq Stock Market before backtracking as the day progressed. The
shares gained $36.70, or 12.1 percent, to close at $339.90.

The slight retreat left Google's market value $98 billion after just
seven years in business. That was nearly $20 billion above the market
value of Hewlett Packard Co. _ a Silicon Valley pioneer founded 66
years ago.

Google's shares have nearly quadrupled since their initial public
offering at $85 just over 14 months ago _ a stretch that has been
marked by stunning financial growth and a steady stream of new
products designed to lure even more traffic to a search engine that
seems to spit out profits as efficiently as it does answers.

The innovation, combined with media consumption habits that are
shifting more advertising to the Web, paid off in a big way during the
third quarter.

Google's profit, announced after the market closed Thursday, increased
by more than sevenfold to $381.2 million. Excluding advertising
commissions, revenue more than doubled to $1.05 billion.

After crunching the numbers, some of the most optimistic analysts
became even more enthusiastic about Google's prospects.

ThinkEquity Partners analyst John Tinker and Hoefer & Arnett analyst
Martin Pyykkonen both raised their targets for Google shares to $425,
up from $350, while Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney predicted the
shares would hit $430 within the next year.

"There is definitely a bit of a 'wow factor' here," Pyykkonen said.
"The (company's) earnings are looking better than you could have
imagined in your wildest dreams."

Google probably will make even more money during the next two
quarters, Mahaney said. That's because advertisers typically spend
more during the holidays and people usually are connected to the
Internet more frequently during the dreariness of winter, creating
more opportunities for them to visit Google and click on ads.

Mahaney and other analysts also expect Google's stock to be added to
the Standard & Poor's 500, a move that would provide another lift to
its stock as portfolios tied to that blue-chip index snap up more
shares.

In another bullish sign, Google executives on Thursday said more
Fortune 500 companies are lining up to join an online advertising
network that so far has been dominated by mostly small and
medium-sized businesses.

The company "appears to be tapping into new growth opportunities that
may be just as significant as the ones that it already has tapped
into," Mahaney said.

Google is outperforming Yahoo Inc., the owner the Internet's other
major advertising network, largely because it has developed a formula
to display ads more likely to intrigue its visitors.

That connection to the consumer zeitgeist is generating more
revenue-generating clicks on the ads. Google's system, which relies
heavily on low-cost automation, ensures that a big chunk of revenue
turns into pure profit.

Investors, in turn, have rewarded Google for its technical savvy.
Google is currently worth nearly twice as much as Yahoo, whose market
value during Friday's trading stood at $52 billion.

Although it may seem like everything that Google touches turns to
gold, the Mountain, View, Calif.-based company still faces significant
risks.

"The higher their stock price goes, the more likely that others are
going to spend more money to get a piece of the action," Mahaney said.

Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo already have been investing heavily in
search, hoping to narrow its lead and, more recently, veteran media
mogul Barry Diller entered the space when his InterActiveCorp bought
Ask Jeeves Inc. for $2.3 billion.

Despite the tougher competition, Google remains well ahead of its
rivals, according to comScore Media Metrix and Nielsen/NetRatings.

Although it keeps introducing new products, Google's profits remained
tied to advertising _ a field susceptible to volatile swings of
fortune.

"In terms of prudence, you would like to see other revenue streams,"
Pyykkonen said.

Finally, Google is expanding so quickly that it's bound to test the
management skills of its multibillionaire brain trust _ co-founders
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, along with CEO Eric Schmidt. The company
has been hiring about 10 new employees per day during the past six
months, a spree that's expected to continue for several years.

Friday, though, Google's leadership had little reason to stress.

After the day's big market gains, Page and Brin, both 32, each held
Google stakes worth $12 billion while Schmidt's holdings were worth
$4.7 billion.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All right reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

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Movie review: Mirromask

The beauty and appeal of fantasy is that it doesn't have to make
sense. The things you see in a fantasy world do not have to have exact
allegorical or symbolic equivalents in the "real" world. Sometimes,
fantasy worlds just run away from their creators, taking on their own
bizarre and idiosyncratic personalities. The joy of being a reader or
viewer of the genre lies in getting caught up in these flights of pure
fancy.

I suspect that this is why many people despise fantasy. "But it isn't
real! Why should I watch this, when it's all fake? It doesn't relate
to my life." Some just shrug off fantasy as silly and irrelevant.

If you see yourself in the above crowd, I can tell you now, you
probably won't like Mirrormask. Unapologetically fantastical, the
movie has the organic feel of a garden run completely wild. Its
creators, Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, plotted out the beds, laid the
stones for the paths, planted and fertilized the seedlings, and then
let it all grow as it would.

Mirrormask could be classified as a children's movie, with a young
lead and themes that will appeal to kids. But it's not the sort of
mindless drivel that often masquerades as children's cinema. The
visual splendor and timelessness of the story will enthrall people of
all ages, and no one will confuse the heroine Helena with Lizzie
Maguire. Mirrormask successfully combines a child's fascination with
adventure and the unreal and an adult's fascinations with children
growing up.

The movie's plot is as basic and familiar as they come: a
fifteen-year-old girl wants to carve out her own life, separate from
her parents'. Just one twist: her parents own a circus, and she's a
performer. All Helena wants is a "normal life," she tells her mother,
right before adding that she wishes her mother were dead. But be
careful what you wish for - her mother, Joanne, collapses in the
middle of a show the very same evening. Suddenly, Joanne is sick, and
the girl is convinced it's her fault. The night of Joanne's surgery,
Helena goes to sleep and wakes up in Gaiman and McKean's surreal
version of Wonderland.

Shortly after wandering out of what isn't exactly her apartment
complex, she meets the masked Valentine (Jason Barry). The two nearly
get swallowed up by a carbon blackness thatis apparently sweeping
through the entire world. Predictably, the fantasy realm faces
extinction, and our young protagonist quickly volunteers to save it.
The Queen of Light has fallen into a coma, and Helena has to find the
Mirrormask to wake her and restore balance to this world.

Anyone who has ever so much as looked at the back of a book in the
sci-fi/fantasy section of Barnes & Noble could foresee this plot. It's
Joseph Campbell's classic hero-myth formula. Where this movie shines
is not in the originality of the basic storyline but in its execution.

Helena soon discovers that this strange universe is actually the world
of her own drawings, a multitude of which cover an entire wall of her
bedroom. For the adults watching this film, the story becomes a
parable of creativity. Helena brings this world into being with her
pen and her mind, and then enters into it to work out her issues with
herself and her mother. Through her art, she is able to externalize
her internal conflict and see it more clearly.

The young actress playing Helena, Stephanie Leonidas, has appeared in
several popular television shows in the UK. Leonidas rescues a role
that could easily have been irritating to the extreme and makes Helena
sympathetic, even at her most frustrating. She avoids the obnoxious
precociousness typical of leads in children's movies, displaying a
believable adolescent combination of childishness and maturity.

Director McKean's credits include a few TV projects and the covers for
Gaiman's Sandman comics. Personally, I wondered how his mind-bending
art would translate to the movie screen. I tend think of animation as
either entirely computer-generated or entirely hand-drawn, but
Mirrormask combines live-action and CG while also layering in elements
of Helena's static drawings. These techniques produce a wonderfully
real-looking otherworld. What you see on screen is a fantasy universe
that you can believe in.

McKean's gleeful use of the technology makes the movie work. When he
litters the background with flying books, schools of fish drifting by
in mid-air, bird-beaked gorillas, and rainbow-winged, human-faced
cats, the sheer uselessness of it all gives the world a depth all its
own. There's a sense that there are elements of the fantasy that
you're missing just out of the corner of your eye. McKean never drops
the illusion of reality - he refuses to acknowledge that this world is
fake or contrived. It may exist only in Helena's mind and in her art,
but that doesn't make it any less beautiful, or any less true.

www.harvardindependent.com