Ford transforms design leadership

Ford transforms design leadership

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Piaskowski: Cars and crossovers



















DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. has overhauled its design team amid new CEO Jim Hackett's quest to transform the automaker into a leaner, quicker-thinking organization.


The changes include an expansion of Ford's strategic design group to enable designers to work more collaboratively at a centralized location in Dearborn, Mich. The designers have been reorganized into two camps: one covering cars and crossovers, and another handling trucks, SUVs and commercial vehicles.



Woodhouse: Lincoln, global strategic design












As Automotive News reported July 10, Ford is bringing Joel Piaskowski, Ford of Europe's design director, to the U.S. as global director of design overseeing cars and crossovers. Chris Svensson, design director for the Americas, has been named global director of design overseeing trucks, SUVs and commercial vehicles.


David Woodhouse, director of Lincoln design, has been named director of global strategic design in addition to his duties with Ford's luxury brand. In his new role, Woodhouse will oversee the expansion of Ford's global strategic design group.


Amko Leenarts will replace Piaskowski as Ford of Europe's design director. In addition, Freeman Thomas, strategic design director at Ford's advanced design studio in California, will retire at year end.



Svensson: Trucks, SUVs, commercial












Moray Callum, whose position as Ford's vice president of design is unchanged, said the moves are meant to enhance the team's thinking. He said the company will focus even more on consumer experiences.


One of Callum's biggest goals, he said, is to shorten product-development times so that a new vehicle's final designs are set closer to when it goes on sale.



Callum: Focus on consumer experience












"If there's a strong strategy behind decisions, it makes decisions easier," he told Automotive News.


Callum said the changes to the design team, which took effect July 1, were in the works before Hackett took over in May, but that it fits in seamlessly with his desire to transform the company. He said: "We see him as a great supporter of design overall."












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Raid Your Kitchen to Make Colorful Marbled Milk Paper

Raid Your Kitchen to Make Colorful Marbled Milk Paper

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There are a few different ways to create marbled paper, but if you ask us, the milk method is by far the coolest. The dish soap mixing with the colored milk creates such mesmerizing swirls. We almost didn't make it to the paper-dipping part because the first step was so fun. Try different food coloring pairings to create all sorts of fun paper that works as standalone art, mattes for photos or homemade cards.

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SUPPLIES:

  • Almond milk ($9 for 1 quart, amazon.com)
  • Casserole dish ($12 for 2-quart dish, amazon.com)
  • Food coloring ($3 for set of 4, amazon.com)
  • Dish soap ($7 for 2 bottles, amazon.com)
  • Cotton swabs ($3 for box of 500, amazon.com)
  • Watercolor paper ($10 for 24 sheets, amazon.com)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Pour a 1/2-inch layer of almond milk into a casserole dish. (Note: You can use any type of milk, but cow's milk may result in a sour smell, so we'd recommend sticking with almond.)

2. Sprinkle drops of food coloring around the tray, spaced evenly apart.

3. Fill a small, separate bowl with a couple squirts of dish soap.

4. Dip a cotton swab in dish soap and lightly tap each drop of food coloring.

5. Use a clean cotton swab to swirl the colors and create a marbled design.

6. Lay the watercolor paper down onto the surface of the milk and press. Then lift it straight up to remove. Hold the paper on its side over the casserole dish to allow the colors to drip and spread to add more of a marbled effect.

6. Lay the paper flat, colored side sup, to dry.

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Flush times for hackers in booming cyber security job market

Flush times for hackers in booming cyber security job market

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LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - The surge in far-flung and destructive cyber attacks is not good for national security, but for an increasing number of hackers and researchers, it is great for job security.

The new reality is on display in Las Vegas this week at the annual Black Hat and Def Con security conferences, which now have a booming side business in recruiting.

"Hosting big parties has enabled us to meet more talent in the community, helping fill key positions and also retain great people," said Jen Ellis, a vice president with cybersecurity firm Rapid7 Inc, which filled the hip Hakkasan nightclub on Wednesday at one of the week's most popular parties.

Twenty or even 10 years ago, career options for technology tinkerers were mostly limited to security firms, handfuls of jobs inside mainstream companies, and in government agencies.

But as tech has taken over the world, the opportunities in the security field have exploded.

Whole industries that used to have little to do with technology now need protection, including automobiles, medical devices and the ever-expanding Internet of Things, from thermostats and fish tanks to home security devices.

More insurance companies now cover breaches, with premiums reduced for strong security practices. And lawyers are making sure that cloud providers are held responsible if a customer’s data is stolen from them and otherwise pushing to hold tech companies liable for problems, meaning they need security experts too.

The non-profit Center for Cyber Safety and Education last month predicted a global shortage of 1.8 million skilled security workers in 2022. The group, which credentials security professionals, said that a third of hiring managers plan to boost their security teams by at least 15 percent.

For hackers who prefer to pick things apart rather than stand guard over them, an enormous number of companies now offer "bug bounties," or formal rewards, for warnings about vulnerabilities that leave them exposed to criminals or spies.

One of the outside firms that handle such programs, HackerOne, said it has paid out $18.8 million since 2014 to fix 50,140 bugs, with about half of that work done in the past year.

Mark Litchfield made it into the firm's "Hacker Hall of Fame" last year by being the first to pull in more than $500,000 in bounties through the platform, well more than he earned at his last full-time security job, at consulting firm NCC Group.

In the old days, "The only payout was publicity, free press," Litchfield said. "That was the payoff then. The payoff now is literally to be paid in dollars."

There are other emerging ways to make money too. Justine Bone's medical hacking firm, MedSec, took the unprecedented step last year of openly teaming with an investor who was selling shares short, betting that they would lose value.

It was acrimonious, but St Jude Medical ultimately fixed its pacemaker monitors, which could have been hacked, and Bone predicted others will try the same path.

"Us cyber security nerds have spent most of our careers trying to make the world a better place by engaging with companies, finding bugs which companies may or may not repair," Bone said.

"If we can take our expertise out to customers, media, regulators, nonprofits and think tanks and out to the financial sector, the investors and analysts, we start to help companies understand in terms of their external environment."

Chris Wysopal, co-founder of code auditor Veracode, bought in April by CA Technologies, said that he was initially skeptical of the MedSec approach but came around to it, in part because it worked. He appeared at Black Hat with Bone.

"Many have written that the software and hardware market is dysfunctional, a lemon market, because buyers don't know how insecure the products they purchase are," Wysopal said in an interview.

"I’d like to see someone fixing this broken market. Profiting off of that fix seems like the best approach for a capitalism-based economy."

Reporting by Joseph Menn and Jim Finkle; additional reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Grant McCool



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USB 3.2 Doubles the Speed of Cables You Already Have

USB 3.2 Doubles the Speed of Cables You Already Have

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The latest USB 3.1 specification is pretty fast, but it could be even faster. How about twice as fast? That’s what the USB-IF is promising for its newly announced USB 3.2 specification. The update takes advantage of capabilities already built into many devices, meaning you might not need any new cables to get the higher speeds.

In the USB 3.1 specification, cables were designed to use a single lane of either 5Gbps or 10Gbps for data transfer. The update to USB 3.2 unlocks a second lane, which effectively doubles the capacity. With SuperSpeed-certified cables and a USB 3.2 host (meaning the thing you’re plugging into), you can push 2GB across the connection each second. These are Thunderbolt 2 numbers, but USB is available on many more devices.

As USB specifications have advanced, one thing has become evident: Not all cables are created equal. There was much more margin for error prior to USB Type-C. But now, using the wrong hardware can prevent a cable from reaching the specified data rates, or transferring the correct amount of power. Some Type-C cables with poor internal design can even cause damage to your devices after being connected. The USB-IF recognized this, so it started a certification program a while back. If you have a USB Type-C cable certified for 10Gbps “SuperSpeed,” you’re already well on your way to unlocking the new speeds.

Existing Type-C SuperSpeed cables were designed with support for that second data lane so that they will work with USB 3.2 (look for the SuperSpeed logo below). Even cables that are only certified for 5Gbps will still get a second data lane for double the speed. What might be harder is finding a USB 3.2 host device. None of those exist yet, but the port will be the same Type-C we’ve come to know over the last few years.

1200px-SuperSpeed_USB.svg

Even with a proper USB 3.2 host, you might not see blazing fast 20Gbps transfers. The storage technology on the other end of that cable might not be fast enough. For example, the latest UFS 2.1 flash storage in phones has a maximum data rate of 1.2Gbps. Some USB-connected SSD drives can saturate a USB 3.1 cable, so there may be some benefit for USB 3.2 there. This move is more of a future-proofing move.

There won’t be any certified USB 3.2 host devices until later this year or early next. That’s when the USB-IF expects to have the standard complete.

Now read: How USB Charging Works




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Brembo's Bombassei inducted into Automotive Hall of Fame

Brembo's Bombassei inducted into Automotive Hall of Fame

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Class of distinction
The Automotive Hall of Fame in Detroit last week inducted four new members: from left, former General Motors design chief Ed Welburn, Brembo Chairman Alberto Bombassei, racing mogul Jack Roush and the late trucking pioneer August Fruehauf, represented by his granddaughter, Ruth Fruehauf. Photo credit: JASON LOUDERMILK PHOTOGRAPHY






DETROIT -- Very few auto parts have enough cachet that customers recognize and covet them by name.


Recaro seats, Pirelli tires and Bose speakers come to mind -- but Brembo brakes might have the most star power of all. Anytime a Ferrari, Porsche or Lamborghini pulls into view, the brightly painted Brembo calipers shine from the wheels like a billboard.


The Italian brake manufacturer has maintained an aura of exclusivity even as it expanded into more-affordable cars. Now, Brembo S.p.A. Chairman Alberto Bombassei is positioning his company for the future with cutting-edge technologies such as carbon ceramic rotors and brake-by-wire.





Bombassei, 76, is still on the cutting edge. Photo credit: JASON LOUDERMILK PHOTOGRAPHY













"Sixty percent of the technologies we introduce in racing moves to cars," Bombassei told Automotive News this week during a visit to Brembo's U.S. offices in suburban Detroit. "We like racing because it is extreme — everything is tested to the limit."


Bombassei, 76, was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame on Thursday with sports-car impresario Jack Roush and former General Motors designer Ed Welburn.


Bombassei's involvement with Brembo stretches back to 1961, when his father, Emilio, launched a machine shop. Alberto, who was 20, worked for his father as they manufactured metal components for customers such as Alfa Romeo and Pirelli.


In 1964, Brembo introduced its own line of brake rotors, and in 1975 it started producing aluminum calipers for Ferrari's Formula One cars.


Brembo was well established in racing when Alberto had his "eureka" moment in 1987. That's when he began painting Brembo calipers in bright colors — red, yellow, orange, blue — any shade its customers desired.





Welburn cited the designers who entered the Hall of Fame before him: "They are my heroes and have been my whole life." Photo credit: JASON LOUDERMILK PHOTOGRAPHY













Among automotive cognoscenti, colorful Brembo brakes became an indicator of status. A Porsche with red calipers was a very nice car, but yellow calipers signified carbon ceramic brakes -- the very best.


That gave Porsche owners something to yearn for, Bombassei said with a chuckle.


At 76, Bombassei is in no particular hurry to retire, although he branched out into politics when he won a seat in Italy's parliament. But he remains actively engaged with Brembo as the company plots its global expansion.


The company has built new foundries in Poland, Mexico, China and Michigan, and it supplies brakes for affordable performance cars such as the Honda Civic Type R, the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8, and the Ford Mustang.


Brembo also is eyeing the commercial-truck market, now that North American truckmakers are starting to switch from drum brakes to discs.


What's next after that? "Better ask my customers," Bombassei replied. "I will do what they want."










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I Desperately Want a Clean Home, But My Brain Can't Process Clutter

I Desperately Want a Clean Home, But My Brain Can't Process Clutter

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I've always been shamed for my clutter. Back in sixth grade my teacher dumped my desk onto the floor as a means of guilting me into cleaning it. Then in high school I won the "Messiest Locker" prize. And once my car was stolen in Philadelphia, taken for a joyride and later recovered neater than before it was stolen.

But it wasn't until hired cleaners refused to clean my house that I admitted I needed help. This happened a few years ago, when my impeccably neat in-laws were visiting from Florida. They were planning to stay with my husband and me, the prize-winning mess who married their son. I was understandably anxious, and decided to be proactive and scheduled cleaners to come beforehand. I knew (and my husband also acknowledged) that even my very best cleaning efforts weren't going to cut it, but I was optimistic that the professionals could get it done.

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Maybe they would have … if they'd accepted the job. Instead, with my in-laws set to arrive within the hour, the pros flatly rejected my house. "There's too much clutter ... too many piles of papers, all of this stuff," the cleaner said, gesturing contemptuously toward my extremely random assortment of useless tchotchkes, chewed-up cat toys, old holiday cards, expired gift cards and beaten-up old books. "We don't organize, we just clean, and we can't clean around this."


To my in-laws, I'm the prize-winning mess who married their son.

I would later find out this was true: Most housecleaners don't organize your stuff for you. At this news, I started to shed hysterical tears of panic and shame. My husband and I did our last-minute best, and my in-laws did an admirable job of pretending not to be appalled, but the damage had been done. Having professionals reject my house shouldn't have left me in a state of adrenaline-frayed, hiccup-sobbing panic. I knew this wasn't normal and knew I needed to do something about it.

The only problem? I also knew clutter was only one aspect of what never seemed normal in my life. I got lost constantly, still had issues telling right from left and got into more than my fair share of car accidents. Sure, I won the school spelling bee as a kid, but I was terrible at math and geography and still break into a cold sweat when someone asks me to read the time from an analog clock.

In third grade, I was diagnosed with a condition called dysgraphia, which relates to difficulty with handwriting. My teachers recommended I get tested after noticing I held my pencil in an odd way and struggled with cursive. But the dysgraphia was only part of a larger problem that I later learned was called Nonverbal Learning Disability (NVLD). This condition means that taking chaos and sorting it into an organized, functional system feels not only difficult, but often impossible.

One of the biggest symptoms of NVLD is having trouble with eye-hand coordination, and that explains why I get lost all the time. (I once got lost on a beach for over an hour, a moment that felt very much like getting lost in a desert.) I also have difficulty with spatial organization, and it's challenging for me to arrange things in an efficient and space-saving way. This is why loading the dishwasher can feel like an advanced filing system. It's why I'm terrible at puzzles, and my little niece and nephew consistently destroy me at Q-Bitz, a game of multiple visual challenges. And ultimately, it's why, when I look at the mess in my house, car or desk, I genuinely don't know where to begin.



A peek into what my home office — the one room in my home no on else uses — looks like.


Courtesy of Jennifer Byrne

When it comes to this condition, I'm a pretty extreme case. I was officially diagnosed with NVLD last year by Amelia Lavin and her colleagues at Widener University's Neuropsychology Assessment Center in Pennsylvania. Since then, I have pursued occupational therapy to work on minimizing my struggle. Every other week, we meet to go over goals and strategies for improving my cleaning and organizing skills, as well as navigating the visual world in general. I've learned to play to my strengths — words and language — to compensate for my deficiencies. Mnemonic devices help me convert a visual task into a sequence of steps I can remember. Cell phone alarms, timers and verbal cues help as well. Sure, this occasionally encourages me to talk to myself, but I'd rather be the crazy lady who talks to herself than the crazy one whose house is hideous.

But sometimes I'm both. Sometimes my house is still a wreck. It's never going to be perfect, and it's always going to be a challenge. It's possible I'll always get lost and inspire car thieves to tidy up. The difference is now I have a few basic tools in place that I can turn to when things feel out of control.

And for special occasions, I also have a great cleaning service that, luckily, hasn't rejected me yet.



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Fed holds rates steady, expects portfolio cuts 'relatively soon'

Fed holds rates steady, expects portfolio cuts 'relatively soon'

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged on Wednesday and said it expected to start winding down its massive holdings of bonds "relatively soon" in a sign of confidence in the U.S. economy.

The Fed kept its benchmark lending rate in a target range of 1.00 percent to 1.25 percent, as expected, and said it was on track to continue the slow path of monetary tightening that has lifted rates by a percentage point since 2015.

In a statement following a two-day policy meeting, the U.S. central bank's rate-setting committee indicated the economy was growing moderately and job gains had been solid.

It also noted that both overall inflation and a measure of underlying price gains had declined - trends which have worried some policymakers - but that it expected the economy to continue strengthening.

"The committee expects to begin implementing its balance sheet normalization program relatively soon," the Fed said, adding that it would follow a plan outlined in June to trim its holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities.

U.S. stock prices rose following the release of the policy statement while yields on U.S. government debt fell. The dollar dropped against a basket of currencies.

After pushing rates nearly to zero to fight the 2007-2009 financial crisis and recession, the Fed pumped over $3 trillion into the economy in a bond-buying spree to further reduce rates. Its balance sheet has grown to $4.5 trillion.

The statement cemented expectations the Fed will announce at its next policy meeting in September the start of its balance sheet reduction plan, marking the end of a controversial tool that drew criticism from Republican lawmakers in Congress.

"The Fed all but told the market the balance sheet run-off will start in September," said Brian Jacobsen, an investment strategist at Wells Fargo Funds Management in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin.

The Federal Reserve Building stands in Washington April 3, 2012.Joshua Roberts/File Photo

Inflation Jitters

Torsten Slok, an economist at Deutsche Bank, said the Fed appeared keen to begin balance sheet reduction given the uncertainty over whether President Donald Trump will nominate Fed Chair Janet Yellen for another four-year term.

Trump told the Wall Street Journal this week that Yellen, whose current term expires in February, was among several candidates he would consider to lead the central bank.

While Fed researchers have concluded that bond buying only modestly boosted the economy, Yellen has said the central bank could turn to asset purchases again if the economy fell into a deep rut.

Steady job creation in the economy has pushed the U.S. unemployment rate to 4.3 percent, near a 16-year low.

The Fed had previously signaled it would begin to trim its balance sheet this year.

At the same time, a slowdown in inflation has caused jitters among some Fed officials who are concerned inflation has been below the central bank's 2 percent target for five years.

The Fed's preferred measure of underlying inflation dropped to 1.4 percent in May from 1.8 percent in February. The Fed had described inflation as being "somewhat" below target in its policy statement in June, but on Wednesday it simply stated that it was below 2 percent.

"That, I think, is a signal that it's a slightly more cautious tone," said Omer Esiner, an analyst at Commonwealth FX in Washington.

Reporting by Jason Lange and Lindsay Dunsmuir; Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos, Richard Leong and Saqib Ahmed in New York; Editing by Paul Simao



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Roomba Maker Wants to Sell Maps of Your Home to Google, Amazon

Roomba Maker Wants to Sell Maps of Your Home to Google, Amazon

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One of the problems with covering the decline of privacy in the digital age is the very concept that people should have the right to control how their information is bought, sold, and monetized is fundamentally opposed to most digital company business models (not to mention government policy). Now iRobot, which manufactures the Roomba, wants in on the action and plans to monetize the information its robots gather when they vacuum your carpet and/or chase the cat.

Colin Angle, CEO of iRobot Corp, is enthused about the idea of combining spatial data that the Roomba gathers about your home with the information from other devices like smart thermostats, cameras, or units like the Amazon Echo. “There’s an entire ecosystem of things and services that the smart home can deliver once you have a rich map of the home that the user has allowed to be shared,” Angle told Reuters.

To some extent, this is iRobot’s effort to reposition itself after taking fire from manufacturers hawking less-expensive Roomba clones. Investors have warmed to Angle’s idea, though, to the point that even some hedge fund managers that previously criticized the company’s direction have flipped. “I think they have a tremendous first-mover advantage,” William Mesdag, managing partner of Hedge Fund Red Mountain Capital, told Reuters. “The competition is focused on making cleaning products, not a mapping robot.”

Roomba 980

Roomba’s highest-end models can show you maps of where they cleaned.

Roomba vacuums have advanced markedly in recent years, adding sensors, better cameras, and software updates that allow a device to clean, return to its station to recharge, and then go back out to clean again, starting where it left off. These types of capabilities are a welcome addition to the platform, but not when they’re being used to turn it into a platform for gathering data and spying on people.

The argument in favor of using Roomba vacuums to drive data collection relies on believing the smart home can be considerably more sophisticated than it is today, with sound systems, lighting, air conditioning, and spatial mapping data all combined to offer a sublimely tuned living experience. But this means iRobot thinks people are fine with giving up their privacy to get…what, exactly? The ability to combine a Roomba and an Echo so Amazon can sell you more stuff because it knows the layout of your house?

iRobot’s lust for data, and investor approval of this approach, is just another example of how the fundamental concept of privacy is under attack. Bit by bit, companies nibble away at these ideas — no more anonymization here, a bit less control there — while simultaneously hinting these are things customers consciously agree to. If you want a smart home, or if you use social media, you are, ipso facto agreeing to share information about yourself that will be sold to third parties in ways you can’t control. Because, clearly, buying a TV set or pair of headphones means agreeing, in perpetuity, to give information about yourself to the manufacturer.

403351-irobot-roomba-980

The Roomba 980.

iRobot claims that their system will not sell data “without customer permission.” But that could simply mean the hardware won’t work if you don’t give it permission to sell your data. Typically, that’s how this goes. Sure, you have a choice, but it’s not a meaningful one. You can’t, for example, simply pay an extra $100 to own your data in perpetuity, or even a monthly fee to cover the benefits of smart home technology without data sharing to the larger environment.

If user data is so valuable to tech companies, individuals ought to have the right to either share in the profits companies gain from selling it, or to pay for their data to be kept private at a cost that reflects the wholesale value of their private data. Neither approach has won any broad interest from the tech industry, and I don’t expect they ever will.

Now read: 20 Best Tips to Stay Anonymous and Protect Your Privacy Online



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Williams 'confident' UAW can win vote at Nissan plant

Williams 'confident' UAW can win vote at Nissan plant

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Dennis Williams: "We always take lessons learned. I always learned more from my losses than my wins." Photo credit: Michael Wayland




















UPDATED: 7/20/17 3:38 pm ET - adds Nissan response

DETROIT -- UAW President Dennis Williams said he feels "very strongly" that Nissan workers in Canton, Miss., will vote early next month in favor of union representation.


"We went in there very confident we had a strong group of people in the bargaining unit that wanted a union," he told journalists during a roundtable discussion Thursday at the union's headquarters in Detroit. "They want a voice."


Williams said ultimately it's all up to the workers, and if they can get over their "fears," including those about repercussions from the company.


Nissan has said that it does not believe UAW representation "is in the best interest" of the plant, which the UAW estimates has 3,500-3,800 production and skilled trades workers eligible to be part of a local bargaining unit.


The Japanese automaker has adamantly denied any intimidation, which Williams compared to “having a gun to your head” when voting in an election.


“Those allegations are absolutely false,” Rodney Francis, HR director at the plant, told Automotive News during a phone interview following the roundtable. “We’re not intimidating any of our workers down here. We’re simply supplying them with information.”


The plant employs more than 6,400 hourly and salaried workers, including temporary workers whom are not allowed to cast ballots in the upcoming vote.


Historic win? 


If the UAW gains representation, it would be a historic win for Williams and the union, which has failed to gain support for full representation at an assembly plant in the South owned by a transplant automaker.


The two-day vote is scheduled Aug. 3-4. It comes three years after the UAW failed to gain enough votes to represent workers at Volkswagen AG's plant in Chattanooga.


The union, Williams said, learned from the failed VW representation vote, which did include the UAW gaining representation of some skilled trade workers.


"We always take lessons learned," Williams said. "I always learned more from my losses than my wins."


VW situation


Although the union failed to gain full representation in 2014 in Chattanooga, a group around 165 skilled trades workers voted to become the first members of UAW Local 42 in 2015. However, the union has yet to persuade the company to come to the bargaining table.


The UAW remains in litigation with VW over the vote, but Williams said the company has promised to "not appeal any further."


Williams said the VW vote was “a bit different” from the upcoming Nissan election, as politicians, not the company, were the main drivers behind anti-union campaigning.


Nissan’s Francis said the company remains committed to its workers, and just wants them to “make an informed vote.”












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Someone Please Buy This $89,900 South Carolina Home

Someone Please Buy This $89,900 South Carolina Home

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It's a fixer-upper for sure, but that just adds to the allure of this incredible historical home in Darlington, SC, being offered for a song. Priced at just $89,900—and featuring the double-decker, wraparound porch of our dreams—it's ripe for the perfect old-house lover (ahem!) to sweep it off of its feet and restore it to its former grandeur.



Richard Trappier



Richard Trappier

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There's quite a bit surviving inside the 4-bedroom home, which is known as the G. O. Mertz House (Don't you love a house with a formal name?). We spy several mantels, stained glass and an exceptionally pretty staircase. The potential is almost too much to bear!



Richard Trappier



Richard Trappier



Richard Trappier



Richard Trappier



Richard Trappier



Richard Trappier



Richard Trappier



Richard Trappier



Richard Trappier

Here's a bonus: The home is located on 1.5 acres in Darlington's West Broad Street Historic District, which means that it's surrounded by dozens of other Victorian-era homes, many of which were once owned by the city's most prominent and affluent residents. This and a handful of the neighboring homes were constructed by the same master craftsman (Lawrence Reese), so there's a cohesion to the homes that makes this part of Darlington exceptional and unique.

Good bones and beautiful surroundings? That sounds just about heavenly.

For more information, contact Richard Trappier, Coldwell Banker McMillan and Associates at (843) 610-5561.



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AT&T's quarterly profit tops Wall Street estimates, shares rise

AT&T's quarterly profit tops Wall Street estimates, shares rise

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - AT&T Inc's (T.N) quarterly profit topped Wall Street estimates on Tuesday as the No. 2 U.S. wireless carrier lowered operating costs and introduced new promotions bundling video with phone service that helped it compete in a fierce market for customers.

Its shares rose 2.5 percent to $37.12 in after-hours trading.

AT&T is battling industry leader Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) and smaller rivals Sprint Corp (S.N) and T-Mobile US Inc (TMUS.O) for customers in a market where most people already have cell phones.

Verizon in February reintroduced an unlimited data plan for the first time in more than five years, and other carriers have since then sweetened their own offers.

AT&T, which is in the process of buying Time Warner Inc (TWX.N) for $85.4 billion in an effort to turn itself into a media powerhouse, has sought to compete by bundling mobile service with video entertainment.

In June, it announced that it was offering its unlimited wireless plan with its internet streaming service DirecTV Now for an additional $10 a month.

Such product bundles helped win new subscribers as well as keep hold of old ones, Chief Financial Officer John Stephens said on a post-earnings conference call with analysts.

FILE PHOTO: An AT&T logo is seen at a AT&T building in New York City, October 23, 2016.Stephanie Keith/File Photo

"Perhaps the biggest impact is on wireless churn," he said, referring to the rate of customer defections. Churn among phone subscribers who pay a monthly bill was 0.79 percent in the quarter, the lowest in the company's history.

AT&T lost 89,000 U.S. phone subscribers who pay a monthly bill in the quarter, its most lucrative customers. Analysts had expected a loss of 256,000, according to research firm FactSet. Including prepaid customers, it added 178,000 phone subscribers in the quarter.

The company lost 199,000 video subscribers in the period overall. Its DirecTV Now streaming service added 152,000 subscribers, bringing the total to 500,000 since the service was launched in November. But that failed to offset losses by its satellite and U-verse pay-TV offerings.

Net income attributable to AT&T rose to $3.9 billion, or 63 cents per share, in the second quarter ended June 30, from $3.4 billion, or 55 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding some items, earnings per share were 79 cents, ahead of analysts' average estimate of 73 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenue declined slightly to $39.8 billion from $40.5 billion in the year-ago period, hitting analysts' average estimate.

AT&T continues to expect the Time Warner deal to close by year-end.

Reporting by Anjali Athavaley; Editing by Bill Rigby



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The SNES Classic Launch Is On Track to Be Another Disaster

The SNES Classic Launch Is On Track to Be Another Disaster

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In business, it’s usually ideal to sell as many things as possible to consumers, but Nintendo has a different approach. The NES Classic Edition released last year was a hot must-have gift for the holiday season, but Nintendo just didn’t make very many of them. Then, Nintendo discontinued the device while people were still clamoring to get their hands on it. It’s all very bizarre, and it’s possible we’re headed for a very similar outcome with the upcoming SNES Classic.

Like the NES Classic, the SNES Classic will come with an assortment of pre-installed games from the original console. It’ll also have HDMI output for modern TVs and a pair of controllers. The game collection will probably vary by region, but in the US and UK the console will come with The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart, Star Fox 2, and more than a dozen others. The release of Star Fox 2 is particularly interesting because the game was canceled before launch. Development took longer than expected, and Nintendo was worried the game would look too dated. It was done, though, so the SNES Classic will be its debut.

So, fans of classic games are anxious to get their hands on this thing and hoping we don’t have another fiasco like the NES Classic. Sadly, we’re already veering into fiasco territory, and the console isn’t even out yet. Nintendo hasn’t offered any details on preorders, but Walmart suddenly offered them late last Friday while many of us were snoozing. The preorders sold out almost immediately, which led to great heartbreak on Saturday morning.

If that were the only issue so far, you could almost call this a success. However, Walmart can’t seem to decide if it put up the preorders too early or not. Some orders have been canceled, and some are still seemingly valid right now. Nintendo, of course, is offering no guidance here. Meanwhile, Target tweeted that it would have the SNES Classic, and promised preorders in advance of release. There’s no date for that, either.

No matter what Nintendo does, the SNES Classic will sell out immediately upon release. The mess with preorders makes that much clear. It’s simply up to Nintendo to actually produce enough of them this time—no discontinuing the hardware after a few months. The NES Classic was in such short supply people were paying several times the $60 MSRP to get one. It would be really nice if that didn’t happen with the SNES Classic, and there’s no excuse this time around. Maybe Nintendo could argue it was caught off-guard by the NES Classic’s success, but it has to be aware of the demand for this device.

The SNES Classic is set to go on sale on September 29th, just in time for the holiday shopping season. It will cost a little more than the NES Classic did at $80.



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FCA, Santander -- a case study in subprime

FCA, Santander -- a case study in subprime

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It's classic subprime: hasty loans, rapid defaults, and, at times, outright fraud.


Only this isn't the U.S. housing market circa 2007. It's the U.S. auto industry circa 2017.


A decade after the mortgage debacle, the financial industry has embraced another type of subprime debt: auto loans. And, like last time, the risks are spreading as they're bundled into securities for investors worldwide.


No one is suggesting that subprime car loans will unleash the next crisis.


But since the Great Recession, business has exploded. In 2009, $2.5 billion of new subprime auto bonds were sold. In 2016, $26 billion were, topping average pre-crisis levels, according to Wells Fargo & Co.


Few things capture this phenomenon like the partnership between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Banco Santander SA. Since 2013, as U.S. car sales soared, the two have built one of the industry's most powerful subprime machines.


Details of that relationship, pieced together from court documents, regulatory filings and interviews with industry insiders, lay bare some of the excesses of today's subprime auto boom. Wall Street has rewarded lax lending standards that let people get loans without anyone verifying incomes or job histories. For instance, Santander recently vetted incomes on fewer than one out of every 10 loans packaged into $1 billion of bonds, according to Moody's Investors Service. The largest portion were for Chrysler vehicles.


Some of their dealers, meantime, gamed the loan application process so low-income borrowers could drive off in new cars, state prosecutors said in court documents.


Through it all, Wall Street's appetite for high-yield investments has kept the loans -- and the bonds -- coming. Santander says it has cut ties with hundreds of dealerships that were pushing unsound loans, some of which defaulted as soon as the first payment. At the same time, Santander plans to increase control over its U.S. subprime auto unit, Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc., people familiar with the matter said.


Lending practices


Santander, subpoenaed or questioned by a group of about 30 states regarding its auto loan underwriting and securitization activities, declined to comment on "active legal matters." In May, Santander agreed to pay $26 million to settle allegations brought by Delaware and Massachusetts as part of ongoing investigations into the auto industry's lending practices. Santander, whose partnership with Chrysler goes by the Chrysler Capital brand name, neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing.


Reid Bigland, Chrysler's U.S. sales chief, said Santander has been a "good partner."


In recent years, lending practices in the subprime auto industry have come under increased scrutiny. Regulators and consumer advocates say it takes advantage of people with nowhere else to turn.


For investors, the allure of subprime car loans is clear: securities composed of such debt can offer yields as high as 5 percent. It might not seem like much, but in a world of ultra-low rates, that's still more than triple the comparable yield for Treasuries. Of course, the market is still much smaller than the subprime-mortgage market which triggered the credit crisis, making a repeat unlikely. But the question now is whether that premium, which has dwindled as demand soared, is worth it.


"Investors seem to be ignoring the underlying risks," said Peter Kaplan, a fund manager at Merganser Capital Management.


Worth it?


Asset-backed securities based on auto loans are engineered to keep paying even when some loans sour. Still, some cracks have emerged in the $1.2 trillion market for auto financing. Delinquencies have picked up, as have losses on subprime loans. Auto loan fraud, meantime, is approaching levels seen in mortgages during the bubble.


Auto finance "is not going to bring down the financial system like the mortgage crisis almost did, but it does signal more stress with the consumer," said Stephen Caprio, a credit strategist at UBS Group AG.


Whatever the case, the Santander-Chrysler relationship has opened a rare window into an industrywide race to the bottom that may have lasting consequences.


In the years after its 2009 bankruptcy, Chrysler looked for a dedicated lender to help customers finance their cars quickly. One reason it picked Santander was the Spanish lender's expertise in "automated decisioning." At the time, a Chrysler executive said the process helped Santander "take a little bit more risk and approve more deals because they mine the data" in subprime.


Becoming Chrysler's preferred lender made sense for Santander. It was aggressively expanding in the U.S. subprime loan market, and Chrysler, the perennial third wheel among the "Big Three," relied more on buyers with lower credit scores than General Motors Co. or Ford Motor Co.


Problems surfaced almost from the start. Many of them, detailed in the settlement between Santander and authorities in Delaware and Massachusetts, recall some of the excesses of the subprime housing era.


'Fraud dealers'


Attorneys general in both states alleged Santander enabled a group of "fraud dealers" to put buyers into cars they couldn't afford, with loans it knew they couldn't repay. It offloaded most of the debt, which often had rates over 15 percent, reselling them to yield-hungry ABS investors.


State authorities also said an internal Santander review in 2013 found that 10 out of 11 loan applications from a Massachusetts dealer contained inflated or unverifiable incomes. (It's not clear whether this particular case involved a Chrysler dealer.)


Santander kept originating the dealer's loans anyway, even as they continued to default "at a high rate," the authorities said.


Some dealerships even asked Santander to double-check customers' incomes because they didn't trust their own employees, the authorities said. They also said the lender didn't always oblige because that would put it at a "competitive disadvantage." At the time of the settlement, Santander said it was "totally committed to treating its customers fairly."


In some ways, the laissez-faire mindset reflects how competition squeezed Santander as demand for new cars -- and loans to finance them -- soared.


Tough time


Without a deposit base, Santander's auto finance unit had a tough time competing with banks for the most creditworthy buyers. Private-equity firms also poured in, vying for many of the same subprime borrowers Santander targets, but often with more relaxed underwriting. And Santander doesn't get the same preferences that automakers' wholly owned finance units typically receive, Bigland said.


The irony is that what got Santander into hot water did little to help it reach the lofty goals set at the outset of the 10-year venture with Chrysler. As of April, Santander financed about 19 percent of the carmaker's sales, short of the 64 percent they targeted by that time.

While Santander takes pains to avoid criticizing Chrysler, the lender launched a special loyalty and rewards program to vet the carmaker's dealerships. Those that aren't deemed fraudulent during the process are labeled "VIPs." Santander also cut ties with over 800 dealers across its network since 2015 as it tries to boost business without exposing itself to more bad loans.


"Chrysler continues to represent an opportunity for growth for us," Richard Morrin, chief operating officer of Santander's auto finance arm, said during an investor presentation in February. Still, "it can't be growth at any cost."


Chrysler declined to comment on instances of fraud at its dealer network.


Varying norms


Indeed, with U.S. auto sales falling after a record 2016, many lenders including Santander say they're tightening standards. Santander's underwriting practices, however, continue to raise eyebrows. In May, Moody's drew attention to the fact that Santander verified incomes on only 8 percent of loans it bundled into bonds, based on data that auto-debt issuers have recently started to disclose.


Yet when it comes to due diligence, there's no industrywide standard. Unlike the mortgage market, stated-income loans -- also known as "liar loans" -- are perfectly legal in car buying. Last month, Jeff Brown, Ally Financial Inc.'s chief executive, said verifying income isn't the norm. Ally, he said, checked incomes on 65 percent of its subprime car loans. GM Financial's AmeriCredit unit checked roughly the same percentage.


The industry has little reason to change given the success of Wall Street's securitization machine. Protections built into the bonds have largely insulated investors from losses even as delinquencies pile up. Most securities are upgraded over their lifetimes.


The losers, of course, are people who go into debt for cars they can't afford.


Jerry Robinson, who worked in Santander's debt collection unit, has seen the trouble firsthand. Robinson, who retired in August after six years with Santander, says one of his responsibilities was to get cars the lender repossessed back into their owners' hands.


Business decision


Often times, he found dealers listed non-existent features like sunroofs or alloy wheels to inflate a car's value and win credit approval. Although Robinson's job was to make sure dealers reimbursed Santander for any loan fraud, borrowers didn't see their debts reduced, he said. Instead, their loans were usually extended, increasing the compound interest consumers would ultimately pay after their repoed cars were reinstated. More often than not, those payments wind up going to ABS investors.


Bonuses were tied to how many borrowers could be reinstated, said Robinson, now a Dallas-based member of the Committee for Better Banks, a worker and consumer advocacy coalition backed by a union seeking to organize bank employees. The same cars were often repoed multiple times.


Santander spokeswoman Laurie Kight disputed Robinson's account and said it was part of a union campaign to discredit the lender. Santander is "unaware" of the type of conduct he described and money reimbursed by dealers for non-existent features is used to reduce borrowers' loan balances, she said.


Robinson contends it was more profitable for Santander to keep cash-strapped borrowers in their cars rather than auction off the vehicles.


"The business makes money putting people in the car," he said.










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