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The media preview of the Chicago Auto Show that a set of high-tech features for its F-Series trucks and E-Series vans including the best-selling F-150. The auto show is open to the public from February 8 to 17.

The high-tech offers of the 2009 Ford F-150 include a broadband-capable in-dash computer, Tool Link tracking system that has embedded radio frequency identification (RFID) capabilities for logging tools and inventory on the truck; and Crew Chief, a telematics and diagnostics system. These features are expected to be available in Ford’s new vehicles in the fall.

The truck’s built-in computer, powered by Microsoft Auto, is located in the middle of the dashboard. It offers a 6.5-inch touch screen, 2GB of memory capable of entertaining expansion, and a USB port.

The Tool Link feature lets users mark their tools with RFID tags. When the tools are not returned to the pickup boxes, the computer flashes a warning on the computer screen.

“It helps contractors and tradespeople guarantee they show up at the job site with the right tools for each job - and that they don’t leave equipment behind,” said William Frykman, the automaker’s product development manager. Additionally, the computer also tells fleet managers precisely where the truck is. This is an effort to make easier truckers work. The system also features an 8-foot steel cable used to avoid auto theft.

The new F-150 truck offers V-8 engines ranging from a 4.6-liter to a 5.4-liter engine which can run on E85. The truck is also equipped with either a four-speed or a six-speed automatic transmission to bolster performance and handling.

“Our truck customers are smart - and they work hard,” said Mark Fields, Ford’s president. “Ford Work Solutions provides truck customers new technologies and tools to help them work even smarter and further boost their productivity.”

The new vehicles are engineered for business. And there are two companies responsible for that milestone - Garmin International and Sprint Mobile Broadband Network. Internet access is provided via the Sprint and navigation capabilities by Garmin.

Separately, the automaker announced Wednesday the Transit Connect, a compact van engineered to respond to the needs of small-business owners. Already on the roads in Europe, it is now coming to North America. The van features a 2.0-liter, four-cylinder engine and automatic transmission. The cargo space can accommodate loads that are 6.5 feet long and 4.7 feet wide. Check out AmericanTrucks.com and their large selection of
Truck Rims.

2009 Detroit Auto Show: Volkswagen Unveils World Premiere of Concept Bluesport Diesel.innovation, performance, responsibility and fun will all be on display from Volkswagen at the 2009 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS).

Volkswagen is presenting an innovative lineup of extremely economical and low emissions drive technologies at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit (NAIAS). Featured there from January 11 to 25 are the carmaker's Clean Diesel engines (TDI). Many experts consider these diesel engines to be the most advanced of our times. The reasons: high fuel efficiency and extremely low emissions combined with maximum performance. It is precisely this formula that has already won over millions of car drivers worldwide, including a growing number of people in America.

The unveilings at NAIAS come on the heels of an exciting year of change at Volkswagen, where in the U.S., the Group took steps in such areas as product quality, product offerings, brand management, customer experience, technology, retail support and manufacturing to strengthen its standing in the world's premier market. Volkswagen announced construction of a new manufacturing plant in the U.S., expansion of its plant in Mexico, dedicated a new U.S. headquarters in Virginia, launched five new products, entered new market segments, grew its share of the market and introduced clean diesel technology to the U.S. readmore

I have turned into something of a podcast junkie recently, and one source of excellent material is The London School of Economics public lecture series. This week, however, there's a particularly prominent guest speaker in the form of US Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. The title of the talk is "Policy Responses to the Financial Crisis" and I highly recommend you tune in. There will actually be a live webcast of the event (Tuesday, 13:00 GMT, 8:00 EST) for those who want visuals.

The trouble with high profile speakers who hold public office is that their talks tend to be vague and pull punches on sticky issues - that Bernanke is operating "between" administrations with different policy response ideas won't help either. That being said, however, it will definitely be worth a listen.

While you're at it, I also highly recommend a talk by Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion - an excellent book on poverty reduction that's aimed at non-academics. You can also find him doing a (shorter) TED talk here.

Too lazy to string together a coherent argument, I instead provide links for your reading pleasure.

I'm making a concerted effort to read both interventionist and classical liberal types when it comes to economics with the hopes of cutting down on bias. As a Canadian, it's much easier to come across strong leftish sentiments, but it's reassuring to see that both sides get equally worked up. Check out the comments on Alex Tabarrok's summary of Obama's speech at GMU. I, for one, am hoping Alex is right.

Canada has no coherent government. "Essentially we are arguing that Canada has become a more genteel Somalia." Spicy!

The November stats are in. Consumer spending in America was way down, but volume of consumption was up. Wait, what?

A new blog over at Science has been launched with Darwin's Origin of Species as inspiration. On a related note, Dr. Boli has made a scientific discovery.

(I'm nitpicking here, but hopefully the content of Origins will be better than its grammar. The serial comma is running rampant in the welcome:

As part of its celebration of these two anniversaries, Science will be blogging, with Darwin as our inspiration. On this site, our writers and editors, as well as guest researchers and blog readers, will share their thoughts, not just about the origin of species but also about key nodes throughout the evolution of life, just as Darwin did.

I enjoy a comma as much as the next guy, but that's painful.)

A comment over at Free Exchange about how the market psychology that led to inflated asset prices during the boom might also apply to the downturn. In other words, we can overshoot on the way down as well. This points to the inherent difficulty in seeing beyond the immediate trend to predict future events.

The article includes optimistic prognostications about the length of the downturn from James Surowiecki and economist heavyweight Kenneth Rogoff. Nice to see that my prediction of a couple months back is still in good company. Here's Rogoff:

Willem Buiter certainly thinks so. His essay is, as usual, probably too long and dense for casual readers so I'll try to draw out some of the main points here. Before doing that, here is some background:

For quite some time now, the United States economy has been taking in more foreign investment than its citizens are investing abroad. Despite this negative net investment, American investors are earning more from their foreign investments (in aggregate) than the interest being paid on debts owed to foreign investors. This situation is what is being referred to when we talk of "alpha" - being able to secure positive returns despite a situation of negative net investment. This alpha has resulted from two factors: the very low rate of return offered on US assets and the increasingly risky nature of US-owned assets abroad (leading some to describe the United States as the world's largest venture capitalist).

Buiter outlines one possible explanation for the existence of alpha:

"Because of its unique position as the world’s largest economy, the world’s one remaining military and political superpower (since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991) and the world’s joint-leading financial centre (with the City of London), the US could offer foreign investors lousy US returns on their investments in the US, without causing them to take their money and run."

The problem is, to the extent that it ever existed, this situation has been undermined:

There is no chance that a nation as reputationally scarred and maimed as the US is today could extract any true “alpha” from foreign investors for the next 25 years or so. So the US will have to start to pay a normal market price for the net resources it borrows from abroad. It will therefore have to start to generate primary surpluses, on average, for the indefinite future.

Thems fightin words. In order to generate those primary surpluses, the American economy will need higher taxes and/or less government spending (as well as higher personal savings). Yet the prospective Obama administration's economic stimulus plan contains precisely the opposite: lower taxes and higher government spending.

Buiter doesn't expect to change the outcome of the stimulus package, but his point is this: while the short run effects of a stimulus package may be beneficial, it will destroy the long-run prospects for the entire US economy. In short, the US economy cannot afford a Keynesian stimulus package. He predicts a global dumping of US assets in 2-5 years.

I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about Buiter's specific predictions on asset-dumping. Keynes himself pointed out that our ability to forsee the long-run is so limited as to be practically useless. Moreover, currency predictions are fickle at the best of times because everything is relative. For instance, even with current US economic weakness, we're seeing a flood to the US dollar a safehaven from other crashing currencies. So in two to five years, just about anything could happen. For more counter-arguments, see Free Exchange here and here.

Nevertheless, Buiter's overall concern is a real one and I'm not willing to dismiss it out of hand. But I think the most important questions to policymakers with more short-run horizons still comes down to: what's the alternative? and can America really afford not to have a Keynesian stimulus? A political consensus appears to forming that makes the answer to that last question a resounding "no."

So either Buiter is overstating the extent to which investors will be scared off by higher US debt levels, or there could be some very real long-run consequences that will make Obama's Harlem-Globetrotter-esque economic advisors look like the Washington Generals.

The launch of a new compact hatch in the form of the Audi A1, which is expected to arrive on the market as a 2011 model. The car won’t be an affordable city car in the same vein as the Toyota iQ and the production version of the Volkswagen up! concept, but rather a premium compact hatch designed to rival cars like the Mini Cooper. And just like the aforementioned Mini, which has a high-performance Cooper S model, latest reports indicate that the Audi A1 will have its own sporty S1 variant.

According to AutoExpress, the S1 will be the flagship of the A1 range and will come packing 200hp (147kW) and quattro AWD. Power will come from a supercharged and turbocharged 1.4L TFSI engine, and torque will be rated at around 221lb-ft (300Nm). Complete with a seven-speed S-tronic dual-clutch gearbox, the new S1 should sprint from 0-60mph in less than six seconds and reach an electronically controlled top speed of 155mph.more about Audi S1 on motorauthority

The new 2010 Mercedes Benz E Class was scheduled to be unveiled in January, the German carmaker forgot that the internet is one of the most powerful mediums and thanks to the guys from Autoscoops.eu we’ve got the first official photos of the car, one month before the official unveiling (which might happen sooner now). The first thing we notice is the heavy influence from the F700 design study, unveiled at last year’s Frankfurt show and from the Concept FASCINATION, unveiled a couple of months ago, in Paris. Unlike its direct competitors, the BMW 5 Series and the Audi A8, which have sporty and power written all over, the E Class has always been about style and class, and you must admit, the new one has plenty of those. The only flaw we spot is the rear part, with those tail lights that remind us of the Citroen C5.

After last week we saw two leaked photos of the new BMW Z4, this weekend, the German carmaker officially unveiled their new sports car. When it will go on sale, the new Z4 will be available with three engines, an entry level 2.5 liter developing 204hp (152 kW) and 250Nm (184 lb-ft) of torque, a 3.0 liter (258hp (192 kW) 3-liter engine with 210Nm (228 lb-ft) of torque) and a top of the line 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged unit that delivers 306hp (228 kW) and 400Nm (295 lb-ft) of torque and takes the Z4 from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 5.2 seconds.

A premiere for the Z Series is the use of a new retractable hard-top, which opens and closes in 20 seconds. Of course, this means that the car is heavier, but to deal with that, BMW has fitted the Z4 with an Adaptive M Suspension system (ride height can be raised/lowered by 10 mm with three configurations available), plus the Drive Dynamic Control function, available for the first time on the Z4.

The new BMW Z4 will make its world debut at next month’s Detroit Motor Show, when BMW will also probably announced the dates when the car will go on sale. Read More:"

Following the bombing of a UN school in Gaza, where civilians had taken shelter from the fighting, US President-elect Barack Obama was finally compelled into a statement on the conflict:

"The loss of civilian life in Gaza and Israel is a source of deep concern for me."

As it is for everyone else. And....?