johnnyvolvo

Cash for Clunkers May Cost Up to $45,354 Per Vehicle

C'mon people. This is simple economics.

Is the author using worse case scenario in his analysis?
Obviously, but at least it's based on the best available numbers.

The government is using total fantasy numbers.
They are assuming zero cars would be traded in if not for them.

They (congress) are all patting themselves on the back for having thought up such a "successful" program.

All it really that it really amounts to is another Government bailout of Detroit, and a $4500 per vote purchase for the next election.

Oh, and maybe - maybe we increased the number of cars that are traded in by 5 or 10%. (Or maybe, we just moved the trade in from next year to this year.....)

When are voters going to wake up to the fact that these politicians are crooks and lying thieves who only care about themselves.

We need to go back to the system where you can't vote unless you
1) Are a landowner
2) Are a taxpayer
3) are a member or ex member of the military

At least then, voters have "some skin in the game" as it's called, and will care about what Washington does with the money they take.

Hard Disk Drives Losing Battle to Flash Memory

Storage needs are increasing exponentially with more and more people in essence "digitizing" their lives. Video and graphic images will drive the storage market. You may have a flash card in your camera - but you will store all those pics on a drive. Movies will eventually be digital instead of coming on a DVD - more storage needed.

Also as more people go online - the online companies will need to exponentially increase - storage. Businesses also produce volumes and volumes of material each year. They need mass storage because archival solutions will not allow them to do data mining and other essential processes.

I agree the netbook market - and eventually the portable desktop market will be dominated by flash - but drives will remain viable and a growth market for many years - unless they are supplanted by a new technology (always a possibility for any tech company). Flash drives will continue to get bigger and cheaper by evolution - and so will disk drives.

I have not analyzed the "sweet spots" (the capacities at which disk drive and flash manufacturers have the most sales volume, - and the points at which they make the most profit). Volume typically comes from lower capacity drives - profit from higher capacity drives.

Knowing that - as well as knowing how quickly those sweet spots are moving for both drive and flash manufacturers,and extrapolating where and when they will (eventually) converge will tell the real tale here. Your article needs another paragraph or two to be useful.