Glass Mansions

It seems there are some interesting ties between Michelle Obama's employer and the Barack Obama campaign. The Washington Post reports:

Michelle Obama, an executive at the medical center, launched an innovative program to steer the patients to existing neighborhood clinics to deal with their health needs.

That effort, in time, inspired a broader program the hospital now calls its Urban Health Initiative. To ensure community support, Michelle Obama and others in late 2006 recommended that the hospital hire the firm of David Axelrod, who a few months later became the chief strategist for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

Axelrod's firm recommended an aggressive promotional effort modeled on a political campaign — appoint a campaign manager, conduct focus groups, target messages to specific constituencies, then recruit religious leaders and other third-party "validators." They, in turn, would write and submit opinion pieces to Chicago publications.

One key recommendation from Axelrod's firm: "Respond quickly to opposition activity."

The medical center's initiative provides a window into the close relationship between the Obamas, their associates at the University of Chicago and Axelrod, the strategist most central to Barack Obama's rise. It also illustrates how that circle, and particularly Michelle, dealt with an intractable social problem that confronts many urban areas: How much care should large, nonprofit hospitals offer the poor in return for tax-exempt status?

This is interesting on a couple of levels. In a way it is just typical Chicago politics, where contracts are routinely steered to political supporters. In another, it gives a lot of insight into how Axelrod thinks politically: Astroturfing beats grassroots. Neither Michelle Obama or Axelrod would comment about this article as it was being written. Also a hallmark of Chicago-style political business ties. Read the whole thing.

Where's the changey-hopeyness? It isn't apparent in this deal. It also isn't apparent that the netroots understand that they are being cynically manipulated as part of a (well) paid political consultant's expressed strategy.

Bad Air

We seem to be closing in on a perfect storm of air travel dissatisfaction in this country: Complaints soar at U.S. airlines

Late flights and lost bags, to say nothing of higher fares, are making air travelers grumpy, an annual survey of airline quality says.

The industry posted declines last year in every area of the Airline Quality Rating, amid rising fuel prices, safety problems and bankruptcy filings that shut down three carriers last week alone.

The biggest change was in the rate of consumer complaints, up 60 percent overall. The rate more than doubled at US Airways and Comair, and rose for 15 of the 16 airlines included in the study. The exception was Mesa Airlines.

On-time arrivals dropped for the fifth straight year, with more than one-quarter of all flights late, according to the survey. The rates of passengers bumped from overbooked flights and bags lost, stolen or damaged also jumped in 2007.

"The trend is bad, and it doesn't look like it gets any better," said Dean Headley, an associate professor at Wichita State University and co-author of the study.

The survey results mesh with the spate of problems that have beset U.S. carriers, starting with surging fuel costs, Headley said.

ATA Airlines, Aloha Airlines and Skybus stopped flying just last week because of financial pressures. Major airlines have slashed jobs and passenger amenities while adding fees for second bags, traveling with pets and booking tickets by phone.

It is not surprising that people responded to higher prices and more frequent delays by complaining more, Headley said.

Well, I don't know about anyone else but my last four or five times flying were such lousy experiences I've been avoiding air travel when at all possible.  As a result I've put a lot more miles on the old auto, but the lack of pointless aggravation is worth the back pain of a ten hour road trip…more than worth it really. 

When you factor in the degree to which the airlines seem to be trying to make their flights unpleasant it is a wonder so many American are still flying at all. I've taken the hint and did something I've never done before:  I've just booked a trip to Washington D.C. from the Twin Cities on Amtrak.  Yes, it is slower and more expensive.  No, it wouldn't be an option for most people travelling on business. Yes, I know the trains in this day and age can often be delayed.  But, actually, I couldn't care less.  The prospect of taking a trip while NOT being treated like a herd animal is positively intoxicating.  Lord knows the actual trip will not live up to the romance I have in my head concerning rail travel (a heady mix of the Orient Express and a little Some Like It Hot), but the sad fact is it doesn't have to be much to outclass the average American airline by a country mile.

I'm pretty sure this makes me an airline customer lost.  The question now is if Amtrak can make me a return customer. 

Getting It Wrong On NAFTA

USA Today, hardly a rightwing news outlet, points out that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have it completely wrong when they attack NAFTA. That treaty is not causing the net loss of jobs, it has nothing to do with the real reasons the manufacturing landscape has changed. Rather it is productivity gains that have managed to cut manufacturing employment yet increase the total amount of US manufacturing output by a stunning 66% since 1993. Yes, this is being done with fewer workers and there are real issues. But NAFTA is not one of them.

NAFTA opponents point to the 2.4 million U.S. manufacturing jobs that have disappeared since NAFTA took effect in 1994, a drop of about 14%. In Ohio, site of Tuesday's hotly contested primary, manufacturing jobs are down by nearly 200,000, or 20%, during the same time.

NAFTA supporters — this page among them — usually respond by pointing out that 39 million jobs outside of manufacturing have been created in that time in the USA. Even Ohio has seen a net gain of 900,000 jobs, including 60,000 in finance, 80,000 in professional services and almost 190,000 in health care.

The reality is that NAFTA has relatively little to do with either the overall job losses or job gains. China is a far larger factor. But the number that best displays the nonsensical nature of the debate is 66% — the increase in the manufacturing output of American industry since 1993.

It's impossible to look at an economy that has increased its manufacturing output so dramatically while simultaneously cutting its manufacturing workforce and not see a much larger force at work than NAFTA.

That force has been the unprecedented and sweeping gains in worker productivity that have allowed U.S. companies to churn out more goods with fewer people. Some of this has come from outsourcing the most labor-intensive parts of manufacturing, particularly to Asia. But much of it is from the use of more automated systems for assembly lines and high-tech inventory management.

Put another way, the main job killer of the past 14 years has not been the "giant sucking sound" of jobs going to Mexico, as enunciated by Ross Perot. Rather it has been that giant humming sound of machines replacing humans.

USA Today points to an educational system that is failing to turn out graduates with technical skills. They are right about this, look at the trouble companies are having finding skilled machinists. They say the right ideas are to educate and retrain displaced, low-skilled workers, not to erect trade barriers.

Where The Jobs Are - Or Will Be Soon

While the Democrats are playing populist demagogue politics, promising protectionist policies and confiscatory corporate taxes, other countries have laid the groundwork to get all the jobs that will disappear in the US if those populist policies become law. Iceland and Taiwan are cutting corporate taxes.

Iceland is known as the Nordic Tiger because of rapid economic growth. Much of the nation’s prosperity is the result of free-market policies, including a 36 percent flat tax on labor income, a 10 percent flat tax on capital income, and a corporate tax rate of just 18 percent (down from 50 percent at the end of the 1980s). But Iceland is not resting on its laurels. The government has just announced a reduction in the corporate tax rate:

The corporate income tax will be cut from 18 per cent to 15 per cent, effective for the 2008 income year and come into force in the 2009 assessment year.

Meanwhile, even though the 25 percent corporate tax rate in Taiwan is already substantially lower than the 39 percent-plus rate in the United States, Taiwanese politicians apparently recognize that globalization and tax competition are powerful arguments for even lower rates. Tax-news.com is reporting that the government therefore plans to slash the corporate rate to 17.5 percent - and also make unspecified reductions to personal income tax rates:  

Global trade will go on even if the United States decides not to play any longer. The jobs will merely migrate to new, friendlier places. Corporations looking to make new investments will have a choice between countries that promise to take little of their returns in taxes or an enormous chunk of them.

If you were making the decision, which would you choose? Prosperity or beggaring yourself? 

The Protection(ism) Racket

The New York Sun publishes an editorial that pounds Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for their increasingly protectionist stances. Both candidates are taking shots at the North American Free Trade Agreement, abandoning the defense of the treaty to John McCain. The sun points out the absurdity of that.

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Mr. Obama has distributed fliers in Ohio showing "a locked factory gate with a large 'closed' sign on it" and language blaming Senator Clinton for having backed Nafta. In his speech Tuesday night in Houston after winning the Wisconsin primary, Mr. Obama said, "We're here because there are workers in Youngstown, Ohio, who've watched job after job after job disappear because of bad trade deals like Nafta, who've worked in factories — who've worked in factories for 20 years, and then one day they come in and literally see the equipment unbolted from the floor and sent to China."

Mrs. Clinton, rather than defend the value of free trade to growing our economy by expanding American exports, providing cheaper goods for American consumers, and increasing overall prosperity both at home and abroad, has been scrambling away from one of her husband's greatest accomplishments. The Journal article reports that the Clinton campaign responded to the Obama flier by saying that, contrary to its claim, the candidate never said that Nafta was a "boon" to the American economy. Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton herself, campaigning in Ohio, said, "My opponent has taken to attacking me on Nafta. The fact is, neither of us were in the Senate at the time, and I've long been a critic of the shortcomings of Nafta." Mrs. Clinton may not have been in the Senate at the time, but she was in the White House at the time, and she wants credit for that as part of her 35 years of experience that is supposed to make her qualified to be president. Breathtaking.

So who is left to defend the trade agreement that President Clinton and Vice President Gore worked so hard to achieve? Well, one can just click on YouTube to bring up a video with Mr. McCain explaining, "I know Nafta was a good idea. It's created millions of jobs, and it has helped the economies of all three of these nations. All you have to do is go to Detroit and see the thousands of trucks lined up every day, or go to our Southern border. …Free trade is something I think that is vital to the future of America. As a free trader, I will open up every market in the world."

Obama has already proposed close to a trillion dollars worth of expensive new Federal programs - and is at the same time arguing against the kind of agreement that has helped the American economy thrive. A growing economy generates more tax revenue than a stagnant or contracting one. Yet both Obama and Clinton appear to be willing to walk away from that agreement. Both also preach that they will raise taxes on corporations. So what they are proposing is taking more from a smaller and smaller pie. Consider for a moment what those policies will do to jobs in this country.

Hint: there will not be more jobs. 

Increasing Populist Rhetoric

Both the Clinton and the Obama campaigns have sharply increased their populist rhetoric in recent days. Their attacks on corporations have become increasingly strident as both of them strive to gain John Edwards' former followers - and his potential endorsement.

As the Democratic presidential contest moves to the distressed industrial Midwest, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have ratcheted up their antitrade, anticorporate rhetoric.

The candidates have made broad attacks on corporate wealth and tax cuts they say tilt toward the rich, along with more specific attacks against health insurers and oil companies, among other industries. On Friday, Mrs. Clinton began airing a TV spot in Wisconsin in which she says, "The oil companies, the drug companies, have had seven years of a president who stands up for them…. It's time we had a president who stands up for all of you."

Both candidates increasingly sound like former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards as they pursue his endorsement and the voters — particularly union members — who were drawn to the populist candidate before he dropped out last month. Illinois Sen. Obama got a boost toward that goal Friday with the backing of the Service Employees International Union, one of the most politically powerful labor organizations…..

……Besides wooing voters, both candidates are trying to win favor from Democratic leaders in these states who serve as superdelegates. Superdelegates — members of Congress and other prominent party figures — aren't bound by the results of the primaries or caucuses in their states. They could help decide who wins the nomination.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio), one undecided superdelegate, won election in 2006 with a populist message and said he is pleased that the presidential candidates are now following suit. "They were both a bit slow to get there, but they both have genuine beliefs about the middle class and working families and they're going exactly in the right direction," he said.

Business groups are dismissive of the Democratic attacks. "They should be talking about ways to grow the economy such as deregulation and lessening burdens on employers, rather than criticizing them with simplistic politically driven rhetoric," said Randel Johnson, a vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The two candidates differ very little in their anti-corporate (and ultimately anti-job) approaches. This sharp veer to the left will actually drive more jobs out of the country rather than help things. It does help John McCain in the general election, however. He is going to be able to use these rhetorical attacks against the Democratic candidate later. 

GM Offers Buyouts - To Entire Workforce

General Motors is offering lucrative buyout plans to the entire unionized production workforce after posting a record loss. The $38.7 billion loss in 2007 is a record, 

 NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — General Motors posted better-than-expected financial results for the latest quarter, but indicated that its efforts to shave costs are not behind it as the automaker offered lucrative buyouts to 74,000 employees - its entire U.S. hourly workforce.

The nation's largest automaker reported improved fourth-quarter results from its overseas auto operations, which helped to balance out continued losses at its North American plants. But problems at finance unit GMAC, of which it still owns 49%, coupled with large charges taken in the third quarter related to tax credits, left GM with a company record $38.7 billion net loss for 2007.

Lucrative buyout packages are not new at GM (GM, Fortune 500) and other U.S. automakers such as Ford Motor (F, Fortune 500) and Chrysler LLC. GM offered similar deals to all its U.S. workers in 2006, as it sought to close plants and trim capacity to bring it in line with reduced demand for its products. That package helped it pare U.S. hourly employment by nearly 40,000 in the last two years.

But the latest range of offers to the remaining 74,000 GM workers represented by the United Auto Workers union is designed to allow the company to save money by paying new workers significantly less in pay and benefits than its current workforce, rather than lead to the large reduction in staffing sought in previous buyout packages.

The buyouts range up to $140,000 for a worker with ten years, half that for those with less seniority. GM expects to replace many of the workers with lower paid positions as negotiated with the UAW.

Abandoned Land

On February 21, 1947 Edwin Land demonstrated his Polaroid Land Camera which produced almost instant photos. Now, just shy of the 60 year mark, Polaroid has announced the end of the technology and is closing the last factories that were still producing the products.

When Polaroid users pulled a picture out of their cameras, an image would slowly appear before their eyes. Now, like the process in reverse, the image of the Polaroid instant camera — dimming for years — has finally gone black.

Polaroid, based in Waltham, Mass., is shutting down factories in the United States and abroad as the company abandons the technology that made the instant photo possible, the Boston Globe reported yesterday. The company will cease production of its film by next year.

The artsy, instantly gratifying Polaroid images, reeking of processing chemicals, have finally been done in by endless Flickr Web pages full of digital images, flawlessly produced by cameras that do not require film, emulsion or anything bigger than a shirt pocket to carry them around.

Polaroid introduced its instant camera in 1948, perfect timing to catch the mad tricycle rides of the first baby boomers, zipping around the new American suburbia. With its finely machined stainless steel body and black bellows, the Polaroid Land Camera looked anything but modern. Its instant film came in roll.

Polaroid moved to cartridge film in 1963 with its 100-series camera, which became a staple of professional photographers. They used the rugged Polaroid to take test photos, instantly checking lighting and composition before committing an image to negative. 

Here's the Wikipedia entry on the Polaroid Land camera. Somewhere around here I have an old model 800 camera and another one from the 1980s - I think it is a Time Zero. I havent looked at either of them in years now. Not many people have, hence the end of production.

Personal Data Missing Close To Home As Well

It isn't just the British government that can't seem to hang on to highly personal data. It is happening right here in the US. In Nashville, Tennessee for example:

The theft of a laptop containing Social Security numbers of Nashville, Tennessee, area voters is expected to cost local officials about US$1 million as they roll out identity-theft protection to those affected.

County officials say that thieves broke into Davidson County Election Commission offices on the weekend before Christmas, smashing a window with a rock and then making off with a $3,000 router, a digital camera and a pair of Dell Latitude laptops containing names and Social Security numbers of all 337,000 registered voters in the county.

County election officials began notifying residents of the breach on Jan. 2, and the local government is offering victims one year of free identity theft protection from Debix Identity Protection Network.

Debix says that 25 percent to 35 percent of victims of this type of breach typically request this service. With the city paying Debix just under $10 per account, the price tag for the laptop theft is expected to be in the $1 million range.

Since state data breach disclosure laws went into effect a few years ago, the theft of an unencrypted laptop computer can become a major problem for any organization that stores sensitive data.

"It is a very bad information-handling practice to keep sensitive information about individuals including their Social Security numbers on an unencrypted laptop or any other device that is removable," said Paul Stephens director of policy and advocacy with Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a privacy advocacy group that has tracked the exposure of 217 million records in the U.S. over the past three years.

For heaven's sake. Why aren't these idiots encrypting data? This is not rocket surgery, people. Lest you think only governments pull this sort of boneheaded maneuver, there is another item this morning regarding GE Money. They have managed to lose an unencrypted backup tape containing the Social Security numbers of a lot of people:

A backup tape containing credit-card information from hundreds of U.S. retailers is missing, forcing the company responsible for the data to warn customers that they may become the targets of data fraud.

GE Money, which manages in-store credit-card programs for the majority of U.S. retailers, first realized that the tape was missing from an Iron Mountain secure storage facility in October, said Richard Jones, a company spokesman. "We were informed that one of the tapes could not be located. But at the same time there was no record of it ever having been checked out," he said.

The tape contained in-store credit-card information on 650,000 retail customers, including those of J.C. Penney, he said. GE Money employees are also affected by the breach.

The missing backup tape was unencrypted.

Although J.C. Penney was the only company that Jones would confirm as affected by the missing tape, that retailer accounts for just a small percentage of all accounts that were compromised. In total, 230 retailers are affected by the breach. "Clearly that number includes many of the national retail organizations," he said.

About 150,000 Social Security numbers were on that tape. This is not going to stop until the people in charge are held accountable for their lax security practices. Smart lawyer money-making opportunity alert! (Today just seems to be a technology-oriented day here at the Crabitat.)

Crime (Fighting) Doesn’t Pay

A now-former employee of a Whole Foods supermarket in Ann Arbor, Michigan has discovered that crime fighting does not pay. Hence his employment status. Said former employee stopped a shoplifter in the store by tackling him - and was promptly fired by management.

John Schultz said he lost his job as a fishmonger at a Whole Foods Market in Ann Arbor after he knocked a suspected shoplifter to the ground and detained him.

Schultz was fired on Monday. "Our policy is clear and listed in the employee booklet," said Kate Klotz, a Whole Foods spokeswoman.

"The fact that the employee in question touched the suspect is grounds for termination."

Schultz said he was acting as a private citizen and not as a Whole Foods employee. "The fact that I worked at the store at (the time of the robbery) is coincidental," he told The Ann Arbor News.

Well, Whole Foods certainly has sent a strong message, hasn't it? Employees have been told to let thieves alone and the thieves have been told it is open season at the store. Absolutely brilliant. Let's see what Whole Foods' shrinkage figures jump to in the next few months.

Gone To The Dogs

Sky News has a report on some rather odd spending habits that Americans have developed in recent years. It is spending increasing amounts of money on their pets - and on some things that just make me shake my head. Take plastic surgery for a certain "condition" that owners cause in the first place. That would be replacing the dog's missing testicles with artificial implants. No, really, I wish I was making this up.

Not many dogs would pester their owners for a pair of Neuticles.

These are prosthetic testicles which owners can have implanted in their pets' scrotum after they've been castrated so as to appear "anatomically intact".

Louis Schwartz is chief of staff at the Overland Veterinary Clinic in Los Angeles which performs the procedure. He says it's particularly popular with pet owners of a certain gender.

"What I find is the vast majority are men. I can only think of one woman who has come to me to have the procedure on her pet. She was an animal control officer whose husband, because of his religious beliefs, did not want the dog to be neutered," he said.

"One weekend while he was away she came to me with the dog and years later, this man has no idea."

Having the Neuticles "placed" costs $400 and is an extreme example of the wide range of medical and cosmetic procedures now available at vet clinics which now account for $20bn of consumer spending.

Maybe this is a silly question, but why not a vasectomy for dogs if appearance is that important? There are car-shaped dog beds, acupuncture for dogs and a host of other things people are spending money on. To the tune of $41 billion a year.

Good lord. We make sure the new puppy is fed properly and is loved. Well, except by the old cat. She'll come around and tolerate the puppy eventually. But for now, she's still miffed.

There’s Gold In Them Thar…..Sewage Tanks?

This is right up there on the list of jobs I have no intention of ever doing. Panning for gold in septic tanks.

A town in southern China is proving that where there's muck, there's gold and silver.

In one of the most extreme signs of China's modern grasp of entrepreneurial possibilities, gold panners are striking deals with jewellery factories to buy the contents of their septic tanks.

The price of precious metals has soared to such record highs on the world's markets that sifting the tanks' contents for scrapings and offcuts has become a profitable business.

A reporter from a Chinese newspaper found a new breed of waste collectors touring the jewellery factories near Daluotang, a township near the city of Guangzhou.

They told him that small processing factories had discovered gold and silver filings in the septic tanks that had either washed off workers' hands and faces or been ingested accidentally.

Just remember kids, never put gold into your mouth. You never know where it's been. Which should really improve demand for the $25,000 dessert which has 'edible gold' in it. Well, after the eatery gets rid of the vermin and reopens, that is.

Hollywood Writers Call Strike For Monday

There are only about 48 hours left to avert a strike by Hollywood writers after the governing board of the Writers Guild of America called a strike for Monday. Both sides in this dispute stand to sustain permanent damage if the strike occurs. But the guild is going directly for a scorched earth policy - and they admit it.

The strike deadline was issued on Friday, a day after a three-year contract covering the 12,000-member Writers Guild of America expired, and it follows months of talks that deadlocked over the union's demands for a greater share of DVD and Internet revenues.

Both sides have accused the other of stonewalling and refusing to budge from unreasonable proposals.

The union's negotiating panel unanimously urged a walkout during a boisterous membership meeting Thursday night, and the Writers Guild's governing board voted to ratify that recommendation.

No further contract talks were immediately scheduled, but union leaders said at a news conference there was still time to avoid a confrontation that, if prolonged, could cost hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenues and wages.

"We have 48 hours, and what we really want to do is negotiate," said John Bowman, chairman of the union's negotiating committee. He said that while reluctant to go on strike, the Writers Guild felt it had to act decisively.

"We have to inflict as much damage as quickly as possible in order to get this thing over," Bowman said.

The last time this happened, both sides lost. It probably won't be any better this time and the effects may be even more devastating. Both sides should be struggling mightily to avoid this. But it really does not look like they will.

K Street Redux

Stephen Moore writes on the suicidal impulse of corporate America and the strongarm donation solicitation tactics the Democrats are using. It is not a pretty picture.

The late Milton Friedman used to rail against what he called corporate America's "suicidal impulse." By that he meant that the business community continually financed the very politicians who were intent on robbing their profits and slitting their throats.

It's happening again. The latest quarterly Federal Election Commission Report on political giving, released this week, shows the majority of corporate money flowing to the Democrats. Firms like Comcast, General Electric, Federal Express and UPS have shifted campaign giving away from the GOP. Employees of five major defense contractors including Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrup-Grumman spent $104,000 on Democratic presidential candidates, versus $88,800 for the Republican field.

Meanwhile, according to FEC data, about 85% of the donations from Roll Call newspaper's top-20 list of corporate lobbyists are helping Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid protect and expand their House and Senate majorities. Roll Call calls it a "Democratic donor surge," noting that many of the highest-priced lobbyists already "maxed out"–they've bumped up against the legal limit in how much they are allowed to give the Democrats……..

……… When Republicans were in control, Ms. Pelosi and company denounced the "K Street Project," run by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. They protested that corporate lobbyists were allowed to become a fourth branch of government–and in some cases their protests had merit, as Republicans curried favor with money interests.

Meanwhile, Democrats under Rep. Rahm Emanuel and Sen. Schumer have quietly erected their own K Street Project, and employ some of the same strong-arm tactics they once deplored. "I've never felt the squeeze that we're under now to give to Democrats and to hire them," says one telecom industry representative. "They've put out the word that if you have an issue on trade, taxes, or regulation, you'd better be a donor and you'd better not be part of any effort to run ads against our freshmen incumbents."

Why does corporate America go along? The standard excuse is that this is the way the game is played. They've made a calculated decision that Democrats are going to sweep in 2008. Republicans rightly object that corporate interests are making this a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Moore points out what should be obvious: if the corporate donors think the money will somehow save them, they are seriously deluding themselves. The Democrats have already signaled - loud an clear - that corporate taxation will skyrocket, protectionist trade policies will be enacted and that unions will get pretty much whatever they want if the Dems run the table in 2008. The money will just ensure that it happens.

Time For A Niche Electric Car?

Interesting concept, although sales thus far are fairly dismal. A tiny, one-seater electric car with a 30-mile range that is actually pretty zippy (70+ mph). It would be a practical choice for many people who have short commutes and who normally do so all alone in a car designed to hold four or more passengers. It is the Myers Motors NmG - or No More Gas.

TALLMADGE, United States (AFP) - Tired of waiting for big auto to come up with a truly clean car, Dana Myers has developed a tiny solution to the carbon crisis.

Tucked into a corner of his family's factory, behind an industrial crane and giant transformers, sits a fleet of what look like three-wheeled technicolor shoehorns.

Unlike the hybrids currently on offer, his No More Gas runs entirely on electricity. And its engine is powerful enough to zip down the highway.

There is one rather large catch. It has a maximum battery range of just 30 miles (50 kilometres) and room for just the driver and some groceries in the trunk.

Which could be why he's only sold 35 of them.

Dozens of companies have tried, and failed, to switch consumers over to electric cars.

The most spectacular failure was GM's EV1, the subject of award-winning documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?"

Failures among smaller companies are also legendary, said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research.

"The sheer complexity is just overwhelming," Cole said, explaining that while safety regulations are a huge hurdle, the biggest problem is finding drivers willing to compromise on comfort and convenience just to go green.

"It's really tough to do."

The Myers Motors website has a lot of information on the car - and a thoroughly annoying auto-play video (hint - get rid of that and allow people to start it themselves guys.) The video will play whenever you go to the main page. Argh. That aside, the car is interesting and would actually work for a lot of average commuters. But it is going to be a tough sell. The car is almost more of a replacement for a motorcycle, as the annoying video points out, but it has a closed cab, good impact protection, heat and a place to plug in your MP3 player. It's a geek's dream! Reportedly, they are working on extending the range to about 100 miles. They come in some eye-popping colors, too.

The question is, is this the right time for the car to catch on? The cars are built in Ohio and have an MSRP of about $35,000.