XIAM007

Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Tuesday 3 December 2013

GM Channel Stuffing Surges To Second Highest Ever -

GM Channel Stuffing Surges To Second Highest Ever - 



Confused why the various US manufacturing indices have been on a tear in the past few months? Perhaps the fact that GM dealer lots are so full of cars they just couldn't wait for even more deliveries has something to do with it. Which is also why in addition to reporting sales numbers for November that were largely in line with expectations, amounting to 212,060 (even if total Chevy Volts sold YTD of 20.7K were -0.6% less than in the same period in 2012), or 13.7% more than last year (estimated called for 13.% increase), of which a whopping 51,705 was in the form of "channel stuffed" units to be parked on dealer lots.

In fact, as the chart below shows, in the past three months, GM channel stuffing has exploded and soared by 150K units (the most ever for a 3 month period) from 628.6K to 779.5K. This represents the second highest amount of channel stuffing and is lower only compared to the 788.2K units "stuffed" exactly one year ago.


And while the topic of channel stuffing is not new here, as we have been covering it closely for the past three years, it is of note that even "serious" media such as Bloomberg pointed out yesterday that across the entire US car industry, and not just GM, channel stuffing is now the highest it has been since 2005. Surely all this pent up demand is there for a reason: after all, as in every centrally-planned economy, if you build it they will surely come...

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Banned on Google: The 1,400 words you can't use -

Banned on Google: The 1,400 words you can't use - 



Google bans over 1,400 English words in Kit Kat, the search giant's latest version of Android operating system for tablets and smartphones.
To be clear, it doesn't mean that you can't ever type these words on Android. It just means that Google will mark the word as "incorrect" and pretend like it has no idea what you're talking about. The words don't exist in Android's dictionary.

We first saw the news on Wired. 

"Banned" words include:

Butt
Geek
Gonadatrophia
Irrumination
Pizzle
Thud
LSAT
Intercourse
Coitus
Screwing
Lovemaking
Panty
Braless
Tampax
Lactation
Preggers
Uterus
STI
Morphine

On the flip side, Google allows words like "marijuana," "bong," and "Nazi." It's also worth noting that words like "coitus," "screwing," and "lovemaking" are not banned on Jelly Bean, even though they are on KitKat.

Users can also go to their keyboard settings to turn off the filter that blocks foul language.

So just how does Google go about determining which words to ban? Well, as Wired reports, Google is declining to comment on how it compiles its list and how often it's updated. 

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