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'Tis the election season of 2008 and any industry in a mess has exactly two months to make its case and claims to a beneficent US Congress. Who, after all, wants to harm or neglect the already struggling US auto industry.? With General Motors (NYSE: GM) and Ford (NYSE: F) having reached their lowest market valuation in more than a generation, why not ask for the bailout...ah, sorry, assistance...ah, sorry again...low interest loans to re-tool their respective factories for future fuel efficient vehicles.

What's the deal here? The energy bill from 2007 allows for low interest loans to create next generation technologies for energy efficiency. The auto makers want to press Congress hard for their share when the summer recess is over...and certainly before the election. The auto makers say they need $50 billion to be competitive again.The rub as some see it is the desire of the auto makers asking for twice the amount that has been earmarked for such projects. Why not, asking for twice the amount right now is opportunistic as politicians are running for re-election and want to hang their hats on any good issue that will save jobs and create goodwill.

My very first post on bloggingstocks was Microsoft: What are you thinking about? where I ranted that Microsoft Inc. (NASDAQ: MSFT) stock was going nowhere. Over the last 29, months that is exactly what it has done. It closed yesterday at $27.62.

This is not to say it has not had it's moments rising at one time to a 52-week high of $37.50 on a lot of hopes and prayers. Nevertheless, I felt then and do now that MSFT would be better off in pieces Micro'soft' vs Micro'hard' -- Break it up fellas!

If Microsoft wants to compete against Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and be a dominant player on the web, it should split out its web services as a separate company. That new company would be the right merger partner for Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO). There is no reason to tie the web services business to the future of the Zune (if it has one) or the XBOX entertainment game player and other equally unrelated business.

Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) success over the next decade depends, to some extent, on moving its search products from PCs to the new generation of mobile devices. It will go a long way toward getting a head start on that in a deal with Verizon (NYSE: VZ).

According to The Wall Street Journal, "The deal under discussion, which would make Google the default search provider on Verizon devices and give it a share of ad revenue, is aimed at dramatically simplifying what is now a confusing set of search options for cellphone users."

The news is not good for Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) or Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO). After losing the PC search battle, their next, and perhaps last, option to pick up substantial business is on mobile handsets. Because Verizon has about 70 million subscribers in the U.S., a large opportunity to gain share from Google is gone.

Deals with cellular carriers are overrated. Even if the default search engine is on a handset, users can still access any other search company through the phone's web browser.

If PC habits carry over to the wireless world, Google has already won the new war. Few people are likely to change search preferences from device to device.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Boeing (NYSE: BA) lost its bid for the new Air Force tanker to Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC). The aircraft builder was able to get the process re-opened and now has a shot at getting the business that was awarded to Northrop.

Winning another chance at the big contract is not enough. According to The Wall Street Journal, "Boeing Co. said it is inclined to bail out of its effort to win a $40 billion contract to build aerial refueling tankers for the U.S. Air Force unless the Pentagon agrees to give it a total of six months to submit a new bid."

Boeing claims that it will take a long time to figure out how to configure one of its airplanes to haul the amount of jet fuel required by the Air Force.

The request is bogus. Boeing has been through the bidding process for the tanker once before. The idea that the company did not understand the specifications is remarkable.

Boeing may be trying to gain time to shave some of its costs off the project so that it can bring the price of its bid down. It should have done that in the first round. There is no reason it should get that additional time.

It is no wonder Northrop got the original approval, and it is likely to get it again in this round.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

General Motors (NYSE: GM) has just announced that it will extend warranties on may of it used cars. According to Reuters, "GM said it would begin offering a 12-month, 12,000-mile "bumper-to-bumper" warranty on all used cars and trucks certified as eligible for the repair coverage by participating GM dealers." The firm has already said it will return to the extensive use of incentives to clear out new car inventory.

GM should have a better solution than to lose more money on each new car it sells and add costs to market its used products. It turns out that is not the case. Vehicle sales in the U.S. are just too awful and Toyota (NYSE: TM) and Honda (NYSE: HMC) take more market share each month.The talk of GM doing into Chapter 11 rings a bit more true as the time passes.

GM is now out of options. It still makes money overseas, but that is overwhelmed but its North American deficit. GM says it will stick to supporting all of its brands except the Hummer. That may end up not being true. GM did say it was moving away from incentives. It did not work out terribly well.

GM has a couple of brands that still sell only a modest number of cars. Saab is one. Saturn in another. Saab could be sold. Saturn could be closed. Saturn might not even be missed.

If GM has to continue using incentives, it will get to the point where it cannot support the marketing and product development costs of all of its brands. That point is probably coming in the next quarter.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) is dead. That has been written before, but now the company needs an official funeral mass. According to The New York Times, "Palm's chief executive, will announce the debut of a new smartphone primarily for business customers - the Treo Pro." The company also has several other handsets in development.

Palm is now up against smartphone products from much larger companies like Samsung and Nokia (NYSE: NOK). Not to mention the Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone.

In the last year, Palm had an operating loss of $105 million on a shrinking revenue base that fell to $1.32 billion. The company has $398 million in current and long-term debt.

Palm is not going to make it as an operating company, but it might be a good licensing entity. That would involve cutting almost all of the company's staff and licensing its brand and product designs to another company, perhaps Samsung or LG. The Palm name still carries some modest weight in the U.S.

Palm's revenue might drop to $100 million, but its costs would be negligible. It would, at least, make a profit, which is something that is out of the question with the company in its current form.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

In a move that the company wisely decided not to announce via a press release to investors, eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) has lowered the listing fee for fixed-price items on its site to 35 cents, down from as high as $4, depending on the price. The listing duration will also jump from 7 days to 30; those changes will be at least partially offset by an increase in the commission on sold items but eBay did not break down any details on that.

According (subscription required) to The Wall Street Journal, "The company is playing catch-up to other Web sites that have focused on fixed-price sales."

That may be true for now but the fact that eBay feels a need to court that market with aggressive price cuts indicates that the company recognizes the many sellers are opting for that over its own flagship auction business. Almost since inception, eBay has miraculously managed to avoid a price battle with competitors, and has been able to steadily increase its fees while much-hyped and well-funded imitators like Auction Universe fell by the wayside. It may be that sites like Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) are finally posing a serious threat.

It also may be that eBay is just messing with people's minds. Back in February when eBay announced its last "fee cut", sellers protested, alleging that the increase in the commission more than offset the decrease and accused eBay of fuzzy math.

Details of the new fee structure will tell us whether eBay is desperate of just manipulative.

The stock market was down yesterday and it is down again today. Bearish sentiment is roaming through Wall Street right now, so I thought I would look back on another occasion when the market was going through similar turmoil and I wrote about the following eight stocks, which I thought would be "safe havens" in such a storm.

Six of the eight did well and two did not, and of course one of those two was a disaster. Among the losers, I do not think anyone is fretting about UPS, which is still one of the few triple-A rated companies along with Berkshire Hathaway. It has been well reported that the slowing economy and higher fuel prices have been the major culprits affecting UPS's earnings. In the case of WaMu, it's demise has also been well reported, but at the time I recommended it WaMu had a stellar reputation of growth and high yield for over two decades. There is no hiding, it turned out to be a lousy pick and an ANTI-SAFE Haven

NOT SAFE:

United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) closed Monday at $65.30 down from $78.40; a 16.71% loss

Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) closed Monday at $4.21 down from $45.50; a 98% loss.

Fortunately the remaining six picks have done very, very well. If you had bought the pool, the average gain over the last two years would have been 7.14%. Adding the dividends over the two years would have raised this to 13.14%.

A recent article about one of Apple, Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) former engineering executives left me laughing quite a bit. Tim Bucher, who recently left Apple for Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) after being accused by Apple CEO of being "manic depressive," is trying to throw a spear at his former company by trying to find a challenger to Apple's iTunes service with a quite-ambitious plan at Dell.

Instead of trying to create yet another online music and video ecosystem that syncs seamlessly with another round of boring Dell music devices, he's trying to create an industry-wide team of competitors to seriously challenge Apple's dominance in the iPod/iTunes marketplace. Notice I did not say "MP3/Music service" marketplace. Right now, it's all Apple in the digital music scene and has been for some time.

Consultant Rob Enderle says that Apple "locks you in" while Dell "locks you into choice." While opening up choice is great for consumers, history says that products and services become so fragmented and hard to use that they never reach critical mass. What Apple did with the iPod was to make the service that goes with it -- iTunes -- so easy to use that it quickly became the market leader. One brand, one service, simple to use.

It's true that many customers want freedom and choice in their music players and music download services so they can "mix and match" to their heart's content. Everyone else (yes, the majority) wants a solution as simple as a light switch. Flip it, and everything "just works." Good luck, Bucher and Dell, but to even come close to challenging Apple, your solution better be out of this world.

One of the few hopes the U.S. car companies have had is that they have been perceived as closing the quality gap with Japanese models. Recent JP Power data shows Detroit running in a dead heat with imports in the consumer satisfaction race.

That bubble has been at least partially burst due to new information from the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index. According to the AP, "U.S. car buyers are growing less satisfied with their purchases from domestic automakers while their Asian and European competitors continue to improve."

In the new survey, BMW and Lexus tied for the top spot followed by Honda (NYSE: HMC) and Toyota (NYSE: TM). Several brands from GM (NYSE: GM) and Ford (NYSE: F) dropped down the rankings.

At the risk of stating the obvious, Detroit is in such deep trouble that a perceived drop in the quality of its cars can only make its recovery more difficult. There are several ways around that, but none of them are very palatable.

GM yesterday introduced buyer incentives across most of its brands. That means its margins on those vehicles will be lower. It may pick up some market share, but any victory there will be costly. The U.S. car companies are cutting their marketing budgets, so they cannot "advertise" their way out of the problem.

Effectively giving cars away can certainly help hurdle the quality barrier, but losing a lot more money could sink a large U.S. auto company.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

What's one trend that's starting to feel the pinch of sky-high oil prices?

If you answered 40-mile commutes to work and/or tank-sized SUVs, you're right, but in this case it's the business process called the global supply chain.

The logic of, for example, shipping Brazilian iron ore to China to be made into steel, then shipping it back to Long Beach, California in the form of washing machines is making less sense today than it did when oil was $25 per barrel a decade ago, The New York Times reported.

In fact, some manufacturing that fled Mexico for even-lower-cost-labor China is now returning to Mexico because it's cheaper per unit to manufacture the goods in Mexico and send them to the United States, after oils costs for shipping are considered, The Times reported.

Spanning the world: it isn't cheap

Economist Peter Dawson told BloggingStocks that investors / readers should expect more 'repatriation' of manufacturing if oil stays above $100 per barrel.

"Companies will be begin to shift, in some cases, on a product-by-product basis, the production of goods to net lower cost zones," Dawson said. "China's percentage of manufacturing in the world will continue to increase, but the calculus now is more complicated. It's no longer 'O.K., we need 200,000 auto motors, off we go to China.' Those motors may end up being less expensive if secured in Mexico, after transport costs are considered."

During my various commutes over the past week I have been hearing a new radio commercial about Intuitive Surgical Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG). The City of Hope Hospital in Los Angeles is advertising their Di Vinci robotic surgical procedures to attract patients.

They use the catch phrase "The science of saving lives" while promoting less invasive surgical procedures, shorter hospital stays, and faster recovery. These are well-known themes among the medical profession and investors but it is the first time I have heard the story promoted for a competitive advantage among hospitals. I am sure it won't be the last.

Certainly this will raise the bar among other hospitals competing for similar business and simply to keep their Di Vinci operating rooms productive, cost effective, and profitable. It also means that any hospital without the equipment will soon be deemed second rate, if they are not already.

Perhaps we will soon be hearing competing hospitals bragging about having multiple Di Vinci's or more trained doctors or the highest number of procedures or new procedures. Where will it end? When it is common place and every hospital is using the system.

Have you heard any radio advertising from hospitals in your city? Fans of Elvis Costello can check out Radio, Radio" at Last fm. here.

ISRG closed last Friday at $299.17 and is trading down slightly this morning. It has been hovering around $300 for the past two weeks.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. DISCLOSURE: I currently own shares of ISRG and have no relationship whatsoever with "Last fm" ,but I was reminded of the song and it is way cool.

There's an upside and a downside regarding major auto companies and the quest to develop vehicles with increased fuel-efficiency.

The upside: Auto makers are positioning themselves to carve out niches in fuel-efficient technology and design, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday (subscription required).

The downside: Auto makers appear to be exhibiting a 'herd mentality' on the current propulsion technology -- hybrid engine cars with both a modest electric power source and a mainstay internal combustion engine.

An electric hybrid focus

Following up on its successful electric-gasoline Prius hybrid, Toyota (NYSE: TM) announced it will make hybrid engine systems available on all models by 2020, The Journal reported. Meanwhile, Honda said it would import new hybrid technology to the U.S. to compete with Toyota and Ford (NYSE: F) plans to double its hybrid lineup next year, and Chevrolet's (NYSE: GM) Volt hybrid that will go on sale in 2010.

Economist David H. Wang said investors and consumers should not be overly optimistic or pessimistic regarding the sector's concentration on electric-fuel hybrids.

The FCC is looking at using part of the TV signal spectrum to provide wireless high-speed internet. It is a brilliant idea that is being opposed by a large part of the television industry.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "The Federal Communications Commission will have the final say in the battle between the broadcasters -- which fear interference on the airwaves they'll still be using -- and the companies including Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG). and Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) that want to share the television airwaves."

The fight is a classic example of old media not wanting to give up something that it has "owned" for years because it may help new competition.

Tough luck. Broadband adoption in the U.S. is behind several countries in Europe and Asia, and if the FCC can offer an inexpensive solution to that, it should. The new over-the-air system would have many of the benefits of Wi-Fi, but would be more broadly available.

TV broadcasters say that the new technology could interfere with their signals, but testing can demonstrate whether that is true or not. The FCC has the chance to move broadband adoption forward with one spectacular decision. It should not balk at the chance.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

American Airlines, British Air and Spain's Iberia have signed a joint business agreement on flights between North America and Europe, American Airlines announced Thursday.

American (NYSE: AMR) added that the three airlines plan to file for global antitrust immunity from U.S. officials and will also apply from the same in Europe.

Under the deal announced Thursday, the three airlines will cooperate commercially on flights between the United States zone (encompassing Canada and Mexico) and the European Union (including Switzerland and Norway), while continuing to operate as separate, legal companies.

Analyst: 'an absolute, positive, must deal'

Stock Analyst C. Leonard Bauer told BloggingStocks Thursday rival competitors may argue that the deal will reduce competition internationally, but in Bauer's interpretation the agreement is "an absolute, positive, must deal," due to the changing nature of flight and air travel.

"The reality is, we're becoming a global travel marketplace, not just a national one, one that will eventually be accessible to everyone, and in this decade the key players will compete on transcontinental and global routes," Bauer said. "That means the carriers need global scale and the American-British Air-Iberia deal accomplishes that. It is an absolute, positive, must deal." (Bauer added that he does not have a rating on nor own shares in any airline. However, Bauer does have frequent flier miles/points in American Airlines.)