The number of Americans filing new unemployment insurance claims decreased last week, but remained above the key 500,000 level symbolic of a weak economy, the government reported Thursday.,img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rss/money_latest/~4/BJpMwM3GYy4" height="1" width="1"/

Category: Finance
Released: Nov 20, 2008
Price: $1.99

Description:
âÂ?Â?Tired of wasting your precious time calculating if your monthly income is correct?' Waste no more. Tax Calculator UK 1.0 from zAppz will calculate this for you in a few taps! Simply enter your annual salary and a few other inputs, press âÂ?Â?CalculateâÂ?Â? and view your concise and clear âÂ?Â?Estimated BreakdownâÂ?Â?. Tax Calculator UK 1.0 Inputs: Gross Income /year (Ã?£) Pension Contributions (%, defaults to 0) Other TAX Free Allowances (Ã?£, defaults to 0) Age Blind / Pay No National Insurance selections Student Loan Repayments Tapping âÂ?Â?CalculateâÂ?Â? will then show your monthly and annual: Gross Income TAX Free Allowance & Taxable Income TAX National Insurance Pension Contributions (optional) Student Loan Repayment (optional) NET Income zAppz Ltd does not record or collect any of the data entered into Tax Calculator UK. The information is only stored whilst the application is running. For more information about Tax Calculator UK 1.0, including the calculations used within the application and any bug reporting visit www.z-appz.com/appz and select the Tax Calculator UK icon. Please visit our website to submit any feature and whilst youâÂ?Â?re there why not take a look at our other applications.

Website: http://z-appz.com/appz/taxcalc/
Support Website: http://z-appz.com/appz/taxcalc/

Note: The description above is the official one supplied by the application developer and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of this site or its staff.


Get it on iTunes: Tax Calculator UK

We mentioned the availability of early versions of this a few weeks ago, but Handy Safe Professional Edition has now been formally released for all S60 3rd Edition phones, with a slicker desktop companion application. Features, changelog and links below the break.
The AAS team have sworn by Handy Safe for years because of its two-way sync from phone to desktop, so this is a new release that you should definitely try.
From the press release:
"Handy Safe Pro – a new Professional edition of the best selling Handy Safe application that guarantees secure storage and convenient private data control as well as two-way synchronization with PC on S60 smartphones - uses password protection and a strong 448-bit data encryption (Blowfish) that keeps your data private and secure."
"Handy Safe Pro special features:

• Store passwords, user names, credit card information, codes, accounts (private and corporate email, Internet, shopping, bank),
• software keys, web pages, addresses and contact information, travel info, insurance policies, and much more
• 35 unique information forms to store everything on your smartphone
• Custom templates to store specific information according to your needs
• Strong 448-bit data encryption (Blowfish) keeps your data private and secure.
• URLs are treated as hyperlinks
• Subfolders support
• Possibility to restore items in case of accidental deleting
• Autolock option when Handy Safe is in background or if you don’t use Handy Safe for a certain period of time

"Handy Safe Desktop Professional, the PC companion includes:

• Easy access to your smartphone information on PC
• Specially designed synchronization mechanism
• User defined database location
• Better usability: improved toolbar, database wizard, search results, hide password function and more
• Professional design and outlook"

Here's Handy Safe Pro in the AAS shop. Additional info and download links here on Epocware's dedicated page.



More...

Rene Otto has been instrumental in changing the face of short-term insurance industry and could revolutionise it further with his new venture, writes ADRIAAN GROENEWALD.

Repton writes "Thanks to the Second Amendment, even the elderly have the right to keep and bear arms. The problem is that many of the guns out there are a bit unwieldy for an older person to handle. However, the inventors of the Palm Pistol are planning to change all that with a weapon that is ideal for both the elderly and the physically disabled. In a statement submitted to Medgadget, the manufacturer, Constitution Arms, has revealed the following: 'We thought you might be interested to learn that the FDA has completed its "Device/Not a Device" determination and concluded the handgun will be listed as a Class I Medical Device.' Physicians will be able to prescribe the Palm Pistol for qualified patients who may seek reimbursement through Medicare or private health insurance companies."pa href="http://idle.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/04/0433234amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/12/04/0433234"/a/ppa href="http://idle.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/04/0433234amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/zx9v7TxLuEtudD27sfY5DkQ8ifw/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/zx9v7TxLuEtudD27sfY5DkQ8ifw/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/LX-ymg4Na1A" height="1" width="1"/

When a company called EMG Technology filed a patent lawsuit against Apple last week over “the way the iPhone navigates the Internet,” it had the stench of a patent troll. The suit was filed a month after the patent was issued in the Eastern District of Texas, known as troll country among patent attorneys because the courts there tend to rule favorably for patent owners.

EMG Technology is based in Los Angeles, and appears to have been formed solely for the purpose of filing this lawsuit. One of the inventors named on the patent and EMG “managing member” Elliot Gottfurcht is a Los Angeles real estate developer. Apple, of course, is also based in California.

Then there are the actual claims of patent No. 7,441,196. With the help of M-CAM, an underwriter of patent insurance, I uncovered some patents (listed below) that pre-date EMG’s and that might be considered prior art. Apple’s lawyers should take a look at them. Some of them are even owned by Apple. Others are owned by IBM, Microsoft, Sony, and Sun Microsystems.

Before we get to those, what about EMG’s patent? The claims in that patent describe the ability to manipulate, zoom, scroll, and view Web content on devices other than a laptop. But the central and primary claim has to do with a way to convert HTML Web pages into XML data that can then be displayed partially on different devices, including mobile phones.

I’m no lawyer or patent expert, but my initial reaction was that these seem like overly broad claims (they cover everything from TVs to Web appliances to cell phones) with lots of precedents. It is very difficult to display an entire Webpage on a small screen, so engineers have figured out various ways to display parts of those pages.

EMG does not specify in its suit which of the patent’s 76 claims it thinks Apple is infringing on. But in the press release announcing the lawsuit, EMG’s lawyer highlights the claims covering “the display of Internet content reformatted from HTML to XML on mobile devices” and “technology for manipulating a region of the screen for zooming and scrolling.”

I asked M-CAM to run EMG’s patent through its Patently Obvious database, which compares claims across millions of patents. And they came up with 250 instances of possible prior art not mentioned in the EMG patent. When an inventor files a patent, he is required to list all other patents you are aware of that could have an impact on your claims. One way to get a patent application past an overworked patent examiner is to list a ton of related prior art, but omit the critical ones that could invalidate the patent.

One key patent omitted by EMG is No 6,535,896: “Systems, methods and computer program products for tailoring web page content in hypertext markup language format for display within pervasive computing devices using extensible markup language tools.” It is owned by IBM and was filed on January 29, 1999, which is prior to the November 15, 1999 date that is applicable for the EMG patent. The abstract for the IBM patent describes what it does this way:

Content portions of a requested Web page are converted to an XML format and then modified using an XML content-tailoring tool. Other content portions of the Web page are masked so as to be “hidden” and are, thus, not converted to XML format. The masked portions of the Web page are then unmasked, combined with the modified content portions, and transmitted to a client device for display therewithin.

That sounds very similar to parts of the first claim of the EMG patent:

1. A method of navigating the Internet, comprising: displaying on-line content accessed via the Internet, the on-line content reformatted from a webpage in a hypertext markup language (HTML) format into an extensible markup language (XML) format to generate a sister site, . . . navigation options to change between layers of the simplified navigation interface from general to more specific in each deeper layer; receiving a user selection of one of the navigation options; forwarding the selected navigation option across the internet to a server providing the simplified navigation interface; receiving a next deeper navigation layer of the simplified navigation interface corresponding to the selected navigation option

How did EMG’s patent get approved by the U.S. Patent Office? This just illustrates a bigger problem with the patent system. Since the budget of the Patent Office, which is derived from filing and maintenance fees, is tied directly to how many patents it approves, it has an economic incentive to approve as many as possible. This system needs to be changed. (Anyone in on Obama’s team reading this?).

Below are some other prior art that Apple’s lawyers might want to take a look at (and some quaint patent art that accompanied EMG’s filing).

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/99182?ns=guardianpageName=Politics%3A+Brown+acts+to+stop+wave+of+repossessionsch=Politicsc3=The+Guardianc4=Queen%27s+speech%2CGordon+Brown%2CMortgages+%28Money%29%2CFirst-time+buyers%2CHouse+prices+%28Money%29%2CConsumer+affairs+%28Money%29%2CState+benefits%2CEconomic+policy%2CCredit+crunch+%28Business%29%2CBorrowing+and+debt%2CWelfare+%28Politics%29%2CPolitics%2CMoney%2CBusiness%2CHousing+market+%28Business%29%2CUK+newsc5=Personal+Finance%2CCredit+Crunch%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CBusiness+Markets%2CSocial+Care+Society%2CProperty+Mortgages+and+Interest+Ratesc6=Patrick+Wintourc7=2008_12_04c8=1128414c9=articlec10=GUc11=Politicsc12=Queen%27s+speechc13=c14=h2=GU%2FPolitics%2FQueen%27s+speech" width="1" height="1" //divpHomeowners struggling to pay their mortgages were given a reprieve by Gordon Brown yesterday when he unveiled a plan to let people affected by the economic downturn take a two-year mortgage interest payment holiday./ppThe intervention was aimed at removing the prospect of an increase in home repossessions before a general election and to give people breathing space if they lose their jobs or take a big cut in their income. It is also designed to show that Labour would help middle Britain through the recession./ppBrown's surprise move came amid reports that without the government's intervention, repossessions were set to increase to 75,000 next year, hitting levels last seen in 1991, the worst year of the previous recession./ppEight banks and building societies, covering 70% of the mortgage market, have agreed to allow families struggling with mortgage payments the right to defer all, or part, of their interest payments for two years. The government will underwrite the scheme./ppBrown's surprise was sprung during the debate on a relatively sparse Queen's speech and followed secret Treasury talks with the building societies and banks. Many details, including the qualification rules, have yet to be finalised but officials denied the institutions had been bounced into a premature agreement to provide Brown with some gloss on a grey Queen's speech, which was almost overshadowed yesterday by the war of words between police and parliament over the raids on Conservative MP Damian Green's office./ppThe prime minister said the scheme would cover any household which suffered a redundancy or "significant loss of income". This would, for the first time, extend help to households where one family member loses their job and the other remains in work./ppThe Treasury plans for the scheme to apply to mortgages up to £400,000, and would probably kick in where the applicants have savings of less than £16,000./ppThe government has estimated that the cost of guaranteeing the delayed mortgage payments would add a £1bn contingent liability to government borrowing, but only cost £100m directly in eventual defaults. Building societies and banks would act as gatekeepers of the scheme, deciding whether the request to defer mortgage payments was justified. No definition of "a significant loss of income" was provided yesterday, but government officials said it might cover someone forced to take a less well-paid job or less in overtime./ppTreasury officials said the numbers liable for help would not be so large as to damage the mortgage insurance industry. The help was designed to lift the fear of repossession for those facing job insecurity. Those in safe jobs were going to enjoy falling mortgages, officials said./ppThe move comes as the Bank of England is expected to cut its base rate today. The markets expect a cut of one to two percentage points from the current rate of 3%. A cut of 1.5 points would take the rate lower than it has been since the Bank was formed in 1694./ppBrown told MPs: "Hardworking households that experience a redundancy or severe loss of income as a result of the downturn will be able to defer a proportion of their interest payments for up to two years as they get their family finances back on track."/ppThe Council of Mortgage Lenders said: "It is not a charter for 'won't pay' borrowers to avoid their responsibilities, but it will provide welcome reassurance to the vast majority of borrowers that the government and lenders are doing all they can ... to help those customers who 'can't pay' due to a change in circumstances."/ppBrown said the measure was in addition to protection for the unemployed, who can claim help to meet interest payments after 13 weeks./ppTreasury officials said banks and building societies would not suffer a serious loss of income as a result of the deferment. Brown also confirmed that the code on how banks treat business would be put on a statutory basis. Banks who fell foul of the code could face a range of sanctions, including fines./ppA total of 14 bills were revealed in the Queen's speech yesterday, including two carried over from the previous parliament. Overall, it represented the shortest legislative programme since the government came to power./ppThe programme takes in a new constitution for the NHS, confirmation of a right to seek flexible working for parents, and wider sanctions on the unemployed to make themselves "job ready". There was also a clamp down on "all you can drink" offers in pubs as well as lapdancing and prostitution in what one government official described as "action on the whole night out". Health department officials denied ministers had dropped plans to ban cigarette machines./ppBut internal disputes led to a delay in the constitutional reform bill, seen in 2007 as Brown's flagship legislation./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/queens-speech"Queen's speech/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/gordon-brown"Gordon Brown/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/mortgages"Mortgages/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/firsttimebuyers"First-time buyers/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/houseprices"House prices/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/consumeraffairs"Consumer affairs/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/statebenefits"State benefits/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/economy"Economic policy/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/creditcrunch"Credit crunch/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/debt"Borrowing debt/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/welfare"Welfare/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/housingmarket"Housing market/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/bMuhgms9lowiSc8bfIakg8zQ8y4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/bMuhgms9lowiSc8bfIakg8zQ8y4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/12/palm_pistol.jpg" align="left" hspace="4" vspace="2" width="500" height="255" style="display:block;" /Ohhh yesmdash;be very afraid. Remember the a href="http://gizmodo.com/5069173/palm-pistol-grandma-is-going-on-a-toodle-shootin-rampage"Palm Pistol/a ergonomic handgun from a few months back? Well, you will be interested to know that it has been designated as a medical gadget by the FDA./p pIn a statement submitted to Medgadget, the manufacturer, Constitution Arms, has revealed the following:/p blockquote pWe thought you might be interested to learn that the FDA has completed its “Device/Not a Device” determination and concluded the handgun will be listed as a Class I Medical Device, exempt from 510(k) Pre-Market Notification in accordance with 21 CFR 890.5050 “Daily Activity Assist Device.”/p pWe have now submitted an application to the CMS contractor Noridian for a DME (Durable Medical Equipment) Coding Verification in order to be assigned an HCPCS code. Once assigned , physicians will be able to prescribe the Palm Pistol for qualified patients who may seek reimbursement through Medicare or private health insurance companies./p /blockquote pOk, right to bear arms , rights of the disabled and elderly, blah blah...but prescription handguns? Damn...I can't even get my contacts covered through my insurance company. My guess is that this will not end well. [a href="http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2008/12/medicare_to_cover_prescription_handguns.html"Medgadget/a]/p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=791bffe110e2bd14770bacfa05f2bc24p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=791bffe110e2bd14770bacfa05f2bc24p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=791bffe110e2bd14770bacfa05f2bc24" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=w2A3LJW6"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=5Lmcb685"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=wgFGYD5d"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=wgFGYD5d" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=d92PBz5w"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=d92PBz5w" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/AjNszymxhV8" height="1" width="1"/

img src="http://www.lesoir.be/stories/thumb180x120/mediastore/_2008/decembre/hermes/ID1444692_03_fortis_carte_belga_191_00KFFH_0.JPG.jpg" width="120" align="left" hspace="4" vspace="4" /La Commission europ#233;enne a approuv#233; sous conditions l#8217;acquisition des filiales belges et luxembourgeoises de Fortis Holding (Fortis Banque Belgique, Fortis Banque Luxembourg et Fortis Insurance Belgium) par BNP Paribas.img width='1' height='1' src='http://rss.feedsportal.com/c/864/f/11086/s/27da618/mf.gif' border='0'/br/br/a href="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/25853532137/u/89/f/11086/c/864/s/41788952/a2.htm"img src="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/25853532137/u/89/f/11086/c/864/s/41788952/a2.img" border="0"//a

BRUXELLES La Commission a autorisé "l'acquisition des filiales belges et luxembourgeoises de Fortis Holding, à savoir Fortis Banque Belgique, Fortis Banque Luxembourg et Fortis Insurance Belgium, par BNP ...

The iTraxx Crossover index, which measures the cost of protecting against default on the debt of companies with poor credit ratings, rose above a key level as sentiment continued to deteriorate in credit markets

IÕm a young francophone University student looking for a mature and responsible female roommate. The apartment is a large and sunny 4 #189; on the second floor of a triplex. There are two closed bedrooms, a kitchen, living room, bathroom and a small balcony in the back. It has been recently repainted and the wood floors refinished. The bedroom for rent is spacious with a window and a large closet. #10;#10;The price includes electricity, heating, high-speed Internet and fire insurance. (* Please note that the price for hydro fluctuates from month to month.)#10;#10;The apartment is located on a tranquil street in Villeray. ItÕs approximately five minutes by foot to both Metro Cremazie and Jarry (Orange Line.) As well, itÕs a few minutes away from Saint-Denis street and all the basic stores such as the grocery store, pharmacy, post-office, depanneurÉ#10;#10;I prefer a non-smoker (at least no smoking in the apartment) and no pets due to allergies.#10;#10;The apartment is available immediately so if you are interested please contact me by email.#10;

Fujitsu is offering a very kewl deal, at least after the initial expense. Buy a LIFEBOOK and a 3 years warranty upgrade within 3 weeks of purchase and you get a new one every three years for life. Choose from any of the their models and remember to register after purchase. If you already own a LIFEBOOK you can also sign up for the program. Insurance for accident/theft is available for those ‘just in case’ times. Prices start around £1,321.06 (~$1966.00.)

Tags: computer, fujitsu lifebook'4'life, hot deal, insurance, laptop, notebook, pc, tablet, warranty,

Fujitsu LIFEBOOK’4'Life originally appeared on Gear Live on Wed, December 03, 2008 - 10:31:54

Unfortunately I need to wait for insurance money, but the australian apple store has early 2008 2.4 MBP refurbs for AU$2000. Fair price right? When you consider a new 2.4MBP costs AU$3200 that's a freaking 40% discount!

never mind it's only 23% off the original price. i think they'll be going like hot cakes and I wish I could get one now to replace my lost one... c'est la vie

The company will sell the right to buy an individual health policy in the future even if you become sick.br/br/span class="advertisement" a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?x=ba6699eca028480181189b6a17db1074u=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/business/03insure.html"img src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?x=ba6699eca028480181189b6a17db1074u=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/business/03insure.html" border="0"//a/span

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/43031?ns=guardianpageName=Business%3A+The+road+to+ruinch=Businessc3=The+Guardianc4=Automotive+industry+%28Business%29%2CGeneral+Motors%2CFord%2CBusiness%2CUS+economy+%28Business%29%2CUS+news%2CWorld+newsc5=Motoring%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CBusiness+Markets%2CUS+Economyc6=Ed+Pilkingtonc7=2008_12_03c8=1127737c9=articlec10=GUc11=Businessc12=Automotive+industryc13=c14=h2=GU%2FBusiness%2FAutomotive+industry" width="1" height="1" //divpThe Ford plant in Highland Park, a city within the city of Detroit, is a monument to the American automobile. It opened in 1910, and three years later pioneered the world's first car assembly line. In 1925, it spewed out 9,000 Model Ts in a single day. The revolution that turned America into a car-owning democracy had arrived. Today, there is ample evidence of that revolution. The factory looks over a six-lane highway that is heavy with traffic from dawn to dusk. Next door is a drive-thru McDonald's, where customers come to order Big Macs before rolling 50 metres to a drive-thru chemists to pick up indigestion tablets./ppThe story of the plant is told in one of those green-and-gold heritage plaques erected by the main entrance. It says: "Mass production soon moved from here to all phases of American industry and set the pattern of abundance for 20th-century living." Pattern of abundance: the phrase reads like a sick joke, for the Ford factory it describes is a shell of what it once was. Its red brick and granite walls still stand proud, framed by decorative mosaics. But the windows are broken or boarded up, its ceilings have gaping holes, the floor is covered in broken lumps of fallen plaster. On the roof, the flagpole that for years flew the Stars and Stripes is rusty and bare./ppOther companies, other countries, might have turned Henry Ford's factory of dreams into a museum rather than let it decay into the pitiful wreck that it is today. But Ford, and its fellows in the Big Three - General Motors (GM) and Chrysler - have enough to do staying alive without worrying about preserving the past. GM, the giant of the three, has lost $73bn in the past three years; it is haemorrhaging $2bn a month. At that rate it will run out of cash by the middle of next year and collapse by that year's end, potentially bringing millions of workers down with it. Which is why the CEOs of the three giants took their begging bowls to Washington earlier this month, pleading for a "bridging loan" of $25bn./ppThey didn't get a warm reception. They were ridiculed by senators for having flown in three separate corporate jets, an act that must rank among the most impressive PR disasters of the decade. But what the senators and the largely hostile media coverage missed was that the miserable condition of the Detroit car industry is not merely a comment on the failed leadership of its corporate executives, though it is that. It is also a matter of personal survival for millions of Americans who depend, directly or indirectly, on the revolution Henry Ford began 100 years ago./ppNowhere is this more visible than in Detroit, the crucible of the Big Three. Half of GM's 100,000 workers live in the city, and they in turn support a spider's web of relatives, spin-off industries and services. Detroit is really nothing but a company town. Hamtramckis a city within the city that borders one of GM's main factories. When GM enjoyed good times, Hamtramck boomed. Now GM is in the doldrums, Hamtramck is too. We walk along a stretch of shops along one of its main streets. First in line is Anna's Beauty Salon: it's closed, but the sign on the door suggests Anna is managing to stay open four days a week. Next, Popular Fashion and Variety Store: shut down. Billiards and Burger Hall: abandoned. Antiques store, an oil painting portraying an autumn landscape still in its window: deserted. Law offices: vacant. Funeral home: open. Even in a recession, one aspect of life must go on - the ending of it./ppOn the other side of the road is the Family Donut shop, a local institution run by a Polish family for the past 28 years. It has a picture of Princess Diana on the wall, a gift from one of the regular clients, and another of the Three Stooges. The owner, Vojno, is unloading a bundle of cardboard boxes used to pack the donuts. A few years ago he would order up to 30 bundles a month; now it's 10. On Polish festive days, there would be a line of customers out the door and round the corner, and the stools at the counter would be loaded. Today, the line is more of a dribble and the counter is largely empty. Unless GM recovers, and money starts flowing again, he will have to close in a few months. "It's not just me. Everybody around here is going to shut down," he says. What will he do if he does have to close? "I'll stay home and sleep. I'm hungry for sleep," he says./ppOne of the few clients, dressed in a bomber jacket with Detroit written across the back, shouts over at him. "You only work one job, so why do you need to sleep?"/pp"Shut up, Eddie," Vojno replies./pp"I work three jobs to make my money," Eddie Fabiszak says, prompting the only other customer in the bakery to say, under his breath: "Lucky man."/ppThe other customer is Melis Lejlic, 27, a naturalised American originally from Bosnia. His father and mother, two uncles and a cousin all work in the car business. All now fear redundancy. Lejlic works in construction, but that is no better. Car workers are no longer spending on home improvements, so demand for his work has fallen by half. Of 10 builders he knows, seven are unemployed. "Everybody in a small town like this is looking to the car industry, and there's no hope there," he says. "Drive around, you'll see. Detroit is worse right now than Baghdad."/ppThe comparison sounds far-fetched, but in the streets around the GM plant you can see what he means. Several houses have no glazing in their rickety wooden walls. Front lawns have turned into littered pasture. Walls are lined with barbed wire. A mural of a Stars and Stripes has been graffitied. And though it is nothing like Baghdad, there is clearly a market in lawlessness. A poster advertising the services of a lawyer says: "Aggressive criminal defence. Drugs CCW [carrying a concealed weapon] Theft Murder All felonies misdemeanours." That is how Henry Ford's dream looks in November 2008./ppGM's headquarters in downtown Detroit dominate the city's skyline. The seven cylindrical glass towers of the Renaissance Centre were built in 1977 as a statement of the company's untouchable status as the then unquestioned king of the auto world. Inside the main tower, there is an exhibition of some of GM's most memorable models, dating back to the 1950s. It is almost shocking to see how beautiful and exhilarating those cars were. There is a 1953 Chevrolet Corvette Roadster, built largely by hand, its white, sensuous curves set off by red leather seats. Then there's a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air in black, the quintessential car of the American dream, big enough to carry a family to its suburban home but sufficiently powerful and sleek to avoid any sense of frumpiness. Pride of place goes to a 1959 Cadillac series 62 convertible, which is an outrageously attractive work of art. This was the baby of Harley Earl, GM's legendary designer. Inspired by the tail of a second world war fighter plane, he placed fins on the back of the car, with rear brake lights the shape of rockets and exhausts mimicking those of a jet. The 59 Cadillac summed up an entire generation - young, dangerous, fast, unstoppable./ppPeter DeLorenzo spent 22 years working in the car business as an advertising and marketing consultant and now runs an influential website called Autoextremist. He explains that when the explosion of creativity burst out in the 50s, Detroit had just emerged from the crucial role it had played as the manufacturing backbone of the war effort, churning out tanks and missiles at extraordinary rate, and confidence was riding high. "Coming out of the second world war, the automobile was the symbol of American might. GM was the symbol of American might, and most Americans were proud that GM was a successful corporation that turned out magnificent cars people wanted."/ppThe design-led strategy not only generated exquisite cars, it worked handsomely for GM. In 1955, four out of every five cars around the world were US-produced and half of those came from GM. The Big Three monopolised around 95% of the domestic market, and between them they transformed the US. They provided the stimulus for the biggest construction project in world history - the laying of the US interstate highways - and gave birth to the suburbs and to urban sprawl. Think Los Angeles. Think Phoenix rising out of the desert of Arizona./ppHow you get from the invincibility of those days to the verge of bankruptcy is a cautionary tale for the whole of America as its dominance wanes in an increasingly globalised economy. DeLorenzo, who has written a book called The United States of Toyota, dates the start of the rot to 1979 - just after GM had moved into its monolithic new headquarters in the Renaissance Centre. By then Japanese car companies were already snapping at the heels of the Big Three, but Detroit ignored the threat, steeped in complacency that the good times would last for ever. Leadership within the business also crucially changed hands, from the designers to what DeLorenzo calls the "bean counters". /ppBy the 1990s, the Big Three's reputation for innovation and beauty had withered, replaced by a reputation for faulty products. "People started to associate Detroit with cars coming off the assembly line and their doors falling off," says Micheline Maynard, a New York Times business reporter and author of The End of Detroit: How the Big Three Lost Their Grip. She recounts how in 2002 GM's vice-chairman, Bob Lutz, declared that their vehicles were every bit as reliable as Honda's and Toyota's; that same afternoon GM recalled 1.5m minivans./ppFrom the sleek elegance of the 1959 Cadillac to the lumpen brutality of the Hummer: what was in the mind of the GM executive who conceived putting a machine modelled on armoured vehicles on to the civilian streets of US cities, at barely 13 miles per gallon? But then Lutz has argued that that hybrids like the Toyota Prius "make no economic sense" and once called global warming "a total crock of shit"./ppThe other key element in the demise of Detroit concerns the staple of the American auto industry - the car worker. Ron Nidiffer is drinking beer in the New Dodge Lounge in Hamtramck, temporarily off work as the GM plant has suspended production for want of sales. He has worked in car factories for 36 years, 10 of them on the assembly line. He is one of a dying breed of car workers who had their pay and conditions set back in the heyday. His union, the United Auto Workers, negotiated a series of deals in the 1970s and 80s that have become the albatross around the industry's neck. He makes $29 an hour - substantially more than American workers in Japanese plants that have been transplanted to the non-unionised south, from Alabama to Texas. /ppBut the trouble really starts when you include the so-called "legacy costs", the generous terms agreed for pensions and health care that allowed workers to retire as young as 48. GM now carries about 470,000 retirees and spouses on benefits - more than four times its productive workforce - adding a total of about $2,000 for every car it makes, a terrible burden in the face of fierce foreign competition./ppThe symbol of excess that the UAW's critics like to point to is the "jobs banks", by which workers are paid 95% of their salaries for doing nothing. The scheme was introduced as a way of ensuring minimum employment levels, but billowed uncontrollably until it included about 40,000 workers. Nidiffer concedes that looking back, the jobs bank was indefensible. "Yes, it was a bad idea. And I understand why some people are jealous of what we've had. We had good conditions, even to excess."/ppBut what annoys him is the assumption that the largesse and complacency that epitomised the attitude of both unions and management is still prevalent today. The job banks have been whittled down to 3,500 workers, and wages have been cut in half for all new employees. He is one of the last at the GM plant in Hamtramck to enjoy the old $29 an hour rate, the others having taken redundancy. A deal has also been struck to lift the burden of legacy costs from GM's shoulders by transferring health insurance into an independent fund administered by the union. After all that, to hear Congress turn away the plea for $25bn from the Big Three CEOs makes Nidiffer see red. "I'm extremely mad. We've made all these concessions, taken the hit, and yet we're still accused of being lazy and greedy."/ppIt has not made him any happier that while Congress rebuffed Detroit, it has bailed out the banks with apparent alacrity, including Citibank which was last week handed the exact amount requested by the Big Three. "We're looking for a pittance compared with what they've given the banks," Nidiffer says. His anger is echoed in the front-page headline in the Detroit Free Press: "$85 billion for AIG. $700 billion for financial firms. $25 billion for Citigroup. Why is the bar so high for $25 billion to Detroit?"/ppNidiffer's frustration is heightened by his belief that if Detroit can see it through another 18 months it will have turned the corner. His GM plant is poised to produce the Volt, a new plug-in electric hybrid that will run for 40 miles on one full battery before a tiny petrol motor recharges it. The cutting-edge model, which goes into production in 2010, has been spearheaded by Bob Lutz, the global warming sceptic - a sign of how dramatically the outlook has changed at GM./ppBut none of the new ideas being scrambled out by the Big Three will matter if they fail to make it to 2010. Will the Volt go down in history as a great idea that GM carried with it to its grave? "There used to be a saying, so goes GM, so goes the country," Nidiffer says. "That was in happy days. But the same is true now. If GM goes under, the ripple effect will be felt throughout America."/ppA car worker desperate to hold on to his job would say that, wouldn't he? But economists agree. Susan Helper, a professor at Case Western university, says if GM went into bankruptcy next year, it could set in train a knock-on effect that would hit not just the 240,000 employees of the Big Three, but also 730,000 suppliers and about 1 million people working in dealerships across the country. Harder to quantify, but potentially even more devastating, would be the loss of social capital - the knowledge that is imbedded in a generation. "The idea that you can just liquidate Detroit and start again is crazy. Knowledge is not held by any one person, but comes from how people in a company interact."/ppCrunch time is coming. The tragedy of the American car is approaching its climax. You can feel it, palpably, on the lot of Galeana's Dodge dealership, a short drive away from Nidiffer's watering hole. Balloons in red, white and blue festoon the long line of cars, but who are they fooling? A more accurate reflection of the mood are the signs propped up under a succession of bonnets that spell the word S-A-L-E. Inside, a query about how things are going is met with the reply: "Look at the board." The board in question has just one car handwritten on it - the extent of today's business. Two years ago, the daily average was 15 cars./ppChrysler, which owns the Dodge brand, used to offer huge discounts on the price of the cars disguised as leasing agreements. But in July it announced it was suspending all leasing, and business went through the floor. The Big Three can no longer afford to lower their prices, so instead the cars sit on the lot, looking cheerful beneath the balloons. There is one small cause for hope for Galeana's dealers. A local Chrysler plant has just announced 5,000 job losses, and each worker made redundant will be given a voucher to buy a new Dodge car. It's come to this: the only chink of light for the dealers are the redundancy packages of the workers who make the cars they sell./ppThis week, the CEOs of the Big Three have one last shot at saving Detroit. They are travelling back to Washington to plead their case again. And this time, they won't be going by private jet - Ford's Alan Mulally will drive a Ford hybrid, and GM chief executive Rick Wagoner and Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli will fly on commercial planes. Tomorrow and on Friday, they will present Congress committees with a new business plan that is expected to include a cap on top bosses' pay, concessions from the UAW and the death of the most loss-making brands. Less certain is the outcome. Will they get their $25bn and, if they do, will it be anywhere like enough? Or will this once great institution, this embodiment of American might and ingenuity - and with it the livelihood of millions - go the way of Henry Ford's factory of dreams./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/automotive"Automotive industry/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/generalmotors"General Motors/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/ford"Ford/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/useconomy"US economy/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/LPbma0ZH57Qib3vjcofBZfL78zw/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/LPbma0ZH57Qib3vjcofBZfL78zw/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

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