Ford has sold Volvo

Yesterday ( Sunday, March 28 ) at Volvo headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden, China' s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. agreed to buy Volvo cars from Ford Motor Co. for US$ 1, 8 billion, Ford will receive US$ 1, 6 billion in cash and US$ 200 million note from Geely and it puts a Chinese company for the first time in charge of a major global car brand.

Geely Chairman Li Shufu who' s called China' s Henry Ford said Geely will build Volvos in China, the deal brings opportunity, he has the goal of selling 200.000 Volvos in China by 2015. The company is ranked no. 11 in China.
Ford paid US$ 6, 5 billion for Volvo in 1999 and over the past few years, Ford has also sold Aston Martin and Jaguar - Land Rover.

Aston Martin sold to a consortium which valued at pounds 479 million in March 12, 2007; The consortium includes Investment Dar and Adeem Investment from Kuwait.

Jaguar - Land Rover sold to Tata Motors Ltd. from India for US$ 2, 3 billion in March 26, 2008.

Ford must use about half its sale proceeds to pay US$ 23, 5 billion debt the company took on in 2006.
Ford Motor Company founder is Henry Ford 1863 - 1947, pioneer automobile manufacturer, Ford' s famous car in 1908 is Model T, nearly 17 million cars were produced worldwide.

Souvenir from VOA

This afternoon I get a big yellow package envelope from VOA ( Voice Of America ) in Washington DC., it contains of : 1 T shirt - 50th Anniversary of VOA, 1 Word Book / VOA Dictionary - 50th Anniversary of VOA, 1 Back pack - 50th Anniversary of VOA, 1 Big calendar poster 2010 VOA size : 85 cm X 55 cm and 1 Frequencies schedule.

It reminds me all to the Special prize from VOA Special English several weeks ago, where I go to the Embassy.
The link to VOA Special English is : http://www.voaspecialenglish.com

It looks like my blog have problem with its font letter, I tried to posting my write but still not same as usual, I don' t know why, perhaps it' s because of some experiment which have made by Blogger Team with their new experiment column recently.

President Obama wants to see his hometown in Indonesia

Note : SD Asisi, Menteng is an Elementary school where Mr. President once has study for 4 years, when he was a childhood in Indonesia.

Source video : U.S. Embassy - Jakarta / Facebook

The U.S. health system in decades won approval on Capitol Hill late Sunday ( March 21 ). The House gave final passage to the Senate' s health legislation 219 - 212 voting.

President Barack Obama helped push it toward passage with a last minute promise to issue an executive order making clear that no money dispensed under the $ 940 billion bill would pay for abortions. That persuaded Republican Bart Stupak, a holdout Michigan Democrat, to vote yes and bring at least seven colleagues with him.

The legislation will extend health coverage to 32 million Americans now without insurance, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). It will mandate that almost every American carry health insurance.

The CBO also estimated that 95% of legal U.S. residents would have insurance by 2019, up from 83% today.

Hospitals, doctors, drug makers and the seniors group AARP (the American Association of Retired Persons) backed the overhaul, saying it will reduce the growth of health costs and make sure no one goes without care.

Tax increases needed to finance the program would hit a range of industries, from insurers to other services. Over the next decade $ 108 billion in new fees will fall on insurers, drug makers and medical device companies.

The President sign the new regulation on Tuesday, March 23.

The haves must help the haves not, it' s a rule, the strongest help the weaker. - 27/03/2010

I won the Special Prize !!!

This afternoon ( at 13. 18 pm ) I have a phone call from the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Mrs. Dian phone me and tell that I won VOA Special English quiz with 9 other listener from several countries. What a surprise I have !.
Ms. Dian ask me some question about my job, my age and my experience listen to VOA Special English. I said that I listen to VOA Indonesia more than 30 years ago when I was a student in Junior high school level 3 
and still listening until now and for VOA Special English is more than 20 years ago until now.

Mrs. Dian ask me how do I want to take my prize ? at my house or I take at the Embassy or else ?, if I prefer to take my prize at my house they want to come here, I said : No, don' t at my house, my house is not able to live, my house is not beautiful, please I' m shamed if you see / know my house ! - really , so it will be better I think if I go to you / the Embassy then I said.

And Mrs. Dian invite me to the Embassy to take my Prize as soon as possible then we agree to meet tomorrow at about 1. 30 pm, Mrs. Dian ask my ID card number to fill the register guest ( for security guard information / protocol services ) who will come to the Embassy next day.

Reporting Tax

This morning ( March 4 ) I go to KPP ( Kantor Pelayanan Pajak / Tax Services Office ) to make a report of my annual report Tax 2009, this is the first year I do report tax; For several days I make this report with help from an official tax in KPP office.

When I arrive in KPP I see some people are talking with the officials with some papers in their hand, I ask one of the official and he points to another table for me to report my tax, and I meet the mentioned official, I give my report and after she read / check a while she give back to me to sign my signature on my report, then she give me a receive note which said that the tax office received my complete report ( SPT / Surat Pemberitahuan Tahunan / the Annual Announcement Letter ), the note have a serial number : 003-01-0 0002665.
Meanwhile I see some people are writing, asking and counting, sit in front of the officials at the other desk, I knew then that they are having consultation about their tax, how to report, write and count their tax, it' s free consultation by the tax official.
And at the other site I can see one of representative Bank ready to receive cash payment from tax payer.
The end of time to give this annual report tax is March 31 every year ( for company and personal ), if you late to report your tax, you will get a penalty - payment penalty as the regulation says.

Yahoo' s Birthday

This day ( March 2nd ) is the 15th birthday of Yahoo site, the early internet search engine, Jerry Yang at age of 27 and his partner David Filo begin with World Wide Web works in March 1995, they are Stanford University doctoral students, they created a program that would allow them to group website into subject categories, they begin indexing all sites on the web.

Yahoo Corporation formed in April 1995, after a year operation Yahoo held its IPO in April 1996, selling 2, 3 million shares at $13 per share on the NASDAQ and rise up gain after that. Happy birthday to Yahoo !.

Prudential buy AIG

Yesterday ( March 1 ) United Kingdom' s Prudential PLC buy AIG' s Asia unit for about $ 35, 5 billion. This deal call for Prudential to pay government $ 25 billion in cash, $ 8, 5 billion in equity and $ 2 billion in preferred stock AIA' s unit ( American International Assurance Ltd. ).
The US government bailouts for AIG totaling $ 182, 3 billion, AIG is working to repay about $ 97 billion, $ 50 billion would go to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and $ 47 billion to the Treasury Department. An additional $ 33 billion is to be paid off from AIG related mortgage assets.

AIG is insurance and financial services company and plans to keep a global property and casualty insurance businesses called Chartis, and its domestic life insurance and retirement services business, recently rebranded as SunAmerica Financial Group said Under Chief Executive Robert Benmosche.