The news about automotive is different between the US Congress (November 19, 2008) and the intentions of German politicians. To understand this we have to know the major difference: before and after elections. But still the discussions are amazing. Today's news (November 20, 2008) mentioned the US Congress decision not to support the US automotive, because that management wasn't able to explain need and targets for the 25 billion funding. The German politicians discuss a 2 billion € guaranty regarding the local GM affiliate Opel.

Both situations deal with a strong social impacts related to e.g. possible layoff of employees. A governmental social protection is known from different examples over last 40 years of business economy. Sometimes protection functions like a bumper, sometimes it's an enabler to smoothen transition. Knowing the future position of automotive in 10 years from now, it would be much easier to determine right governmental strategies. But the automotive market is partly driven by consumption behavior patterns and nowadays consumption becomes different as well. That meant consumption, not only from a gasoline perspective, but also from the viewpoint of a personal financial investment. I didn't notice any actual considerations yet, but current discussions might become more interesting by the inclusion of public transportation and virtual enablement infrastructures.

Over last 20 years we heavily stressed the mobility behavior as a typical requirement to drive (service) business. The (other) mobility, in the sense of flexible intelligence, could contribute to considerable cost savings as well. But to reach into such domain, we need some mind shifts, not only regarding event management.

The society perspective of current financial crisis is amazing as well. One of the major tasks of the governments is the guidance of business to support society. That includes measures in social funding and the support within different diversity domains. The monetary discussions over the last 20 years often pointed to the restrictive governmental budgets and the enablement of self-service support (in the light of personal self-responsibility). With the increase of consumption over last 10 years, both, people and nation, could reach their targets. Now, more or less overnight, governments enable guaranty funds of the size of 700 billion $ or 500 billion € to support economy. I still suppose this money comes from governmental tax income, which should be intended to support the nation and its population. If the financial crisis hits the daily households in the main street, is there still funding available to avoid social conflicts? An alternative to funding is the regulation by tax reductions. This model scales with the original tax payments.

Expectations about the duration of recovery span the period between Q3/2009 (earliest) and 2010. Looking in the market capitalization of stock listed companies, the financial crisis scale this "capital" by roughly 20%. Is that magnitude a realistic size to indicate unrealistic business expectations (as a late relict from the .com baisse)? Or in other words: hot air? If that is the case, do we deal with a global crisis or an effect of strange business scenarios (subprime)?

The insights of CEOs, shared with SAP employees, still indicate to the well-known drives like growth and performance, best talent acquisition and pricing, to deal with competition. These terms at least indicate an unchanged model of regional and global business.

At the moment, the governmental bottle is filled. What happens, if this bottle becomes less filled? Or, when we have to raise the question whether the bottle was ever filled?

At least the oil price came down by 2/3, so energy consumption seems to get back on old patterns.