Globetrotting through my blogs

Places I have visited

2007-10-02T13:47:00.000-07:00

Here is an attempt to depict all the places I have visited so far, at least the important ones.....

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Jungfrau Pictures

2007-07-19T08:27:00.001-07:00

Virtual Tour of US

2007-05-30T00:53:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the map sites on the Internet, it is now possible to take a virtual tour of the major attractions present in the US. First it was Microsoft's http://local.live.com, which provided 'Bird's eye view' of all major cities of the US. With this, you could pretty much see every monument and every building of importance in its high-quality picture, as though you're standing right next to it. I was amazed to see clear pictures of each casino on the Las Vegas strip! This was last year.

Just recently I read about Google having introduced the 'Street View' feature in its map site. With this, you can see a 360 degree view of almost any location on the streets of the US city for which this facility has been enabled. This means that you can view the details of every little street on Manhattan Island! That's pretty amazing. Not just that, the direction arrows on this picture allows you to actually navigate in either directions of the street, thus giving you a feel of actually passing through the street. That's quite good for a virtual tour!

Buses in Kolkata

2007-05-19T02:59:00.000-07:00

I recently got a chance to ride on the buses of Kolkata city. Trust me, my respect for Bangalore buses and their service has gone up multi-fold after seeing the Kolkata buses. It's true that they're quite economical for the reason that they are run by many private parties along with the state transport amidst stiff competition. But the condition of the buses are pathetic. It's even OK to travel during the day. The dim lights that 'illuminate' these small buses at night are even more depressing.

The seats are more of benches than seats. There is some hard cushioning at the bottom, if you're lucky, but you have hurt your back if you lean on the back rest. I found standing to be more comfortable that sitting on those seats. The left row is meant for the ladies while the right one for the men. Because they're run by private people, they stop indefinitely sometimes at a stop to gather enough people to proceed. However this problem is limited to Sundays and holidays only as otherwise they're mostly overcrowded.

I had heard before that BMTC buses, the ones in Bangalore, are some of the best in the country. It was hard for me to imagine while I was there in Bangalore, looking at those overcrowded buses with people oozing out of the doors. But, talking the condition, frequency and comfort, I must say they're much better than those of many other places that I have seen in India.

Tech Tweaks I like - 1

2007-03-06T18:44:00.000-08:00

The New York Times website has a simple and unique feature which I have not found anywhere else on the web yet. If you double click on a word to select it, the site pops up a window showing the meaning of that selected word. This is a simple and very useful feature that anyone would want while reading a news paper. Considering the fact that there are often umpteen words in the articles that we don't know the meaning of. This feature really makes it easy for us to lookup the meaning without having to go out of that site.

This is part of the new trend emerging, the 'in-context' information being made available in many websites. Hope to see more of such simple innovations.

Wellington town..

2006-10-03T04:38:00.000-07:00

After a lot of deliberation, I, along with my friends, was able to plan and execute a trip to the neighboring town of Ooty, known as Wellington. It is a small place with a few hundred houses and an Army base (DSSC.. not entirely sure what it stands for). The town lies on the way from Ooty to Coonoor by road or rail.

The town has an old railway station with its 'old-time' look (supposedly built in 1908). The narrow guage tracks with grass all around them were a pleasant sight. The station, along with the rest of Wellington and the green mountains were in the range of view from the window of our hotel room. And since it was away from the crowded Ooty, it was very peaceful. Coonoor was just a couple of kms away from there, although the actual points of attraction were further up in Coonoor.

The scenic tea estates of Coonoor, ('Dolphin's Nose' and 'Lamb's rock') were a treat to the eyes. The botanical garden of Ooty was good, mainly because we went in quite early in the morning. A little later during the day, the place gets flooded with people, masking the whole greenery of the garden. The lake was overcrowded as expected and there was hardly any space to sit/walk around the lake. We didn't even attempt to get the tickets for the boat ride.

It is a little hard to digest that the roads in this 'prime tourist destination' area around Ooty and Coonoor were in a pathetic condition. Except for driving on these roads, the trip was pretty good.

Speed Limits in India

2006-09-29T04:10:00.000-07:00

It is a well known fact that the Speed limits for traffic in India is a hypothetical concept which only exists in principle. Everyone knows that and so did I. But sometimes if I chance upon a speed limit sign board somewhere, I am reminded of this hypothesis!

A few days back, on my way home from office, I got stuck in a heavy traffic jam. Naturally the traffic was moving at speeds lesser than that which a person walks at. With my radio plugged into my ears, I kept watching the vehicles and people around me. I was pitying the guy who had bought a brand new Audi A4 luxury car and was stuck in the same traffic jam as I was with my pulsar! At that snails pace, I happened to notice this small sign board on the left, which specified the various speed limits for the different categories of vehicles. Believe me, there were about 5-6 categories mentioned with their respective speed limits. And the size of the sign board had limited the size and hence the visibility of these figures. I was amused by the thought that, eventhough I was in a jam moving at < 10km/hr speed I was not able to read the speed limit values, how did the authorities expect people zooming off next to it to read those values and adhere to them!

Sadly the rules in India have got a new definition, of being breakable and bendable inherently.

Crazy Online advertisements...

2006-09-27T01:42:00.000-07:00

Imagine a situation where you're sitting in the office in front of your computer. You're tired with your work and want a break. You think of catching up with some news and open up a news paper website like TimesOfIndia or Economictimes. You choose one of the articles that interest you and open it up. Now along with the article, there is a picture of a lady in bikini staring at you and making faces at you. Not that I am distracted by it, but I am more worried about what would anybody think of me to have opened a site with a picture of a bikini-clad lady. While what I am actually trying to read is a genuine article featured in the news paper.

A few days ago, I remember, I was browsing some website, while I was away from the laptop for a brief moment when suddenly some funny voice from the computer started shouting, laughing and giggling loudly, it turned out to be some ad on the top of the page with a lot of 'smilies' with these scary sounds!

Don't people think about these simple things before including these ads into their websites? I mean, what sense does it make to include a bikini-lady on a page that holds an article about Mutual Funds! While at one end there is Google who is coming out with context-based ads, which understand the nature of stuff you're reading and accordingly places ad on the pages, the other end of the spectrum are these brilliant souls who place totally irrelevant ads on unrelated pages! I didn't matter as long as it didn't affect our reading, but sometimes, in situations like the one explained above, I wish they were more sensible!

Bloating Bangalore

2006-08-24T05:03:00.000-07:00

After seeing the never ending crowd and the non stop traffic on roads of Bangalore, all I can say is that Bangalore is bloating, bloating beyond its capacity. This is probably the fate of any big city maturing into a metropolitan. I just realised a paradox about the city. Bangalore in incidentally popular for its software companies. While the prices of computers are known to be halving every 18 months, at the same time the real estate and the house rents are doubling at the same pace!

I was quite astonished to see the increase in rents in just a period of 18th months. Anyways, I am used to it now. I used to get to know from a friend that the traffic situation is getting worse, especially on the dreaded Hosur road, which I was scared about as there was a possibility that I would have to travel on that road. Fortunately for me, that didn't happen and the commute is much shorter and easier these days. That is definitely a reason to be happy about in Bangalore!

Reservation is Injustice

2006-06-01T11:38:00.000-07:00

The Indian media is flooded with reports of students protesting all over the country against the reservation being proposed for the OBC. It is absolute injustice to extend the reservations for any community or sect at the cost of reduction of seats for the general quota. In today's world, there is no need for reservation. All the factors which were considered to setup the system of reservations 60 years back, no longer prevail. The education field today should be of equal opportunity and a game of talent. Only the fittest should survive. Anyone taking the cover of anything else other than skill and talent, will eventually fail for sure.

It is sad that the students protesting against the injustice are facing further injustice in the form of intimidation from the police, from the college/university authorities etc. The same idea of reservation was tried to be thrust upon the Private firms in India, only to be denied outrightly from being accepted in any organization. It is common sense that no company or firm would like to take substandard input to produce substandard output. It is like the simple concept that we learnt at our Engineering college, GIGO, Garbage in Garbage out. What the Government is trying to do is exactly that. I am totally against any kind of reservations and whole heartedly support the protesting students in India.

Google Notebook

2006-05-23T07:57:00.000-07:00

Yet again, Google comes out with another useful utility. This time it is a cool tool to make note of things as you go along browsing the web for information. The idea is to save clippings of things that you have browsed and read about a topic of your interest, into a notebook provided by Google. The good part is that the notebook can be accessed later from any computer connected to the internet. Your notebook is bound with your Google account.

I was really delighted when I had found out about the 'Bookmarks' feature of the Google toolbar and that I can access my bookmark from any computer by logging into my Google account. These guys are really smart to come out with such useful utilities. Hope to see more of such cool apps in the future.

Links:
Google Notebook : http://www.google.com/notebook
Google Toolbar : http://toolbar.google.com

Trite Technology......

2006-05-19T12:10:00.000-07:00

Recently I was listening to Pandit Jasraj's classical recital on my new tiny MP3 player. While I was enjoying the masterly maneuverings of the tones by Jasraj on the player, I was suddenly amused by the thought that, how amazingly the pair of earphones were rendering the 'Indian Classical' music. Then I started wondering about how the earphone speaker was a complex piece of electronic artistry that can pickup the electric signals and produce the melodious music for us.

Further when I started listening to the instrumentals, I was even intrigued by the fact that the same set of speakers can render the sounds of heavy-metal guitar with distortions as well as the soothing sound of a bamboo flute! Amazing indeed. How easily we take the technology for granted when a lot of research and effort has gone into making that possible!

Jay Leno's Brilliant Idea

2006-05-03T13:15:00.000-07:00

After the Hurrican Katrina hit the southern coast of United States, the rescue efforts fell short of meeting the expecations of the American people. FEMA, the organization responsible for dealing with such catastrophes, came under severe criticism in the American media everyday. The ruling Government had to face much more allegations than that.

So Jay Leno, the popular TV show host, had a fabulous idea to tackle it. He said that Saddam Hussain should be made the mayor of New Orleans. Then the US Govt. will attack New Orleans to get rid of Saddam, destroy a few things and then start rebuilding the whole region. According to Leno, this is one way we can ensure that the rebuilding efforts are boosted up in New Orleans!

Chaturanga, the Indian chess

2006-04-06T19:21:00.000-07:00

I was surprised to see a new toy, known as Chaturanga, being marketed in the US. The people selling the game claim that the game will "transport you back through the ages, back to the time of the Vedic Rajas of India"! Oh yeah, How amazing, I wonder if anyone would really fall for this statement. The interesting thing is that they are crediting the game to be the origin of the modern day chess. From the picture, it looks like the pawns have been artistically carved and the dice seem to be of the longer variety (Shakuni style!)

Yet another example of India being perceived as a land of cows and snake charmers and a rich ancient history. I Hope India will be soon credited for its present-day achievements too.

Wierd News from US....

2006-03-28T14:50:00.000-08:00

Watching the local news here in US, is a good pastime for me after the day's work. The reasons are many. The kinds of news that I get to see on the local TV are really weird and astonishing. Reports about sick dogs found on the road and the updates about that sick dog on subsequent days are trite. The other time it was a cat stuck on top of the electricity pole.

Today I got to see another unusual piece of report. Apparently some guy, called James Wilson, has put up a tent on the roof of his house and has called for a strike against his wife. What are his demands? Well, this is the crazy part, he wants the wife to stop bringing and keeping the kids in their bed room all the time as it leaves no time for themselves! Quite unimaginable for us Indians.

Evidence of Globalization

2006-03-23T23:35:00.000-08:00

We have been reading about how globalization has set in and how Indians are leading the wave and what not. Supporting evidences have typically been the market capitalization by the western brands and businesses in India, and the huge presence of Indians in the west.

Look at the following picture taken at Columbus Circle in New York during the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade.

Do you notice anything "out of place" in the picture? I didn't notice it either while I took the picture. But later while checking the snaps taken from my NY trip, I was quite surprised by the "Hindi Advertisement" on top of the NY yellow cab! Well, I understand that Indians are everywhere and a big number of NY cab drivers are Indians, but an American Airline company advertising in Hindi in New York? Can't ask for a better evidence of the flattening world.

American Strangers Vs Indian Strangers

2006-03-16T19:37:00.000-08:00

Americans have this interesting culture of putting up a conversations with strangers. For ex. when I'm on an elevator, any American in the elevator would come out with a simple expression like "How're you doin today?" or part with a wish for a good day ahead.

Had there been a fellow Indian in the elevator, whom I didn't happen to know, he'll have the most serious expression possible on the face. Even if I attempt and have a smile on my face, I get back only a weird inexplicable expression. If it's an Indian lady, the expression would just fall short of the one given to a scoundrel.

There is a reason probably for this to happen. When I have a nice friendly smile on my face, the fellow Indian must be thinking to himself/herself "Is he an Amway guy?" or "Why is this guy smiling at me? Surely he must be upto something".

Many times I reciprocate to Indians with a smile , only to find that it was an encouragement for the guy to come up to me and ask if I am interested in making 'extra' money, 'over and above' my regular income, by listening to his business propositions. Sad state, but have to live with this.
For instance, there is this guy, who has approached me atleast 5-6 times in different places like the library, the Indian store, Indian Restaurant etc, with a typical opening statement like "Do you stay in XYZ apt?" or "Have I met you somewhere before?". Each of those times in the past, I patiently declined to have met him before. It happened again today in the Library, and I had to give it back on his face saying "You must have asked me this question... God knows how many times". Not having done such a thing ever before, I just turned around and moved without waiting for his reaction. Poor fellow, he won't forget my face from now on, and probably will make an effort to remember faces which he has already given a shot with his propositions!

I guess life would be boring without all these little incidents....

Groceries Shopping

2006-03-12T12:29:00.000-08:00

It's a Sunday morning, I get up a little late than usual, finish my ablutions and go to the refrigerator with the sole desire for a hot cup of coffee, only to find that the milk is over! Well, when I was in Bangalore, this scenario was just a situation. All I had to do is to walk up to the bakery, which just around the corner of our road, get the milk and that's it!

The very same scenario (described above) seems like a problem now (here in the US). To explain a little more about the things that I need to do now to solve the above problem is:

1. Get dressed with 2-3 layers of warm clothes (it's freaking cold at this time of the year)
2. Walk up to the car in the parking lot (believe me, it is an activity in itself when it's snowing heavily)
3. Start up the car so that it warms up
4. Clear off the snow from all of the windows and the windscreens.
5. Drive up to the nearest grocery store
6. Find parking space for the car
7. Take the huge shopping cart (even if you need just a couple of items)
8. Pickup the can of milk etc from the shelves
9. Get into the queue for paying for the stuff
10. Drive back home

After all this struggle, I feel I really deserve a cup of coffee. I realize what a privilege it was in India to have those bakeries and groceries stores just around the corner, at walkable distances. And not to forget, the enviable weather!

Now when the weekend comes, I am happy to find some time for myself. However towards the end of the Sunday, it's time for us to replenish our supply of groceries. Now there two kinds of groceries that we Indians end up getting here in the US. The regular groceries (from the American super stores) and the Indian groceries (all our Indian stuff for cooking, from the Indian store). This is the most dreaded time of the whole week, I hate to spend 2 hours for the activity of buying groceries.But I am helpless! There is no way out for this. I guess one stop shops have this painful tradeoff.

The reason for blogging this thought was to reaffirm to myself that there are a lot of things around us which are really good and convenient, but we won't realize it until we have to deal with more difficult alternatives for the same things. When I am back in India, I will definitely make sure to enjoy the very convenience of simple grocery shopping.

In love with the city...

2006-03-10T21:21:00.000-08:00

It is quite interesting to see how people fall in love with places. Most people are bonded with the city where they grew up, others have an attachment with the place where they've studied or worked. Once the bond is formed, no matter where they go, the love for their 'beloved home' doesn't perish.

I have been observing the profiles of numerous bloggers, where in they have to mention the place that they 'belong' to. And there are umpteen instances where people have mentioned more than one places, as if someone's asking them to justify the reason why they've mentioned the current place where they are dwelling in and not their favorite place!

Some such examples:
Place: Mumbai, now in Pune, India
Place: London/Bangalore
Place: Austin (for now), Mumbai (forever).

I wonder what makes a person fall in love with a place. This trend is noticeable especially in people from the big cities. Apparently, every metropolitan or a cosmopolitan has its inherent spirit which all the people living in that place share. This spirit is what makes them stick to the place despite all the hardships and the daily struggles of commuting and living. These people love to identify themselves as New Yorkers or Parisians , or even Mumbaiyyas.

I guess once we accept a place as home, nothing can change the feeling and no other place can live up to that sense of belonging!

Information Avalanche

2006-02-22T13:56:00.000-08:00

What has Internet done to our generation? We are being surrounded by so much of overwhelming information that we are not able to keep up with the deluge of data being provided to us. Even if a person spends 24 hours of the day in learning things on the Internet, giving up his sleep, food and other activities, still he will be left with a feeling that he couldn't explore all of the available information satisfactorily. If a person is too ambitious of improving his knowledge using the Internet, I would caution him about this fact that he might be left discontent at the end of the whole effort. We need to be absolutely sure of what we're looking for when we venture into learning something these days.

I fear that so much of distraction will not allow the person to connect with his family and people around, this has been shown by various studies across the world. More importantly, the person will forget to connect with oneself, always living in this realm of information and knowledge, never understanding the true form of the self. The Information Super Highway is taking us far away from ourlseves!

Effective Philanthropy

2006-02-16T19:37:00.000-08:00

Philanthropy has been one of the good virtues followed by people of the middle and higher rungs of the society since long ages. Broadly speaking, the act of contributing to the welfare of others from one's own pocket, either in cash, kind or in deeds, can be regarded as philanthropy. The most commonly understood meaning of philanthropy is the monetary help provided by people to the institutions and organizations working for the welfare of society.

The beneficiaries of such philanthropy include Educational Instituations, Religious organizations, Non Government organizations (NGOs), Government bodies working in a specific field of upliftment of the society etc. Although there is a lot of funding allocated from the Government's budget for these welfare activities in every country, but in most cases, the alloted budget would suffice only a fraction of the underpreviliged factions of the society. There is still a large majority of needy people who have to be catered to, this is where the donations from selfless individuals of the society come into help.

There are variegated driving forces behind people involving themselves in philanthropy. We have to appreciate the willingness of people to contribute money out of their pockets to help the poor and destitutes and to save them from starving and making sure that they get good food, shelter and education. However there are other reasons to for people donating money to these organizations.
A study conducted by the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University shows that in United States, a major chunk of donations go to the religious organizations. The next big share goes to the Eduction, Health and Science, followed by Human services, Arts, cultures, social welfare etc. But the point which stands out in this study is that the amount of money that goes into running the religious organizations and institutions is remarkably high considering the whole pie of money involved in all activities of Philanthropy.

What does this show? It proves that the human beings, out of their fear and insecurity and in a hope of being happy at the cost of keeping God happy, donate a major share of their donations to the religious institutions. Thinking of it, I realise that this defeats the very purpose of philanthropy! It is also proved in the remaining parts of the study mentioned above, that the redistribution of wealth is not effective in case of religious institutions as compared to the other areas like the Human welfare organizations and the Education, Health and Science fields.

One more aspect of this whole Philanthropy has been discovered in the same paper. With an illustration, they have demonstrated the donations given out by people is actually a serious cost to the Government. This is because any amount given out in charity is directly deductible from the total amount that is taxable for that individual. If a person had donated $1000, the actual cost to him would be $650 out his pocket, since he saved the 35% tax that he/she would have otherwise paid to the Government, which amounts to $350. This means that the $1000 donation by an individual costed the Government a $350. In the same lines, the total donations by a group of people of $1 million, will make the Government lose out $350,000 of the tax money. This is true with America only because of its lenient tax system in the purview of charitable contributions. Moreover, a practical study also showed that such a deduction of tax amount benefits only the upper class of the society who are aware of these tax tricks, leaving the lower and middle class at a disadvantage due to their lack of awareness, thus deepening the divide between the rich and the poor.

Every individual has to think and donate judiciously to the various avenues of social welfare. It is our responsibility to make sure that the money that we donate is directly helping somebody in thier basic needs, thus making our contribution worthwhile. We have to weigh the importance of each of the above mentioned benefeciaries and divide our contributions appropriately, rather than blindly pushing all the money into a religious institution with the ignorant hope that God will save me from all my misdeeds. I am not condemning the actions of the religious institutions. But I am against the overspending done by the religious institutions in builing more and more extravagant temples and churches, and still keeping a large group of people fighting for their fundamental requirements. I understand that a lot of spiritual organizations are doing splendid work in educating people thus enabling them to lead a happy and peaceful lives. Truly these organizations deserve great contributions.

The religious organizations have to realise that religion and spirituality have great potential in gathering and redistributing wealth for the needy and the poor. These organizations should leverage this potential and contribute more effectively to the society. Also every educated individual should recongnise the need of the society and donate intelligently ensuring its application in the needed field with swift actions.

Domestic Spying, an infringement of personal space?

2006-02-06T14:03:00.000-08:00

Year 2001 has gone into the books of history as one of the most dreadful year due to the fact that the morale of United States was hit by the attack on the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon, by a group of terrorists, trying to show US that they are on the offensive mode, and to caution US to reduce its presence in the middle east. It was truly a tragic day, Sep 11 of 2001, it was an utter deplorable incident, where thousands of people lost their lives for no fault of theirs, the great city of NewYork, which shelters people from so many ethnicities, a true cosmopolitan, lost two important structures from its face, thus remaining defaced even today, with the scar evidently visible on the face of NY, the skyline.

A lot of counteraction has been seen after this tragic event, US attacked Afghanistan with the intention of 'smoking out' Bin Laden and having him surrendered, which has not been possible yet. Reportedly, there have been many more attempts to attack US, but the security measures taken by the US Govt are keeping these attacks from happening. In such a grave national situation, the US Govt got into an aberration, trying to tap the conversations of the millions of foreign nationals staying and working in US, but it did not spare the Americans either and has brought the American population, with even a remote possibility of connections with any of this terror activities.

I often wonder why the 'Privacy' is such a big issue in US, it is understandable that no person would like his personal affairs to be monitored by anybody else for whatever reasons, but when the possibility of the event in question is so grave, that the security of a nation, that too the most powerful nation is at stake, then why is there a brouhaha about the people's phones being intercepted or their activity on the Internet is monitored. It makes sense to me why the Government wants to monitor the activity , their principle is "prevention is better than cure". People are worried about their privacy, but they don't think that if the people themselves are not left, where is the question of privacy then? Privacy would help if a person is alive, else there is neither privacy nor can there be any infringement of it.

The other aspect of this whole episode is the fact that the US Govt is doing this domestic spying without seeking the order or approval of the court, thus defying a law that was being followed by all the previous Presidents of America. Now I am not really knowledgeable on this front, as to how critical it is to by pass the court for the security of the nation, but probably due to some other untoward actions of the Govt in the past, like the attack on Iraq despite all the protest, are showing their influence in this issue of Patriot act too.

A group of people, who have some wrong ideals due to whatever reason, be it wrong interpretation of religious doctrines, or resentment against some happenings in their personal lives, are causing distress and destroying peace all over the world. This is making life for people in other countries, like US, more and more difficult and annoying.

I wish that our next generation comes to realise that all human beings are from the same original descent, and that any mutual fight is only the ignorance and foolishness of the generation and misinterpretations of their spiritual leader, who , I am sure would not have preached killing of people in order to establish a particular 'religious' path for the people. It is utterly inhuman and anybody who preaches that or follows such things , will at the end, be infinitely shameful of their acts!

Automotive Industry short of Motivation

2006-01-31T11:40:00.000-08:00

USA, the land of opportunities, also the land of many inventions. Notably, the most successfull of the century, amont others has been the automobile. United States holds the prestige of being one of the first countries to venture into manufacturing cars at a large scale and selling them across the world. But sadly, the situation today is that the same companies, which boasted their dominance in the auto industry, are struggling to maintain their margins against the foreign auto manufacturers operatin in the world today. What makes it worse is that the American auto makers are doing well in other parts of the world, while incurring huge losses back home in NA. The prime competitors for the American auto makers have been the Japanese manufacturers viz. Honda, Toyota, Nissan with the Korean firms like Hyundai and Kia joining the bandwagon. The European players have always had their share of the American auto market in the segments of Luxury and sports sedans. Benz and BMWs cannot be replaced by any other brands in the world. The American companies, till recently held the top spot in the SUV and Pickup truck segments, but now that Honda and Toyota have come out with rugged vehicles in these segments, life is tough for the US auto makers.
There are multiple reasons for this whole episode of struggle for US auto makers. It all started when oil price per barrel kept skyrocketing quarter after quarter. The Gas prices in US and all over NA were soaring really high. That is when people in the US started thinking about fuel economy. Before this era, the whole emphasis was on power, more the BHP, better it is for the Americans. This is the reason that you don't see a top-notch executive driving to his plush office in his huge pickup truck, anywhere else in the world other than US of A. Since the gas prices were bothering the pockets of Americans, they had no choice but to notice the importance of Fuel efficiency of a vehicle, which happens to be the primary factor driving the auto industry in Asia and other developing continents. American auto makers never considered fuel efficiency as a parameter to evaluate the quality of a vehicle, they probably hadn't anticipated that this factor would crop up as a deciding factor for their success in the US market so soon.
There is another cultural shift that has taken the Americas into its clutches, which is the consideration for the longevity of the vehicles. In the past decades, the pattern of usage among American auto owners has been such that a vehicle is not owned for more than 3-5 years on average. People quickly changed their cars, even before the vehicle started showing signs of being tuckered. The American cars were not meant to last longer than a few years. There was no importance given to the resale value of the cars. That again proved to be detrimental to the business of the auto manufacturers. Because people of USA have started recognizing the effects of rise in the fuel prices, need for the longevity of the vehicles to be able to sell the cars thus getting a percentage of the money back, apart from their regular need for more power.
There are other obvious factors, which the manufacturers are projecting in the media as the culprits for the losses they are incurring. They being the high wages of employees, the expensive health care costs, the pensions for the retired employees, all of which deemed under on heading to be known as legacy costs. The labor unions of all these manufacturing plants are so powerful that the companies are rendered helpless against the needs of these unions. The work culture in United States has always been such that every job expects to have a good salary, i.e. the difference in the salary of a white collar job and a small scale services job is not as huge as it is in other countries and continents.
The Foreign car makers have advantages in many of the above mentioned matters, compared to the American counterparts. For ex. the foreign auto makers don't suffer so much with the legacy costs, their vehicles last longer and are more fuel efficient, their work forces have been conditioned such that they are not as demanding as the labor unions of the US auto maker industries. Moreover, these foreigners have intelligently studied the auto market and its needs in the NA and accordingly setup their strategies to meet every demand of the American Driver.

The final point I would like to mention, which is not so popularly known amongst the speculators of this issue, is that in the recent times, the quality of Vehicles being manufactured in NA has signifcantly improved and the companies here are indeed coming out with innovative designs and long lasting an fuel efficient vehicles. But there is already a psyche about the home grown cars that has settled in the minds of the public, which is a bigger challenge that the American auto makers have to fight out, than really meetting the challenges put forth by the foreign car makers. It will take a decade's time for the people to realize that the American vehicles have indeed scaled up to the expectations and are delivering performance, economical value and longevity. Whether the American auto makers can stand strong against the ongoing storm and prove their mettle, only time will tell!