Been on da move...
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Santa Barbara, Tucson, Ann Arbor, Motown.
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For Work, pleasure, research for future in- depth buckets posts?
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Mostly pleasure. Wish I we’re going to Boston again. Love that city.
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@jaybate-1.0 Six days on the road and I’m gonna make it home tonight…
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Did my first Royals game in decades on Friday night. We pulled it out… great game! Went to the Sporting KC game on Saturday night… wow! They came back, scoring 3 goals in less than 10 minutes at the end! Fab!
Taking off for Naples, Florida next month for a wedding/vacation.
@jaybate-1.0 - Motown vacation?
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@wrwlumpy said:
@jaybate-1.0 Six days on the road and I’m gonna make it home tonight…
wrwlumpy, did you just make a Dave Dudley reference? Thumbs way up, sir!
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I like lots of places people don’t ordinarily think of traveling to.
Detroit is a place with a bad rep, but I love SE Michigan and the fresh water boating thing. Can’t beat a Pursuit out on the river, and a Ski and kayak out on the lakes and river around Ann Arbor. Or going out of Port Huron. Old Acquaintances here too. The car guys know how to have a good time. There’s a reason so many stay put there, if they’ve also got the means to travel. It is kind of a perfect balance of the Midwest and East. It’s an acquired taste, but I like how unapologetically American they are.
It’s getting harder to go abroad because of my health, so I satisfy my travel jones with shorter domestic travel.
Just like I like the east side of Italy because it doesn’t encourage non Italian tourists, I like certain parts of America that don’t encourage tourism either.
I try to travel USA the way I do Europe–off the beaten tourism path.
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I would love to go boating and fishing in Michigan. Minnesota, too.
Would love to see some of your photos… Detroit is an amazing city, and with its decay it in some ways is even more interesting to see.
Lots of great photos and stories out there. Here is one:
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If we go to war with China and Russia over control of Silk Road 2.0, as I expect is looming, Detroit will once again flourish as the nerve center for the arsenal of ww3. It feels like it’s already in the early stages of preparation. We have a backup reserve currency. We are prepping for a designer currency crisis to clear the debts to China with devaluation. Think about it. Detroit spans the globe with vehicle operations. It’s debts are cleared. It is really best positioned to absorb the shock of global war; I.e., fewest pinch points, most flexibility for unexpected. And Ford was previously restructured by the head of Boeing. No other car company is as integrated in air and land systems and weaponry as Ford and so too it’s big three allies. And it sits on one of the world’s great untapped oil reserves under the Great Lakes, and Michigan. Instead of bomber plants at Willow Run it will coordinate nano robotic and driverless vehicle and aircraft production at factories around the world. Tesla and Space X would be absorbed immediately. China’s production is dangerously over concentrated spatially for the kind of future warfare that looms. Sad and scary, but true.
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I’ve had these conversations before with people much smarter than me… so I mostly listened.
Some believe we need a big war… one where key targets in the USA are hit. Detroit, Cleveland… Chicago… many of the industrial areas need to be scraped off the planet to build new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities. I guess many view war bombings as a “cleansing” and opportunity to rebuild.
We can print all the money we want… but it is only paper. Infrastructure is where its at!
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Bombing as urban renewal is pretty 20th Century. Production is so spread out it and America is so de industrialized it is not necessary. China is where that sort of thing would still work.
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Our entire country is pitted with old industry remains. If we decide warring with China is a move we need to take, then we would instantly be a country with full employment again. It is not the vision I want… but I’ve been to many of the small mining towns up in Minnesota. You can move up there and homestead a free house. The locals would just like to see people move in and start paying taxes again.
Talk about a wild hedge investment… start buying up those old mining towns for a penny on the dollar…
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I saw that Ford is moving production of some heavy trucks from Mexico back to the USA…I guess all the Mexican workers they need are already, here thanks to our idiotic policies.
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Part of our “infrastructure.”
Imagine what we can manufacture over here now… with all of the help from our southern friends!
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What happens when we can’t buy the resources or manufacturing for our iPhone 10s?
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Euro photogs started art photography of industrial ruins and got recognition with their pics of shuttered Detroit factories. They were great. And Detroit is re growing around ruins same as Rome has done repeatedly. Location, location, location makes cities. Linkages to trade routes. When industries and empires die and leave ruins, it does not necessarily mean the linkage advantages of the city place ceases to be exploitable, though sometimes it does.
The British colonial military identified Detroit early on as one of a handful of pivot points that needed to be controlled to controlled to control North America. That geo strategic significance did not end when the timber industry flagged in Detroit. Or later when the chemical industry flagged. Or now when the car industry restructured. Certain places on the chess board remain pivotal no matter what befalls them in the short term.
Eastern Kansas and northwestern Missouri are pivotal to control regardless of the ebbs and flows of the economies on them. Just ask the Bushes that wanted to force a Super Corridor to Winnepeg and got stopped at Richards-Gebaur AFB.
And so on.
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The mining story is a good one. That German coal mine of 48 km2 surprised me. That lake will be interesting with metals. Knew about the ghastly thing at Butte. That
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There is actually a lot of “insourcing” under way. Lots of assembly insourcing to Kentucky. But lots of other high value added components are moving this way too. As costs and barriers of progress overseas rise, it pays to cut handling costs and cross cultural communication inefficiencies. Also, and this is huge–information security is more feasible here.
Big trucks are crucial to moving tanks for land wars, so that makes some sense. Mexico has traditionally been viewed by our enemies in time of war as our weak flank to try to destabilize. No doubt most of the Intel operations of the world use drug feuds to destabilize our border with Mexico.
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“Euro photogs started art photography of industrial ruins and got recognition with their pics of shuttered Detroit factories.”
Evidently, the recognition stopped and they had to resort to more creative methods -
An actual tiger gets loose in Packard Plant in Detroit
Why a Tiger Was Let Loose in the Historic Detroit Packard Plant
Sometimes I have to root for the ferocious cat over man… come on… seriously… a weed whacker?
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Insane things happen everywhere but Detroit leads the way!
My ques tion is what was the guy even coming close to it for!!!
Coincidentally I have an acquaintance in Ann Arbor that is a retired full time dangerous animal remover. Worked 15 years in Florida and 15 in SE Michigan and said the animals he found in MI were as exotic as those in Florida! Yes he handled alligators!!!
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@jaybate-1.0 Still one step ahead of the law ??
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I live up in Pontiac, Mi now and saw this… what … the … heck…
I’ve been to the Packard Plant a few times and its a big place, but why they heck would they want to shoot a movie with a TIGER in an ABANDONED BUILDING???
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I guess he had a few exotic animals with him and I think it was just for a photo shoot.
My question: couldn’t he have saved the trouble with the use of photoshop?
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“My ques tion is what was the guy even coming close to it for!!!”
I think the tiger decided to chill out in the stairwell and they wanted to control him moving through the building for photos. The idea with the weed whacker was supposed to scare him out of the stairwell.
Had a friend who traveled through Africa with just his backpack. He slept in his little travel tent in wild areas and kept firecrackers with him to spook off cats and hyenas. I guess firecrackers do the trick.
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Embedded for the law!!!
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Let’s try it on KSU Cats the next time they storm the floor!
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Here is a link to the story. There is some factory work coming back to the States and a good deal of the Japanese, Korean and German cars are now build here as well; however, all these new plants and relocations are not going to Michigan, they are going farther south in the Midwest and to the South. The control that unions have in Michigan and a lot of the states on the Rust Belt makes it impossible to be competitive.
Here is a list of all the foreign car makers with plant in the US; none are in Michigan and most are in the South.
Toyota Motor Corporation - Georgetown, Kentucky - Toyota Camry, Toyota Avalon, Toyota Venza, Lexus ES350
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana - Princeton, Indiana - Toyota Sequoia, Toyota Sienna, Toyota Highlander
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Texas - San Antonio, Texas - Toyota Tacoma, Toyota Tundra
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Mississippi - Blue Springs, Mississippi Toyota Corolla
Honda of America Manufacturing, Inc. -. Marysville, Ohio - Honda Accord, Acura ILX, Acura TLX, Acura NSX
Honda of America Manufacturing, Inc. - East Liberty, Ohio - Honda CR-V, Honda Crosstour, Acura RDX
Honda Manufacturing of Alabama, LLC - Lincoln, Alabama - Honda Odyssey, Honda Pilot, Acura MDX
Honda Manufacturing of Indiana, - Greensburg, Indiana - Honda Civic, Honda Civic Hybrid, Honda Civic GX
Nissan North America, Inc. Smyrna -Smyrna, Tennessee - Nissan Leaf, Nissan Altima, Nissan Maxima, Nissan Rogue, Nissan Pathfinder, Infiniti QX60
Nissan North America, Inc. Canton - Canton, Mississippi - Nissan Altima, Nissan Murano, Nissan Frontier, Nissan Titan, Nissan Armada, Nissan NV, Nissan Xterra
Subaru of Indiana Automotive, Inc. - Lafayette, Indiana - Subaru Outback, Subaru Legacy, Toyota Camry
Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. Manufacturing Division - Normal, Illinois - Mitsubishi Outlander Sport
Volkswagen Chattanooga Assembly Plant- Chattanooga, Tennessee - Volkswagen Passat
Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama - Montgomery, Alabama - Hyundai Elantra, Hyundai Sonata
Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia - West Point, Georgia - Kia Optima, Kia Sorento, Hyundai Santa Fe
BMW US Manufacturing Company, LLC - S. Greer, South Carolina - BMW X3, BMW X4, BMW X5, BMW X6, BMW X7
Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, Inc.- Vance, Alabama - Mercedes-Benz GLE-Class, Mercedes-Benz GL-Class, Mercedes-Benz C-Class
Daimler Vans Manufacturing, LLC. - Ladson, South Carolina - Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, Mercedes-Benz Metris (CKD, reassembly only)
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I own a manufacturing business. We are forced to buy some of our components in China. But our main product line we make right here in Kansas. I wouldn’t consider moving that business to China, even though we could make (perhaps) a bit more money. Not worth the headache or the risk. And I’m willing to make some sacrifice to keep jobs here.
I believe the Chinese have been shocked to get away with bogus trade agreements for so long. The American consumer sold out decades ago. After Walmart went to a “full tilt buy China” business model, I refused to shop there. They actually forced many companies into producing in China in order to meet Walmart’s price demands.
Even after Americans started realizing how much damage it was doing to our country to “buy China”… they still spent their dollars for convenience and price. When considering that, it gets even harder for someone like me, who makes a much bigger sacrifice to save American jobs than the average Walmart shopper, to make those sacrifices. I do it anyways because I like sleeping well at night. It is rewarding to know all your manufacturing people personally, and realize you are helping feed them and their families.
What really chaps me is all the ISO standards that have come to be to try to standardize manufacturing practices globally. Many of these regs hamper US production and raise costs considerably. It was thought these standards would revolutionize China production to put us all on a equal standard. BS. They cheat on their certifications and have (once again) gamed the system to their advantage. Meanwhile, we waste tons of time and resources preparing for audits in areas that have nothing to do with efficiency or daily operations.
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The owners of the New York Federal Reserve branch wanted control of the Eurasian center point. They fought two world wars, a Cold War and the Vietnam War to get it. Once they drove a wedge between USSR and China, they developed China and put a force structure partition in Central Asia between Russia and China. The American economy and your business face the constraints they do, because the owners of the NY Fed branch are determined to control both the North American center point and the Eurasian center point. Period. Everything else is strategy, logistics and tactics to that grand strategic end. We can all complain but once they got control of the reserve currency and a big stick there was turning them back. They are going to to try to get there way no matter what it costs, because turning back now would wreck them. They will hunker down and wait from time to time, but they never let up. This is for all the marbles and the lives of 300 million Americans or a billion Chinese just don’t matter, except tactically. Look at the tonnage on the global trade routes. Look at the projections. The Eurasian center point has to be controlled to control the globe. It’s end game.
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Thanks but I was familiar with domestic assembly locations.
The reason for the locations have little to do with unions, or their absense, as they once did. The UAW leadership was reputedly coopted long ago. Plants are distributed broadly to:
Acquire subsidy;
Acquire congressional and senate votes; and
Acquire diversified logistics that cannot be easily pinched.
Labor costs in USA–Union or nonunion–are quite competitive with those abroad.
And production and assemblies abroad are located there to buy influence and access in those foreign markets.
@drgnslayr made the case clearly. He could make a little more producing abroad, but he chooses not to for a variety of reasons. But if his future viability depended on market share in China, I suspect he would produce some in China, too, as car companies do.
Notice the car companies have had to have major moving subsidies PLUS go bankrupt just to move abroad and produce in those markets. They did that to get market share over there. They could easily have built and produced here and floated cars west, but the Japanese companies would have beaten them to the share.
Only those lacking knowledge of the geostrategic aspects of the business still focus on unions. Unions could be broken up in a second. They exist as risk management tools for labor supply control for the domestic car companies should off shore companies try to crash the North American markets. There is a producer oligopoly that includes the major USA, Japanese, Korean, and European brands. They are allowed to play ball. Controlling domestic labor supply keeps them in line and helps keep Chinese and Indian and other firms out. All producer markets in G8 countries are producer oligopoly regimes. No access happens freely.
Labor unions in the auto industry long ago ceased to function in the way you refer to them.
I don’t blame you. It’s hard to keep up with this stuff, since the news media no longer covers the news and just reports talking points of PR.
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Also regarding Michigan, it’s diversifying and focusing on buy Michigan to much greater extent than most other U.S. States. But my point is that the car company management, especially global coordination of vastly increasing global operations, is growing in SE Michigan. Every car maker has to be here now in a new way. Previously every firm foreign and domestic had to be here to coordinate North American activity. Now Detroit is becoming a hub for global operations coordination. Most people don’t understand that the major automakers share many of the same suppliers in any region of the world and that there is starting to be globalization of suppliers and their raw materials suppliers. Detroit is growing as a hub for that. And the more dangerous the rest of the world gets as conflict grows over control of the Eurasian center point, the more protected and attractive a hub location Detroit becomes for such activity. Detroit is a place where hard choices get made. Detroit is a place that will sacrifice its own, or others, to survive. In times of trouble, when all the talk stops and things have to be done, Detroit understands and plays hardball. It’s a scary place that way. But they are a good bunch to have on your side, when the talk stops. Maybe no other bunch in the world could have survived the restructuring of the last 40 years and still be a serious player. They have made mistakes. But they are the kings of grind it out. They have been competing globally since the 1920s. They will make any trade off to survive. The fist statue is there for a reason.
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Labor unions in the auto industry long ago ceased to function in the way you refer to them.
You must live in dreamland. Unions are a powerful force that still has a lot of power in some industries, such as the car industry and in areas of the country, such as Michigan, while they are weakest in the South…guess where the new factories are locating; here is hint not in Union stronghold Detroit but in the South. Look how well unions did under the auto maker bailout, while every investor lost money, including many State pension funds, the unions retained all their benefits including their Cadillac medical plans, which are now supposed to be taxed under the Affordable Care Act…but its implementation was delayed until 2018 when it might get repealed any way. Point to the unions.
Now, maybe @drgnslayr can tell us if he could could stay in business if his shop would be fully unionized…assuming of course it is not now.
Obviously we are at different ends on this issue, so further discussion is fruitless. This threads not really sports related anyway so it makes no sense in keeping it alive. I am sorry I even responded since it seem to have extended it way past what most posters want to see in this forum. Again, my apologies.
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It can hurt awhile, when things aren’t as you thought they were.
All real learning is painful.
You will be ok.
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Why is further discussion fruitless, but saying one is in dreamland is not?
HOWLING!
Regardless…Rock Chalk!!!
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Instead of commenting and then asserting further discourse would be fruitless, the logical thing would be to avoid comment and say further comment would be pointless.
Logic. Logic. Logic.
It will help with the shock of the new.
Rock Chalk!!!
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Seriously, think about what you said about how the labor unions came out of the restructuring and tell me that doesn’t refute what you assert and support my assertion.
Everything within producer oligopoly is adversarial only within narrow limits.
Everyone is on the team. Sometimes you take the short end, sometimes the long end, but everyone is on the team, until they are flushed. No one tells the boss how it’s going to be. No one except his boss. Certainly not unions. Them days is long gone.
Like I said, learning hurts.
