– Badtux the Industrial Penguin

It can survive if no one minds the economy of the Cayman Islands with a few winners at the top and abject poverty for the majority of the population.

You have to have something to sell. You have to have real assets, not just paper and promises. You have to make something that people want and need.

At one point the Spanish Empire had the majority of the gold and silver in the world, but they didn’t actually make anything, so it was all exported to buy what people wanted and/or needed. That is where the US is headed.

I just watched the latest TDS and Jon had an author (Paul Clemens) who wrote a book called ‘Punching Out – One Year in a Closing Auto Plant’. I had to watch the interview a few times to get my head around it…

Apparently, a new industry has sprung up and what they do is close down plants in the USA, and move them to other countries and set them up to manufacture things that were made in the USA, and it takes about a year to do it. Now the interesting thing is that the case in the book is a stamping plant in Michigan (Bud plant built in 1919, and stamped the panels for the 50’s Ford Thunderbird, for eg.), and the company that was basically created to close/move/setup the plant overseas, was created between two Chrysler plant’s, using mostly workers that used to work in the plants being closed. This company moved the stamping plant to various overseas companies, mainly in Brazil & Mexico (A Spanish plant in Central Mexico bought a part of the stamping plant to manufacture parts for the Chrysler Dodge Journey). So… basically, a US plant that was essentially next to Chrysler, was moved to Mexico to make the parts cheaper. They even have a newsletter, Plant Closing News.

It’s crazy. I think you’d have to get the book to really understand (if that’s the correct word here) what’s going on. Mostly, it seems to me that the book is mainly about the rapid decline in the USA of blue-collar work.

Anyway, if you want to watch the interview (and I thought it was very interesting, and very little *intentional humor) from Jon.

TDS – January 19, 2011 – Paul Clemens

I honestly do not see how the USA can survive if the business ethos is as explained in this book. *shrug*

Banks aren’t apt to attract any deposits when they are jacking up all of their fees and offering CDs below 1%.

There was on time when the stock market took care of things like that…

Meanwhile, the Chinese offered them a huge loan at less than 6% interest, due in 2015. Okay, so America is telling you to go fsck yourself, and China is saying “hey, we want you, come on over!”. Y’know, I’d give the middle finger to America too in that circumstance… even a bird-brain penguin can figure *that* one out, yo!

– Badtux the Snarky Penguin

You can’t convince them that they need to look at these things as if the money was coming out of their own checking accounts. No one would agree to having some of the contract winners put in a driveway for them, so why to they get to repave miles of roads.

Once you get into millions, you need penalty clauses that cause pain, not discomfort, and clear performance standards.