The United States is losing its industrial capacity quite rapidly. Some environmentalists call these "old industries" and say we do not need them anymore; that we want clean industries. Yet the environmental mitigation equipment has kept up with the needs and our heavy and older industrial industries. Such industries are extremely important to the health of our nation because they represent the raw material production needed to make things. The closer these industries are to the final assembly points of parts means cost savings are rendered which make it easier to compete on the finished products with foreign competitors. For instance if we have a low dollar compared to the rest of the world we have an advantage in cost. But if we eat up that advantage in transporting the processed raw materials from foreign lands then the advantage is lost in transportation and distribution.
When a smelter closes in the US which processes aluminum then the supply is taken out of the market and the price increases. If no more smelters exist then we have to import the material from foreign soils. These costs increase those things we manufacture here, then it is harder for The Boeing Company to compete with Airbus when it wants to sell 50 billion dollars worth of airliners to them. Likewise the new light aircraft manufacturing sector moving into India can blows the doors off of Cessna and Beechcraft-Ratheon. It is serious business as such closures ripple thru the economy and cause damage to our already weakened, but rebounding manufacturing sector. As a teenager learning to fly, I would on long cross country flights often circle around such industrial processing plants and look at the power lines, rail lines, highways that went to them to have the resources needed to produce whatever it was they made. Then not far down the road, sometimes 50, 100, 150 miles you would see a mine which is where the material came from, then the other way you would see a big city with huge manufacturing plants which would use those materials to make stuff. It was much like looking over a giant model railroad, everything worked in unison. But when you take away a component you remove the efficiency of the system. This hurts us in America. If we over regulate and kill one industry, because we call it "old" we destroy the flows of efficiency in manufacturing. Thus one linear thought and bad policy tends to wipe out entire possible opportunities for the future.
Smelters in US in trouble as Alcoa decides to shut down the Portland Smelter.
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2002/07/29/daily23.html?f=et75
This is bad at a time when we need more aluminum and recycling for aircraft and aerospace reasons. Other Smelters shut down were in Great Falls MT and other places in this great Nation of ours. The environmentalists claim it needs to be done due to Global Warming and even have statistics to back them up. Yes there is some pollution but we have new modern anti-pollution equipment for upgrades in these industries, yet every time a plant or industrial facility tries to upgrade some one sues them. And this study in particularly is frightening to our Nations state of economic world-wide power,
http://www.bpa.gov/power/pl/aluminumstudy/aluminumstudy.shtml
http://www.bpa.gov/ Power/PL/AluminumStudy/11-17-2000_mtg.pdf
and many of our environmental scientists talk about how when we close a plant here we send the work to other impoverished nations to destroy their environment.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0225-01.htm
Yet no one is holding a gun to their head telling them to build a plant, or telling us we cannot, when they want the jobs and the money there. This is a complex issue and I think one, which should be talked about with regards to the Fluoride that is produced and how we feed it to our kidneys to get rid of it in our drinking water. We have other needs for fluoride anyway. After we kill the jobs instead of finding technological ways to refine the processes, while we wait in court for environmental suits to come to a close, we go without the very thing that made our country great, and helped us beat the Germans in WWII.
http://www.epa.gov.tw/english/EPM/issue0108.pdf .
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/29559_bpa30.shtml .
We need to be able to process aluminum better and we are going to need more of it and other exotic metals and formulations in the future, which will probably not be able to be made in third world countries, without massive infrastructures, additional costs and years in the making. We have every thing we need right here, we ought get smart and look at the flows of our civilization to put it all together. We study flows in all industries; airliners as they travel the country, trucks and cars, money flows too. We need a cohesive plan to put it all together using the new technologies to upgrade the old industries. Think about it.
"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.worldthinktank.net/wttbbs
shuttle from Midway Glen Ellyn ..In an age of terrorism, guerilla and total warfare the... Read More
The newest pebble reactors are easy to build and manage... Read More
This is the first of a series of four articles... Read More
Throughout all recorded history on our lovely little planet, Earth's... Read More
Streamlining Homeland Security with a Free market flair? An idea... Read More
From the National Association of Realtors' Virtual Office Website policy,... Read More
I. The FactsJust days before a much-awaited donor conference, the... Read More
Blessed with Chinese GDP growth rates (7-8% annually in each... Read More
Entrepreneurs can clean up the environment if we would let... Read More
The United States has enemies, which call the country the... Read More
Many believe Al-Qaida already has nukes in the United States... Read More
In his bid for the presidency, John Kerry pronounced a... Read More
"When you are right you cannot be too radical; when... Read More
President George W. Bush has unofficially won his re-election bid... Read More
The Federal Trade Commission has very important Anti-trust Laws. They... Read More
We learned some lessons in these last few wars. For... Read More
The most exciting event in Slovenia last week was when... Read More
For many years now, I have been the proud holder... Read More
IT'S NO LONGER NEWS THAT CHINA IS BECOMING A MAJOR... Read More
Tonight I resigned myself to the fact that this is... Read More
Handing over power to Vladimir Putin in 1999, Boris Yeltsin... Read More
In these times when states are suffering extreme downward pressure... Read More
Bosnia-Herzegovina (heretofore "Bosnia") is an artificial polity with four, tangentially... Read More
Many parents might think it a bit farfetched to compare... Read More
Quit paying the DEA to chase marijuana. We could save... Read More
shuttle from O'Hare North Chicago ..Our government is set up like a modern day franchise.... Read More
When were the forms of media created? When did advertising... Read More
With pain rocking through my whole body today, I cast... Read More
As you can see from some of our previous articles,... Read More
1) IS HAVING A DEMOCRACY MORE EFFECTIVE IN ADDRESSING POLITICAL... Read More
Earlier this month, I heard President George W. Bush and... Read More
The recent first round of the Iranian elections somewhat resembled... Read More
Wealth Distribution is often discussed at length in periodicals such... Read More
There are so many problems with our perceived perfect checks... Read More
In 1966, Dr. Carroll Quigley, a professor of history at... Read More
Rufus King: (Said to be the fifth most important person... Read More
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Men desire power. Give power to... Read More
It is time for a change. A change in philosophy,... Read More
With respect to the States' databases, you may not locate... Read More
In many reports we see that the Federal Trade Commission... Read More
Are the junior attorneys in the Attorney General's office leaving... Read More
..."history may judge us to be the real bully if,... Read More
Why did the California energy crisis happen? Who is to... Read More
In an age of terrorism, guerilla and total warfare the... Read More
Osama bin Laden probably needs to get a pay raise,... Read More
Large parts of the world today suffer from a severe... Read More
China is serious about breaking into the bio-tech field and... Read More
One of Abraham Lincoln's claims to fame is the fact... Read More
If a farmer plants the same crop three seasons in... Read More
Tonight I resigned myself to the fact that this is... Read More
Political |