Manufacturing

THE PRICE OF GLOBALIZED PAINT

Jim Hightower — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

I don't know why the chicken crossed the road, nor whether the chicken came before the egg. But I have learned that a new car can't roll down the road until paint is applied, and paint pigment definitely comes before paint.

Such is the zen of CortprateWorld's delicate supply chain. Philosophy aside, Ford Motor Company recently announced that it cannot fill orders for black vehicles and must limit production of red ones. It's a case of three "becauses" – Ford can't deliver cars in these colors because it can’t acquire the pigment to mix the paint, because Ford's pigments are made in Japan, which isn't making any now because of its nuclear disaster.

Who knew that America can't even make paint anymore?

However, in the hazy, crazy maze of globalization, America does make some Japanese pick-up trucks, though this has suddenly become uncertain, too. Hino Motors of Japan has a factory in Arkansas that makes rear axles for Toyota's Tundra trucks, which are assembled in San Antonio. But a 10-inch gear is a key component of the axles, and Hino imports this part from its factory in Japan, getting just-in-time deliveries of the gears to the Arkansas facility every other day. Unfortunately, the Japanese factory gets its power from the now-destroyed nuclear plant at Sendai, so no gears are being made.

Follow the bouncing ball here: With the Japanese-made gear unavailable, the Japanese company in Arkansas can't assemble the axles for Toyota's made-in-America Japanese truck, which means 2,800 workers in Texas could be idled.

A globalized supply chain is inherently splintery, and about a third of the world's auto production is expected to be lost this year to the spasm in Japan. Why are we allowing a handful of corporate interests tie our economy to such a frangible system?

JAPAN'S EARTHQUAKE JOLTS SHREVEPORT

Jim Hightower — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The corporate chieftains who've relentlessly pushed American factories and our middle-class jobs offshore, rationalize this globalization of production by declaring that it's all about efficiency, as though that's the highest value to which a civilization can aspire.

Values aside, however, the problem with corporate efficiencies is that too often they are not. Not efficient, that is. This is because the corporate scheme of moving stuff from A to B to G to Y in order to achieve the narrow goal of maximizing profits can look so simple, sensible and even slick in a boardroom power-point presentation, largely because it ignores inconvenient realities. Such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and nuclear meltdowns.

For example, Shreveport, Louisiana has been jolted by the horrific one-two-three blow that has pummeled Japan. What hit Shreveport was not a seismic aftershock, but the inherent fragility of the distant supplier networks built by profiteering globalizers. A GM truck plant in this city has had to shut down because one truck-part, made at a factory in the devastated area of Japan, is not presently available. One! Amazing. Cars and trucks have about 20,000 parts, but the inability to get even a single one delivered from abroad can bring an entire assembly line to a halt!

GM's bean counters had decided at some point that they could have this gizmo made in and shipped from Japan a bit cheaper than making it here. So GM and other globalizers have made themselves – and us – dependent on an unreliable, far-flung network of foreign factories. Moreover, these scattered suppliers also are at the mercy of their suppliers – a plastic gadget-maker in Japan, for example, might rely on a Chinese plant for the chemical to make the plastic.

The "efficiency" of globalization is nothing but a cross-your-fingers fantasy.

Have You Driven a Han Lately?

Jim Hightower — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

If you want to be seen as a flag-flying, macho American, you've got to have the right ride -- and nothing says swaggering hedonism and outta-my-way arrogance quite like a Hummer.

Yes, it's a high-dollar, gas-guzzling symbol of excess, but hey, that's the point! As the founder of a Hummer support group once snarled, "Those who deface a Hummer in words or deed deface the American flag and what it stands for."

HAVE YOU DRIVEN A GEELY LATELY?

Jim Hightower — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

What are we going to be driving a few years from now? GM's in bankruptcy, Chrysler is now run by Fiat, and the future seems bleak for the whole U.S. auto industry. So, who'll be king of America's highways – Toyota, Honda... or maybe Geely?

Gee–who? Geely Automobile. It's one of China's largest auto manufacturers. Along with two other Chinese giants – BYD and Chery Automobile – Geely has big designs on the American market. Never heard of 'em? Well, get ready to learn about the new rising power in automobiles.

Here's a statistic that might surprise you, as it did me: This year, China is projected to displace Japan as the world's largest car producer. Indeed, it already tops U.S. carmakers in sales.

As the chairman of Daimler, Germany's top auto company, bluntly acknowledges, "The center of gravity is moving eastward." But the East is also moving west. Chinese cars are expected to arrive in the U.S. market just over a year from now, and rumors abound that the Chinese are already kicking the tires of Detroit's auto companies, with the intention of buying a piece of them, or, at today's bargain prices, buying out a company.

One reason for the sudden Chinese surge is that its industrial and political leaders have been planning for and investing in the future, while American car honchos were hunkered down in their Hummer strategy. Thus, China's fuel efficiency standards already exceed the 35-miles-per-gallon average that Obama recently said U.S. cars must meet by 2016. A week after Obama set that goal, Chinese officials upped the ante, saying their vehicles will average 42-miles-a-gallon by 2015.

Meanwhile, China's BYD company has gotten the jump on the next level of fuel economy. It is now producing a mass-market plug-in electric car – well ahead of the Chevy Volt that GM has been working on. Assuming there'll be a GM.

Look Out for the Blimp That Doesn't Blink

Jim Hightower — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

I've always wondered: What was the guy who invented bagpipes really trying to make?

Well, at least that wheezing, whining invention turned out to be merely irritating, not actually dangerous. Leave it to the Dr. Strangelovian schemers at the Pentagon, however, to come up with an invention that is both irritating and truly dangerous, as well as being a galloping rip-off of us taxpayers.

Bringing a Bit of Fairness to the American Workplace

Jim Hightower — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:39:14 -0800

Unions. Who needs 'em? They're so passe, so 1930s.

This is the frantic argument being pushed by corporate lobbyists who're worried by the recent resurgence in union organizing, political punch and public support. Sure, say these corporatists, unions were needed back in the bad ol' Depression days, when rich executives and investors treated workers with all the respect that a Kleenex gets — use 'em up, toss 'em out.

New Hightower Lowdown available: Senators bail out banker buds but stiff workers

Staff — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:58:26 -0800

THE 8,000-MEMBER GREATER GRACE TEMPLE in Detroit is the home church of many autoworkers, and its Sunday service on December 7 spoke directly to their troubles. The tone was set by the choir's opening selection, "I'm looking for a Miracle." The Pentecostal pastor kept the spirit moving with a sermon he titled "A Hybrid Hope," after which the congregation joined in a full-throated, hallelujah version of the gospel classic, "We're Gonna Make It."

Congress Coddles Bankers While Bashing Autoworkers

Jim Hightower — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 05:18:21 -0800

Sen. Bob Corker is ... well, a real corker.

The Tennessee Republican is on the Senate banking committee that's overseeing the bailout of America's Big Three automakers, and, by gollies, he got his dander up when the three CEOs told the committee last week that they needed a $34 billion loan to survive. No way, popped the corker, unless and until you cut jobs and slash the pay of your union workers. "Before we even contemplate making a loan to these companies," corker lectured, "we need to put in place specific and rigorous measures."

THE PROBLEM WITH CHINESE GOODS

Jim Hightower — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0800

“Made in China” has become a warning label. Look out – toxics in toothpaste, arsenic in shrimp, lead in toys!

Politicians are pointing their fingers at China’s lackadaisical approach to product safety. But wait a minute – where, oh where, are our own regulatory watchdogs?

The big shock is not that Chinese-made toys are laden with lead, but that America’s Consumer Product Safety Commission is a toothless watchdog that employs exactly one inspector to oversee the safety of all toys sold in the U.S. Likewise, the Food and Drug Administration has licensed 714 Chinese plants to manufacture the key ingredients for a growing percentage of the antibiotics, painkillers, and other drugs we buy, but provides practically no oversight of these plants. In 2007, for example, FDA inspected only 13 of them.

An even bigger shock is that our consumer protection laws are so riddled with loopholes that unsafe products can legally come into our country. Take phthalate, a chemical additive in plastics that is suspected by scientists here and in Europe of inhibiting testosterone production in infant boys. Yet, Mark Shapiro, author of Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products, reports that while the European Union has banned the use of phthalates in products aimed at children under three years of age, our government has refused to act.

Thus, China has factories that manufacture two lines of toys – one without phthalates for shipment to European countries, and one with phthalates for export to our children.

The problem is not with the Chinese, but with our own corporate chieftans who have moved their manufacturing to China specifically to get these kinds of low-cost shortcuts in production, while simultaneously demanding that Washington cut back on regulations that protect us consumers. We must put our own house in order.

VIDEO: Sweatshop crucifixes

Jim Hightower — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 12:04:47 -0800

This holiday season, "Made in China" sinks to a whole new level with sweatshop workers making crucifixes for Christian gift shops.

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