As you’ve probably heard by now, on Monday General Motors announced it would be cutting 15 percent of its salaried workforce and closing five North American factories. While C.E.O. Mary Barra said no single event prompted the cuts, some of the factors that clearly led to the retrenchment include a slowdown in new car sales, bets on smaller vehicles not panning out, and the president’s trade war, which has spiked the price of steel, and which G.M. warned in June would impact its profits and U.S. jobs. In short, the move was a business decision that you might expect someone like Donald Trump, a self-described businessman who claims to know “more about” money, taxes, trading, banking, and the economy than anyone, to understand. But, of course, Trump is only a businessman in so much as he played one on TV—in real life, he bankrupted a casino and received a lifetime allowance from his father, who had to bail him out on numerous occasions. Which is why, instead of saying that he was disappointed about the news but understood that G.M. was in a tough position and hey, maybe in retrospect it was silly to promise that auto manufacturing jobs were “coming back” to Ohio and Michigan, and also, oops, perhaps he shouldn’t have passed a tax bill that incentivized companies to send jobs and factories abroad, Trump told a reporter that G.M. “better damn well open a new plant there very quickly,” that the company is “playing around with the wrong person,” and that Barra will have “a problem” if she doesn’t immediately open a new facility. And then on Tuesday, still foaming at the mouth, he came out with this: Obviously, the president of the United States threatening to punish a private company for making a decision based on market realities that are partially his fault is . . . really something! But the whole thing takes on some extra hilarity when you realize, for the 927th time this year, what this not at all smart guy is unintentionally proposing. As Dan Primackpoints out, subsidies for G.M.-specific electric vehicles do not exist. Rather, there are industry-wide federal tax credits of up to $7,500 available for purchasers of U.S. electric cars, with “aggregate caps of 200,000 vehicles per manufacturer.” In other words, getting rid of the subsidy in its current form would hurt both American consumers and other auto manufacturers.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Trump has threatened to destroy a company for making a business decision. Over the summer, in a series of escalating tweets, the president went full Fatal Attraction on Harley-Davidson, essentially threatening to annihilate the company for moving some production overseas after he’d supposedly done “so much for [it].” And, apparently, he’s taking the whole G.M. thing similarly personally, with economic adviser Larry Kudlow saying Trump feels betrayed over the whole thing, especially after the administration struck “NAFTA 2.0” with Mexico and Canada (which car companies only supported as being better than Trump simply ripping up the original NAFTA without an alternative) and went after mileage standards (which car companies didn’t want it to do!). As for the whole “the U.S. saved G.M. and this is the thanks we get” bit, we’re sure it’ll come as a giant surprise that in 2012, Trump claimed Barack Obama’s auto bailout was “ruining American industry.” Anyway, sleep with one eye open, G.M.! Next time think twice before crossing Donald J. Trump!
Area lawmaker feels bad for Princess Purses
Apparently Ivanka Trump, who presumably heard her father suggest on one or two occasions that using a private e-mail account to conduct government business is a capital offense, shouldn’t be expected to know how to follow the most basic of rules:
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), said on Monday that it was “awfully tough” for government officials such as Ivanka Trump to comply with agency standards for secure communications when sending e-mails. “And it’s awfully tough, as everyone knows, when you’re sending emails about a lot of different things to make sure that you’re doing it according to the rules in the White House or wherever you’re doing it,” he added.
Last week, the president called The Washington Post’s story about Ivanka’s e-mail usage a “false story” and “fake news,” as he is contractually obligated to do, while also insisting that what Hillary Clinton did was exponentially worse.
Maybe society’s most vulnerable individuals should not be under the care of a private-equity firm
Just a thought! Per The Washington Post:
Under the ownership of the Carlyle Group, one of the richest private-equity firms in the world, the ManorCare nursing-home chain struggled financially until it filed for bankruptcy in March. During the five years preceding the bankruptcy, the second-largest nursing-home chain in the United States exposed its roughly 25,000 patients to increasing health risks, according to inspection records analyzed by The Washington Post.
The number of health-code violations found at the chain each year rose 26 percent between 2013 and 2017, according to a Post review of 230 of the chain’s retirement homes. Over that period, the yearly number of health-code violations at company nursing homes rose from 1,584 to almost 2,000. The number of citations increased for, among other things, neither preventing nor treating bed sores; medication errors; not providing proper care for people who need special services such as injections, colostomies and prostheses; and not assisting patients with eating and personal hygiene. . . . Counting only the more serious violations, those categorized as “potential for more than minimal harm,” “immediate jeopardy,” and “actual harm,” the Postfound the number of HCR ManorCare violations rose 29 percent in the years before the bankruptcy filing.
“Carlyle was a very interesting group to deal with,” Andrew Porch, a quality statistics consultant to whom HCR ManorCare referred questions about health-code violations, told the Post. “They’re all bankers and investment people. We had some very tough conversations where they did not know a thing about this business at all.” In a statement, representatives for Carlyle and HCR ManorCare told the paper that care at its nursing homes was “never compromised by financial considerations” and that cost-cutting affected only administrative expenses, not nursing costs.
Trump’s tariffs are making a shitty situation worse for U.S. farmers
According to data released from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, 84 farms in Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Minnesota filed for Chapter 12 bankruptcy over the 12 months that ended last June, which is more than double the number from the same period in 2013 and 2014. Part of that has to do overproduction, with Citizens State Bank president of Hayfield Mark Miedtketelling the Winona Daily News, “Farmers are almost too efficient for their own financial good and demand hasn’t kept pace with the abundant American supply of corn and soybeans.” And the other part?
The situation for most farmers has worsened since June under retaliatory tariffs that have closed the Chinese market for soybeans and damaged exports of milk and pork.
“Dairy farmers are having the most problems right now,” Miedtke said. “Grain farmers have had low prices for the past three years but high yields have helped them through. We’re just waiting for a turnaround. We’re waiting for the tariff problem to go away.”
We’re just going to leave this one right here
“I’m doing deals, and I’m not being accommodated by the Fed,” Trump fumed on Tuesday in an interview with The Washington Post. “They’re making a mistake because I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me.”
Elsewhere!
New York woman pleads guilty to using bitcoin to launder money for ISIS (CNBC)
Investors Prepare for Another Brexit Surprise (W.S.J.)
“When You Get That Wealthy, You Start Believing Your Own Bullshit” (The Hive)
Trump Overlooks an Investment Opportunity in Climate Change (N.Y.T.)
Meet New York City’s highest-earning official. He’s a debt collector for predatory lenders. (Bloomberg)
U.S.-China “economic cold war” could turn stock sell-off into bear market, says BTIG’s Emanuel (CNBC)
Facebook Has a “Black People Problem,” Ex-Employee Writes (Bloomberg)
Fortnite Addiction Is Forcing Kids into Video-Game Rehab (Bloomberg)
“Going back to 1386, going forward through the Napoleonic wars, through to the Second World War where of course this . . . err was a—a place that, err, was, err . . .” (Express)
Wedding photographer arrested for having sex with guest, urinating on tree (N.Y.P.)
The Levin Report by Bess Levin at Vanity Fair 1 World Trade Center New York, NY 10007 USA
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Yup! What’s missing here is a discussion of what can be done to utilize the skills and dedication of all the hard-working Ohio folks at GM slated to lose their jobs through no fault of their own (other than the mistake that some of them made by voting for Trump & the GOP). |
| Why can’t they be put to work doing meaningful and important work on needed infrastructure projects in Ohio, which certainly needs them? Can some enterprising immigrant-run companies with need of a talented workforce step in and retrain workers for good jobs with a future that won’t have some of the problems of auto manufacturing jobs? Why isn’t Jeff Bezos putting “alternate headquarters” in areas that really need the boost, rather than grazing for tax handouts (for the world’s richest man) in already prosperous areas like N. Virginia and the NY Metro area? What’s the responsibility of GM for making suitable arrangements for folks who have made their (and their shareholders) prosperity possible over the years? What about putting more DHS or IRS “Service Centers” in these locations to take advantage of an elite workforce? Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is a friend of the working class — what can he and his supporters do to help these workers to help themselves, without massive infusions of taxpayer money? |
| Seems to me that rather than issuing inappropriate and idle threats and engaging in more political gamesmanship, the Government, on all levels, should be leading the effort to capture the precious “human capital” being abandoned by GM. We’re at basically full employment; jobs that could further expand the economy are going unfilled. There has to be some way to match supply with demand and fully utilize the skills of fellow Americans who have shown the willingness to work hard and produce quality products. |
| PWS |
| 11-28-18 |