JustCause
Inactive
My new(er) position keeps me on the road quite a bit, and lately has been no different. In the last 2 weeks I have spent time in Miami, Orlando, Charlotte and (at the moment) Las Vegas.
While in Florida I spend quite a bit of time with industry leaders from all over the world. These are the wealthy, well educated, well read, VERY well traveled, fluent in half-a-dozen languages type of people. Not exactly my usual crowd, but pleasant enough.
They are also very current on US politics, as this greatly effects their bottom lines. And let me tell you... they are scared. Very scared. O has the industrial leaders freaked out. These are the people who manufacture the parts that keep OTR trucks and heavy equipment moving. Its no secret that those two industries (trucking and construction) have all but collapsed in the US. What is not as widely known is the companies responsible for the supply of repair parts are not taking orders. Almost seriously nothing from the domestic markets. And this industry operates in 6-12 month out cycles, so there is nothing on the horizon as well.
To say these people are in retreat mode is in a massive understatement. The only thing keeping this industry alive (for domestic companies) is exportation. There are pockets of the world that are still producing (think oil and mining), and so we go where the activity is. And that activity is not in the US.
More and more, I am thinking this country is in a spinfall.
(Another thing I have learned: Caterpiller is not nearly as much of an American Institution as the average observer would think. Those machines are assembled with parts manufactured from every corner of the globe. I had lunch with the Japanese company that makes their piston rings yesterday. Just food-for-thought. We are already in a global economy, and I don't think anything will ever change that.)
While in Florida I spend quite a bit of time with industry leaders from all over the world. These are the wealthy, well educated, well read, VERY well traveled, fluent in half-a-dozen languages type of people. Not exactly my usual crowd, but pleasant enough.
They are also very current on US politics, as this greatly effects their bottom lines. And let me tell you... they are scared. Very scared. O has the industrial leaders freaked out. These are the people who manufacture the parts that keep OTR trucks and heavy equipment moving. Its no secret that those two industries (trucking and construction) have all but collapsed in the US. What is not as widely known is the companies responsible for the supply of repair parts are not taking orders. Almost seriously nothing from the domestic markets. And this industry operates in 6-12 month out cycles, so there is nothing on the horizon as well.
To say these people are in retreat mode is in a massive understatement. The only thing keeping this industry alive (for domestic companies) is exportation. There are pockets of the world that are still producing (think oil and mining), and so we go where the activity is. And that activity is not in the US.
More and more, I am thinking this country is in a spinfall.
(Another thing I have learned: Caterpiller is not nearly as much of an American Institution as the average observer would think. Those machines are assembled with parts manufactured from every corner of the globe. I had lunch with the Japanese company that makes their piston rings yesterday. Just food-for-thought. We are already in a global economy, and I don't think anything will ever change that.)
