The collapsing economy

Squeezed as they are between green energy boondoggles, Covid restrictions and zero percent interest rates, its no surprise that companies like CNH are shuttering production facilities.

The company said it will shut down several of European agricultural, commercial vehicle and powertrain manufacturing facilities in response to ongoing disruptions to the procurement environment and shortages of core components, especially semiconductors.

14 Replies to “The collapsing economy”

  1. What does CNH do?

    They make stuff.

    Unsurprisingly, making stuff requires a minimal amount of rationality and predictability. Once that level of rationality and predictability is breached, CNH can no longer make things.

    And then people starve.

    1. CNH makes agricultural equipment. There was an article how them and Deere are sacrificing completing new equipment in order to provide parts for in the field equipment in order to get this year’s harvest completed.
      The cities won’t like not being able to eat while they huddle without heat. Oh well, votes have consequences.

  2. All part of the Biden/Trudeau green plan.

    Manufacturing uses energy. So to reduce CO2 emissions, manufacturing must be shut down.

    China and India will pick up the manufacturing. All part of global wealth redistribution. And both countries will happily build lots more coal plants cause they know climate change is a scam.

    1. Quite a lot of people are going to have to freeze to death, just to stop the closure of coal-fired power plants that are already on the chopping block in North America.

  3. If only CMH and John Deere, had the technology and know how to build equipment that doesn’t require massive amounts of doodads and thingamajigs to run….

    but then the government overlords would get mad that they aren’t meeting arbitrary standards

    1. Brilliant point, JD. If it were only about farming they could probably be building machines. Parts for climate intervention, and convenience doodads are likely what is in short supply.

    2. Ever done any harvesting?
      I thought not.

      It’s easy to talk about “doodads” when you don’t know how necessary a grain-loss monitor, moisture-monitor or the other aspects of technology that has helped modern agriculture keep pace with the expanding world population.

      Do you really think we pay for shit we don’t need?

  4. The universal FAKE excuse is being made … “lack of computer chips”. Does the government actually BELIEVE the general public is swallowing their lies?

    1. Unfortunately the semiconductor shortage is all too real. I buy medium sized quantities of a variety of chips. About100 a month. Little by little, the chips I need are becoming unavailable. Just today, a basic chip to drive numeric LED displays (a 16 bit SPI interface style) that I frequently buy is now not available for at least a year. Because of my low volume, I can scrounge from Chinese sellers on EBay. But large manufacturers need reliable sources.

      1. Hopefully we will learn something from the dramatic dependency on China that we have established over the last 30 years; but I’m not optimistic.

      2. Why the sudden chip shortage? COVID shut-downs and slow restart? Or is it a centrally planned slowdown to increase prices?

        1. One of the weaknesses of the semiconductor industry is that it is very concentrated in a very few locations. Many American companies began shying away from any sort of substantial capital investment in the late 1990’s, and Korea, a place where long-term business strategy is still possible, became a dominant center of chip manufacturing. That’s a long way to say that the bulk of chip manufacturing is concentrated in a very few places, and a Covid outbreak in one of those places is very capable of creating worldwide shortages. I suspect pharmaceutical manufacturing is similar, but we seem to have little concern over that.

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