Skip to main content

Eximbank: The fall out has begun

Well that was unexpected (NOT), GE today announced that its new $300 million engine plant, where all the new engines will be built (next generation) will be located in Canada!  People still cannot believe that US Export Import Bank has closed its doors, but GE has decided that it can no longer wait for the US government to figure out reality.

For Canada this is massive, because engines production line have a very very long life cycle; first the engines are developed for a new type, these are built for a number of years (eg the 777 was built for 15 years) but then new engines are required for the fleet going forward for another 25 years.  Moreover, once "one plant" has been moved, others will follow -- mainly because the specialised skills are there.  On the long run this is all good for Canada.  Granted we are only talking 350 jobs, but in reality there are a lot more jobs involved; GE does the final assembly, but a great deal of sub assembly is done by risk participants, these will want their core operations to be near the final assembly partner (very often but not always), bottom line we could be looking a several thousand jobs here; some will be Americans moving to Canada, but many will be Canadians.

I guess that in a market of 350 million americans, 300 jobs is nothing, but GE is the sharp end of the stick others will follow; Canada's labor is relatively cheap (especially with a cheaper Canadian dollar) health care costs are not a company's problem and the political landscape is subdued.

Now that GE has started how many more high tech companies will follow (either Canada or Mexico) in their footsteps?  These are very high paying jobs, because the degree of skills required here is substantial.


Anyway, I didn't think I would be proven so fast, turns out capitalism can turn on a dime


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

what people get wrong about tariffs

 The issue is simple. What percentage of the economy is dependent on tariff goods? The truth, is that the US economy is far more closed than people understand. People genuinely believe that all manufacturing has ceased to exist in the United States all given to China on the altar of woke policy the truth can be further from That statement. Only about 15% of US GDP is related to foreign trade. Of that amount, slightly more than half is from Canada in Mexico. And half of that is energy. What that means, is that about 7% of US GDP is tariff dependent. The proof in the pudding, is how little money tariff generates. People think that 30 or 50 billion is a lot it’s not in an economy that has $3 trillion. The impact on the US economy will be less visible but not absent. Inflation hasn’t occurred yet first because tests have hardly started to bite, but more importantly it’s such a small percent of the economy. Now certain things are critical. The rare earth metals from China were critical....

Trump and Venezuela...

The US now owns Venezuela…and not in a good way.  America is not known for its nation building skills, and yet it now owns the disaster that is Venezuela.   Starvation and exodus are the natural progression.   In addition it will become a haven for narco-terrorists, more so than it already was. I am sure that Trump and his friends really thought that little attack very well…I guess that he will now attack Iran now.  

Demographics

 I am preparing a kind of family tree for our children so that they know where they came from.  In my family I am the only survivor, although my brother and sister died recently they were both in their seventies (a story I told already).    It was a fun process, but it provided more than that.  First, I married relatively young I was 26 when I married and nearly 30 when our first child was born.   I was looking at my ancestors.  On my mother's side, she had 6 siblings, Four died before the age of 30, two in war, and two from illnesses.  Only she and a single sister survived.   The two boys had a child each but they died in WWII, and the other sister died as an infant.   what is interesting is that every one of my mother's siblings had children in their early 20s.   I know that my mom was hardly 20 when my brother was born.    What is remarkable is that among our friends, we are the only ones to have fou...