Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Why Foreign Robots Are The Real U.S. Job Killer
Over the past several months President Trump has called out pretty much every major auto OEM for their efforts to move low-skilled assembly jobs to Mexico. But absent new tariffs, it's not terribly surprising to most people that American companies would seek to move low-skilled, labor-intensive jobs to lower cost labor markets...the math is pretty simple.
But what is somewhat surprising is how poorly the U.S. is performing versus international competition in the development of advanced manufacturing robotics. As the Wall Street Journal points out this morning, when it comes to automating a manufacturing floor, buying robotics 'Made in America' isn't even an option.
Vickers Engineering Inc. embodies the potential of American manufacturing. The New Troy, Mich., machining company supplies precision parts to clients including Toyota Motor Corp. and Volkswagen AG , and exports to Mexico and Canada. Its staff has risen fivefold and average pay has doubled over the past decade, says Chief Executive Matt Tyler.What’s helping to power Vickers’s made-in-America success? Advanced Japanese and German factory equipment. When Vickers first bought industrial robots in 2006, it chose between only European and Japanese models, says Mr. Tyler, and has been adding Japanese robots ever since. “We were not aware of any American-made option.”America is losing the battle to supply the kind of cutting-edge production machinery that is powering the new automated factory floor, from digital machine tools to complex packaging systems and robotic arms.
Commerce Department data show the U.S. last year ran a trade deficit of $4.1 billion in advanced “flexible manufacturing” goods with Japan, the European Union and Switzerland, which lead the industry. That is double the 2003 deficit. It was down from $7 billion in 2001, but much of the decline came from foreign equipment suppliers expanding in the U.S., not from an American comeback.
Meanwhile, U.S. firms are also losing market share at home, according to Germany’s VDMA industrial-machinery trade group. In 1995, they satisfied 81% of domestic demand for factory equipment. In 2015, the most-recent data, that had slipped to 63%.
And while the U.S. lags, China is looking to make aggressive moves in advanced manufacturing robotics and is seeking to move beyond its reliance on cheap labor to compete globally. Its ‘Made in China 2025’ strategy aims to dominate advanced manufacturing, in part through aggressive foreign acquisitions such as appliance-maker Midea Group’s purchase last year of Germany’s Kuka AG, a world leader in industrial robotics.
Of course, the U.S. wasn't always the laggard in advanced manufacturing and actually dominated the space through the 1970's when the domestic auto manufacturers were at their strongest. But that all ended in the early 80's as domestic auto production got cut in half and the USD strengthened.
The U.S. dominated advanced manufacturing through the 1970s, when the cutting edge was largely machine tools. Detroit was at the forefront. The world’s first industrial robot, the two-ton Unimate built in Connecticut, was installed in 1961 at a General Motors Co. plant in Trenton, N.J., according to the International Federation of Robotics, a trade group. GM and Ford Motor Co. tested robots through the 1970s. GM and Fanuc in 1982 created a joint venture.In the 1980s, as U.S. manufacturing slumped, almost seven of 10 American machine-tool companies closed due to falling demand, the strong dollar and strategic miscues, according to a 1993 Rand Corp. study.The decline continued this century as U.S. manufacturers outsourced more and baby boomers retired. Shrunken manufacturers demanded fewer production experts, accelerating the factory-technology decline. “In the U.S. there’s been a brain-drain in manufacturing technology,” says Alex West, manufacturing-technology analyst at London consultants IHS Markit.
Over the long-term, of course, the loss of low-skilled labor positions in the U.S. is inevitable. Moreover, further regulations like minimum wage hikes and border tariffs will only help to ensure their long-term demise by making capital investment projects even more attractive. But, without a presence in manufacturing robotics, all that capital is sure to flow overseas rather than into American households.
Credit to Zero Hedge
The Independent Media Is On Life Support-Total Tyranny Will Follow
Take a long look at the Independent Media, it will soon be gone. It will be gone from Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. This article focuses on the movement by Google to eliminate anti-NWO thinking. This article also serves as a warning to major purge heading our way. The mere fact that you are on this website viewing this article, has put you on the NSA naughty list.
YouTube
Youtube has become dominated by conservative opinion. If the traditionalists, as I like to call them, were to disappear from Youtube, the giant social media platform would collapse. If that were to happen, about the only thing of value that this social media monolith would have left would be videos on how to raise radishes in your garden. Youtube knows it, however, the determination of the globalists is so great, that the supplanting of the MSM by the Independent Media is so decisive that it has literally scared the hell out of the globalists and they are willing to pay any price to end the threat of the Independent Media. Here is a brief summary of this intention.
Paul JosephWatson Under Attack by Youtube
Infowars’ Paul Joseph Watson is being incrementally censored by Youtube. Watson recently released a video detailing how censorship by Youtube, owned by Google, is actually unfolding. The video is very well done as the issues are succinctly discussed and it is also very colorfully (bad language alert),
The British government is strongly pressuring Google to control the “hate speech” being played on YouTube. We all know what hate speech really is. It is speech that does not honor Satan, child abuse and genocidal war.
Remember the admonition against book burning and this is exactly what we see here.
The British aspect of controlling Youtube content as well as where there is headed is contained in the following video.
Book burning has been an ugly part of human history. The symbolic significance of book-burning lies in the message from the state, or an agent of the state that “We own you, because we own the ideas we allow you to be exposed to”.
A Brief Snippet of Book-Burning
Roman history, 25 AD. Imagine having a detailed account of Roman history before 25 AD. What a treasure that would be for historians. We have pieces of things from that time, but Senator Aulus Cremutius Cordus wrote all about the civil war and the reign of Caesar Augustus. To cover up the assassination, or as some say, to turn Brutus into a folk hero, the books were burned because they tell the real story. In ancient Rome, the people had too much say and the elite felt threatened that Rome was not ruled with more of an iron first toward the general population. Subsequently, books were burned.
The Royal Library of Alexandria. Alexandria contained all of the information for entire contents hadn’t perished in a fire on four separate occasions, including one uuncident when Julius Caesar burned it down in 48 B.C. at the same time that he set fire to his own ships. The library was torched and this movement involved anti-Christian or anti-Pagan movements (i.e. whatever was in vogue at the time). The hope, in part, was the Christianity would die in these fires. Christianity was a threat to the absolutism of government practiced by the Roman state.
THE PREHOLOCAUST PERIOD– History is replete with the book-burning that went on in Nazi Germany where there was a 100% effort to control the narrative for the purposes of societal brainwashing. Ideas about freedom and indepenence were burned in the books that mentioned them. Subsequently, Christian youth groups gave way to the Hitler Youth Movement. The purpose of the book-burning was to eviscerate any opposition to an unabashed dictatorship where the people belonged to the state and had no say over their future or their fate. Book burning became synonomous with dictatorial regimes.
Comic books, 1948. Unfortunately, America did not retain the lessons of history and importance of book-burning faded into the annals of history. Thanks to Dr. Fredric Wertham we know that parents were tired of their children being corrupted by violence in comic books. Wertham wrote an article he titled “Horror in the Nursery,” and subsequent parents engaged in mass burning of comic books. There was no holocaust that evolved from this endeavor, but it was crystal clear that America was doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.
The Washinton Post, New York Times and the Federal Government. Most of us already know the story. Your truly and my colleagues have been accused of promoting “fake news”, or dangerous ideas. These ideas are so dangerous that plans are being made to shut down our radio shows, Youtube channels, Facebook accounts, Snapchat accounts and any other social media where people congregate to identify corruption as well as to share the message about the blessings of freedom. The Washington Post, which is playing the role of the traditional Brown Shirts, have changed the narrative. They have replaced the worn out phrase of “conspiracy theorist” and have replaced it with the moniker of “fake news”. And since the message coming from fake news is inherently dangerous and can even change elections in order to give the Russians the result that they want (lol), fake news must be controlled and even eliminated and this is what we are beginning to see. When the MSM and the social media along with the government conspire to close websites, they are, in effect, burning books in order to control ideas.
The Hero Program
Youtube has a new program called Heroes which will bring an end to all patriot community participation on Youtube. Trolls as young as 13 years old will have the ability flag Youtube sites that they don’t like. Three flags results in the deletion of the Youtube Channel.
No, I am not making this up. The Patriot community will go extinct, in the near future, with regard to bringing the public the truth. Yes, I am talking about 100% censorship within months. And you can bet that this will not end with the elimination of the Independent Media from the Internet, Youtube and Facebook.
Below is a succinct account of Youtube’s version of draconian censorship.
After viewing the video, in which the meaningful part of the presentation starts at about 90 seconds in, ask yourself how should the truth tellers in America should respond? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
Conclusion
When the Independent Media is gone, it is a short-trip to the loss of all rights for all Americans. The Independent Media is only the first target, the general public is next. with the Independent Media gone, there will be very little opposition to the coming evisceration of what is left of the Constitution. Depopulation events will proliferate (eg WW III) because there will be nobody left to speak against the globalist desires for this planet. And it is not just Google/Youtube.
If you think the globalists will stop with Youtube, they won’t. All of the social media giants are quickly moving to undermine the 1st Amendment and roll back the progress of the Trump populist movement. Soon you will no reliable outlet to go and get your newsand information other than CNN, FOX and all the other corporate controlled media outlets where every word and nuance is scripted for your personal experience with brainwashing.
This summer, with the help of Bob Griswold, I am moving my radio show to shortwave. I will continue to broadcast on satellite and the station you listen to me on as long as possible. However, the days of the Independent Media are numbered as are many of our lives (eg Breitbart and Hastings).
For all the good it will do we can make a symbolic effort to save the First Amendment:
Watch no MSM, whatsoever, and then Call 202-225-3121 and urge your reps to stop the takeover of the internet. America needs to unelect every incumbent in 2018. Let it be known that if Congress does not undo the illegal giveaway of the Internet to ICANN. START WRITING TO SPONSORS ON SOCIAL MEDIA OUTLETS LIKE FACEBOOK AND TELL THEM WHY YOU ARE NOT BUYING THEIR PRODUCTS! THE EAST GERMAN STASI HAS TAKEN OVER THE MEDIA AND WE HAVE A SHORT TIME TO TURN IT AROUND UNTIL WE LOSE ALL OF OUR FREEDOMS!
I would suggest trying to do the above even though the probability of success is low. However, the alternative and what will follow this contemporary example of book burning will give history its darkest moments. And what moments will those be you may ask? I can sum it up in 3 numbers:
666
Credit to Common Sense
Coming To An Inner-City Uprising Near You: The "Ultimate Riot Control Truck" Of The Future
One upon a time, the benevolent future was supposed to bemuse with hoverboards, flying cars and interplanetary travel. Instead, according to the folks at Slovakia's Bozena Riot Security Systems, the dystopian future has arrived, and it is made of armored plates and riot gear.
The Bozena Riot can handle virtually any duty when authorities need to put down an uprising: it is a remotely operated, armored vehicle designed to deal with riots and mobs in the streets and urbanized areas. The system offers a solution for both protecting the law-enforcement units in action and controlling the situation whenever peace maintenance is required.
The truck right out of RoboCop's OCP Detroit, has three components: a carrier, a 3000 kg adjustable shield, and a water trailer. Two water cannons can send protesters flying from the front or the rear and if that doesn’t do the trick, police can always rely on the "high-pressure tear gas gun" to disperse any riot.
As Gizmodo points out, the unmanned unit is covered in CCTV cameras assuring full video coverage, while the driver gets to enjoy inner-city riots from a comfortable safe distance courtesy of this virtual cockpit which puts all control options at one’s fingertips:
The truck's shield has six launching ports to fire guns or other rubber projectile launchers while keeping the heavily fortified shooters safe. Furthermore, should the truck's riot police passengers get stuck in an alleyway, the shield has bulldozing capabilities allowing authorities to directly engage with social discontents.
To be sure, the topic of police militarization in the US has been a particularly sensitive one in recent years, so perhaps the country will avoid this tool to quickly and efficiently restore post-riot order. Probably not: as Gizmodo notes, "the combination of an increase in law enforcement spending and Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ pledge to stop monitoring out-of-control police departments seems to set up just the right environment to make it happen."
In any case, no matter on which side of the ideological divide one stands, and whether one roots for the authorities or the rioters who may soon suffer the wrath of the Bozena Riot, there are plenty reasons for everyone to be both delighted and concerned.
The video below courtesy of Bozena shows the prototype in action.
Credit to Zero Hedge
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