Tag: Henry Ford
-
Carney is FDR.
I started the previous item intending to introduce this topic but then skidded off into my usual Ford vs Wall Street rant. The rant is relevant to current news, so I’ll leave it there and try again. Capital is MONEY or PROPERTY that serves to start or expand a business. Property includes land, buildings, tools,…
-
Now he’s talking REAL money.
Wall Street wasn’t paying much attention to Trump’s attacks on Canada and Mexico. We run some offshore factories there, but not in IMPORTANT industries. We only make appliances and parts of cars there. Nobody we know uses appliances or cars. Our illegal immigrant maids and drivers use those trivial things. The IMPORTANT industries are the…
-
When you’re the mouse (2021 reprint)
Linked in previous item on Columbia University vs ElonTrump. This overlong piece was written in 2021 at the height of Trump’s PREVIOUS monstrosity. One thing has changed for the better. At that time the Weather Bureau was still doing the wrong thing, hammering Gaia and losing the trust of the people. Since then they’ve figured…
-
Easy to see, hard to see
Random thought that seems pretty good at the moment. Our main problem now is not monopolies on selling, it’s monopolies on buying. (Yes, I know it’s called a monopsony, but that’s an Economist Word and I won’t use it.) A monopoly on buying is unfamiliar because most people don’t experience it. It only affects the…
-
Wish I’d said it…
Saw a splendidly succinct proverb in an online meme: The opposite of depression is expression. I normally say it two ways, both less succinct. MAKE. WALK. Men need to make things. If they can’t make things they will break things. Graybill said it in ornate 1880 style: The people of Free-Trade countries are therefore driven…
-
The answer is work
This 1935 Ford promotional film starts with a long florid speech by a pompous grandiose announcer, introducing an important address by Henry Ford himself! Mr Ford will announce the company’s way of countering the Depression. After the long highly “grammatical” intro, we hear a long florid verbose oration by Henry himself: The answer is work.…
-
Ford for thought
PR Newswire cites the Edelman Trust Barometer: = = = = = START PR: Innovation is accelerating and should be a growth enabler, but it will be stymied if business doesn’t pay as much attention to acceptance as it does research and development. More than two-thirds of our respondents who say innovation is poorly managed…
-
More anniversaries
Jan 20 is one of my anniversary dates. = = = = = PARTIAL REPRINT: When I got out of prison, my first experience with independent life was in this duplex in Stillwater. I restarted college on Jan 20, 1970. My Zenith Trans-Oceanic helped to pull me out of the walls and back into the…
-
Non-hostile divorce
Most successful companies started as hostile divorces or shotgun marriages (LBOs). In autos, all the big names but Ford and Packard started as splits or buyouts**. Hudson’s origin was unusual. It was founded by salesman Roy Chapin and engineer Howard Coffin. Both originally worked at Oldsmobile. When Oldsmobile was bought by Wall Street types who…
-
Three parallels
Since 2008 I’ve been trying to highlight and illustrate better ways of solving the problems created by Wall Street. The New Deal was the most effective solution. It was preceded by Mutual Benefit Societies in the 1880s, then Social Economics around 1910. All three movements continued in various ways until Wall Street finally killed everything…
-
Ford and Carver!
Two of my favorite people worked together. I’ve read about Ford’s attempt to make car bodies out of soybean-derived plastic. I’ve seen pictures of Henry demonstrating the strength of a plastic trunk lid on an otherwise normal ’40 Ford. I’ve never seen this unique modernistic car before! Ford commissioned Carver to develop the chemical process…
-
Mutual is NOT dead.
While researching IOOF for Eureka Lake I realized that the IOOF is NOT dead yet. It hasn’t devolved into a drinking club or sold out to commercial insurance firms like most other societies. It still runs modern retirement homes in at least three states, and has active lodges and new members in many cities. Trinity…
-
We’re supposed to waste our emotions
As usual we have dozens of overdoses every day, some fatal. There are two responses. Dark humor and caring. Dark humor is winning, as more and more people realize that caring is a fraud. Media and rulers want us to CARE about everything so they can feed our caring with solutions that make things worse.…
-
Better prescription
Ramesh Thakur at Brownstone correctly diagnoses the current Machiavellian monstrosity in US/UK/EU. His proposed solution is wrong. = = = = = START DIAGNOSIS: A perfect storm of crises has been building. It comes from still bubbling rage with governments for their single-minded obsession with Covid and the lasting damage caused by lockdowns, masks, and…
-
Worst of both systems
Continuing from the Person Of The King. I’ve made this comparison hundreds of times now and it’s still valid. Execs of corporations get painlessly retired with a golden parachute when they’re incompetent or unsuitable for any reason. The only exception is when he’s the founder, like Elon or Henry Ford. Even in small businesses the…
Polistra's Mill 