This year may not have qualified as a total Annus Horribilis but it did come powerfully close for those of us here at Rearden Industries.
Of course, many great people are no longer counted among we the living but few in the hand-staring, short attention span generation looked up long enough to notice. Marcel Marceau quietly lead them out.
The chickens began the long trek back from the orient to roost on the shelves of American stores bedecked in lead paint and sporting melamine as an active ingredient for food and consumables. The McMansion crowd was cheek-clasping and totally aghast at the number of holiday presents filling the back seats of their Cayennes that were made in...er... China! What happened to good old American products? they asked. Shareholder value, we answered.
Still, the 'enlightened' among us keep banging the drum slowly for a global economy where incredible profits are not sullied by environmental or social responsibility. The loudest banging we hear at Rearden is that of the window shutters of industrial buildings nearby left empty for the love of more immediate earnings offshore.
In 2008 environmental activists will still be hiding their anti-capitalist agendas behind insolent, arrogant and intellectually lazy arguments calling for the end of fossil fuels as an energy source while bothering little to offer any options outside the usual cast of passive energy non-answers. I really hope that the coal industry finally decides to make itself available for a dialogue on this subject in 2008.
Oh, a funny one from 2007: remember the concert to save the planet from the ravages of fossil fuels? You know, the one where rock musicians staged yet another incarnation of 'Live Aid' using megawatts of energy to deliver their performances worldwide to 30 million television sets, all of which were sucking down kilowatts of energy produced mostly by fossil fuels around this planet? A new meaning to the word 'hypocrite'?
And, for those who have innocently asked these questions, I will answer now:
Yes, Hank Rearden is a nom de plume.
Yes, the name was taken from Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged'.
Am I a Rand Moral Objectivist? No.
(The banner of the blog offers a hint.)
No, Rearden Industries is not a real corporation.
Yes, I live in Philadelphia.
Yes, I am filthy rich. Aren't all industrialists?
Am I joking about the above? Yes, of course.
Peace to all in this new Year- Annus Mirabilis.
And I hereby resolve to tone down my relentless criticism of the scoundrels and snake oil salesmen who populate the IT industry.
Hank and the Gang at Rearden Industries.
Dec 31, 2007
Aug 14, 2007
Sitting on the Dock
Today I spent some time with the fine folks who work the loading docks here at Rearden. We sat on a wooden bench made slick by a hundred coats of machinery green enamel paint -cumshawed, no doubt, from the machinists cage- with our backs resting against the cool cinder block wall. We planted our boot soles on the oily concrete floor and rocked gently from side to side as we talked about the world as we know it. Occasionally our conversation was punctuated by the low rumble of a scrap iron rollback hauler passing our yards on it's way to the main road.
Scrap haulers are about all we see around this end of town now. Most of our neighboring factories have been idled or outright closed for a couple of years and the few left are beginning to show the tell-tale signs of impending doom. You know, chain link fencing on the first floor windows and TV cameras over the entrance to the lobby. It's really over when you see the sparkling reflections from a skyline of razor wire twirled along every eave and cornice of the roof.
So, now the demolition crews arrive each morning at the old tin can plant to topple more brick fascia walls onto the parking lot leaving but random, dust smoking mounds of debris. At the foreman's signal men with red bandanas tied around their heads drag oxyacetylene gas bottles and green and red rubber hoses across the dusty berms like so many gleaners in search of rebar and woven wire to burn out and recycle. They fill the scrap trucks with iron and the C&D trucks with the rest.
The old tin can plant probably employed two hundred people and not a few of those people learned a trade which was portable to where the wages and benefits were even better. That was the American Dream to some- no, to most of us.
In another week, we will probably sit on this bench again, rock side to side and comment on how quickly the tin can plant was totally removed from it's site. No need for razor wire now. The entire grounds are as level as a parking lot. But, instead of seeing the panorama of a flattened dream, perhaps we at Rearden will see a most perfect place to raise a new industry. And, we shall do just that.
Scrap haulers are about all we see around this end of town now. Most of our neighboring factories have been idled or outright closed for a couple of years and the few left are beginning to show the tell-tale signs of impending doom. You know, chain link fencing on the first floor windows and TV cameras over the entrance to the lobby. It's really over when you see the sparkling reflections from a skyline of razor wire twirled along every eave and cornice of the roof.
So, now the demolition crews arrive each morning at the old tin can plant to topple more brick fascia walls onto the parking lot leaving but random, dust smoking mounds of debris. At the foreman's signal men with red bandanas tied around their heads drag oxyacetylene gas bottles and green and red rubber hoses across the dusty berms like so many gleaners in search of rebar and woven wire to burn out and recycle. They fill the scrap trucks with iron and the C&D trucks with the rest.
The old tin can plant probably employed two hundred people and not a few of those people learned a trade which was portable to where the wages and benefits were even better. That was the American Dream to some- no, to most of us.
In another week, we will probably sit on this bench again, rock side to side and comment on how quickly the tin can plant was totally removed from it's site. No need for razor wire now. The entire grounds are as level as a parking lot. But, instead of seeing the panorama of a flattened dream, perhaps we at Rearden will see a most perfect place to raise a new industry. And, we shall do just that.
Aug 13, 2007
The Mittal Curse Removed
It was good news here in the vending machine area of Rearden Industries when we learned that the Mittal steel mill at Sparrows Point, Maryland is being sold to Esmark, of Chicago. The 'Point', as they call it, had it's glory days as the largest facility in the Bethlehem Steel group of companies but fell victim to a combination of it's own weight and rapidly changing market conditions.
Esmark is a Chicago-based company owned by the Bouchard brothers who are dyed in the wool steel guys grew up in a powerful family complete with Inland Steel pedigree.
Don't think for a minute that these guys are tuxedo-wearing, Ferrari driving trust fund babies with nothing else to do. No, they have been acquiring steel mills and steel service centers for about three years and, these guys have a plan for stabilizing our domestic steel industry. Plans are nice, but watching them make it happen is a true joy.
These guys are back on the linoleum after having seen firsthand the failure of web-based relations management for heavy industrial products. Imagine this, steel savvy and knowledgeable steel sales people working with customers.
Three cheers for Esmark and three cheers for Baltimore. And, thanks to Mark Reutter for the links.
Esmark is a Chicago-based company owned by the Bouchard brothers who are dyed in the wool steel guys grew up in a powerful family complete with Inland Steel pedigree.
Don't think for a minute that these guys are tuxedo-wearing, Ferrari driving trust fund babies with nothing else to do. No, they have been acquiring steel mills and steel service centers for about three years and, these guys have a plan for stabilizing our domestic steel industry. Plans are nice, but watching them make it happen is a true joy.
These guys are back on the linoleum after having seen firsthand the failure of web-based relations management for heavy industrial products. Imagine this, steel savvy and knowledgeable steel sales people working with customers.
Three cheers for Esmark and three cheers for Baltimore. And, thanks to Mark Reutter for the links.
Jul 18, 2007
Re-reading John Galt's speech.
"...When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made that factory possible: for the work of the industrialist who built it, for the work of the investor who saved the money to risk on the untried and the new, for the work of the engineer who designed the machines of which you are pushing the levers, for the work of the inventor who created the product which you spend your time on making, for the work of the scientist who discovered the laws that went into the making of that product, for the work of the philosopher who taught men how to think and whom you spend your time denouncing.
The machine, the frozen form of a living intelligence, is the power that expands the potential of your life by raising the productivity of your time. If you worked as a blacksmith in the mystics' Middle Ages, the whole of your earning capacity would consist of an iron bar produced by your hands in days and days of effort. How many tons of rail do you produce per day if you work for Hank Rearden? Would you dare to claim that the size of your pay cheek was created solely by your physical labor and that those rails were the product of your muscles? The standard of living of that blacksmith is all that your muscles are worth; the rest is a gift from Hank Rearden...."
For those unfamiliar with Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged", Henry 'Hank' Rearden is one of the novel's protagonists- a maverick steel producer who declines the opportunity to have his work nationalized by 'moochers' who support the idea of the innovative being forced to share their wealth, whether ideas or hard assets, with the rest of the world. Yes, that is socialism.
We stand idly by, these days, watching nations such as China, lifting themselves from the pallor of third world status to a vibrant and healthy standard of living which draws admiration from many around this world. All the while we keep taking one step backward each day to allow yet another governmental regulatory body staffed by moochers exercise yet another facet of control over our own industries.
Ask yourself this: could we make enough steel armament to defend ourselves from an armed invasion of our shores? Well, could we?
The machine, the frozen form of a living intelligence, is the power that expands the potential of your life by raising the productivity of your time. If you worked as a blacksmith in the mystics' Middle Ages, the whole of your earning capacity would consist of an iron bar produced by your hands in days and days of effort. How many tons of rail do you produce per day if you work for Hank Rearden? Would you dare to claim that the size of your pay cheek was created solely by your physical labor and that those rails were the product of your muscles? The standard of living of that blacksmith is all that your muscles are worth; the rest is a gift from Hank Rearden...."
For those unfamiliar with Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged", Henry 'Hank' Rearden is one of the novel's protagonists- a maverick steel producer who declines the opportunity to have his work nationalized by 'moochers' who support the idea of the innovative being forced to share their wealth, whether ideas or hard assets, with the rest of the world. Yes, that is socialism.
We stand idly by, these days, watching nations such as China, lifting themselves from the pallor of third world status to a vibrant and healthy standard of living which draws admiration from many around this world. All the while we keep taking one step backward each day to allow yet another governmental regulatory body staffed by moochers exercise yet another facet of control over our own industries.
Ask yourself this: could we make enough steel armament to defend ourselves from an armed invasion of our shores? Well, could we?
Jul 16, 2007
More Solutions Spew
Had to chuckle when I came across the article on CNN's website about China banning certain US meat imports for having unacceptably higher levels of contaminants than allowable. I wasn't laughing at the obvious retaliation for the US having denied certain Chinese seafoods entry into our marketplace until such time those foods pass our rigorous testing.
No, what made me laugh was the name of one of the American companies which had made it onto the Chinese ban lists: Cargill Meat Solutions.
Meat Solutions! If this were Larry Ellison's Oracle software company touting yet another 'Solution' to cure all that ails American business, so be it. We are used to that. But, Meat Solutions? When will this solutions madness stop? I can just imagine a conference room in Minnesota filled with junior level IE's, all wanting desperately to have jobs which are glamorous and draped with a backdrop of 7 series BMW's. We don't just sell meat, we deliver solutions! We solve problems, ergo, we are....solutions providers.
Face it: the software industry is notorious for rarely providing solutions which deliver on their promises due mostly to the irrational exuberance of sales types to meet quotas and earn a bonus coupled with the corporate level myopia which sees all industry as having a problem requiring a software application to solve. Pure fallacy.
So, why a capable and innovative American corporation would align itself with such a gang of losers as software solutions providers is not exactly clear to me. But, I'll bet there is an app somewhere, or a solution that could help me figure it out. For three hundred dollars an hour.
Cargill. Get over yourself. Junior IE's: get back to work.
If you have a 'solutions spew' example, please share it with me, Hank Rearden.
No, what made me laugh was the name of one of the American companies which had made it onto the Chinese ban lists: Cargill Meat Solutions.
Meat Solutions! If this were Larry Ellison's Oracle software company touting yet another 'Solution' to cure all that ails American business, so be it. We are used to that. But, Meat Solutions? When will this solutions madness stop? I can just imagine a conference room in Minnesota filled with junior level IE's, all wanting desperately to have jobs which are glamorous and draped with a backdrop of 7 series BMW's. We don't just sell meat, we deliver solutions! We solve problems, ergo, we are....solutions providers.
Face it: the software industry is notorious for rarely providing solutions which deliver on their promises due mostly to the irrational exuberance of sales types to meet quotas and earn a bonus coupled with the corporate level myopia which sees all industry as having a problem requiring a software application to solve. Pure fallacy.
So, why a capable and innovative American corporation would align itself with such a gang of losers as software solutions providers is not exactly clear to me. But, I'll bet there is an app somewhere, or a solution that could help me figure it out. For three hundred dollars an hour.
Cargill. Get over yourself. Junior IE's: get back to work.
If you have a 'solutions spew' example, please share it with me, Hank Rearden.
Jun 21, 2007
Ni Hao.
We may have been so distracted by all of the electronica in our lives to notice how much of our existence has become dependent upon the Chinese. A trip to any major retailer or big box store can be quite an eye opener when one counts up the products made in China against the products actually made in the United States. Be forewarned: if you thought 'Assembled in the USA from non-domestic parts' was a slick sidestep, wait until you come across the "Packaging Made in the USA" pure obfuscation.
Why are we so heavily committed to Chinese production of all our products? Was is because no one wanted to learn to operate an injection molding machine? Was it because no one would work in a steel mill? I don't think so as there are still molders and steel mills in business here and people earn decent wages in each one.
When it comes down to where the rubber meets the road, the modern investor is not interested in creating a social contract with employees, communities or industry segments. There is no increased standing available to them for taking on the responsibility of being an industrialist anymore. The sense of entitlement among modern investors justifies their sneering at the very people who do the day to day work of the organization and what better way to sneer at people than employing those who live halfway around the world.
A few generations ago, the public came to vilify the likes of Carnegie and Rockefeller for having amassed such fortunes in their respective industries. Strange, however, that these 'robber barons' would spend time in their factories and refineries, always interested in how the plants were running and offering up advice for how to improve the process. I have a difficult time imagining Stephen Schwarzman sauntering into a factory in Hebei province around two in the morning and saying, 'Ni hao?'
I can't cure this problem, so I will just lower my head and stare at my hand waiting for the BlackBerry to ring. The Chinese-made BlackBerry, maybe?
Why are we so heavily committed to Chinese production of all our products? Was is because no one wanted to learn to operate an injection molding machine? Was it because no one would work in a steel mill? I don't think so as there are still molders and steel mills in business here and people earn decent wages in each one.
When it comes down to where the rubber meets the road, the modern investor is not interested in creating a social contract with employees, communities or industry segments. There is no increased standing available to them for taking on the responsibility of being an industrialist anymore. The sense of entitlement among modern investors justifies their sneering at the very people who do the day to day work of the organization and what better way to sneer at people than employing those who live halfway around the world.
A few generations ago, the public came to vilify the likes of Carnegie and Rockefeller for having amassed such fortunes in their respective industries. Strange, however, that these 'robber barons' would spend time in their factories and refineries, always interested in how the plants were running and offering up advice for how to improve the process. I have a difficult time imagining Stephen Schwarzman sauntering into a factory in Hebei province around two in the morning and saying, 'Ni hao?'
I can't cure this problem, so I will just lower my head and stare at my hand waiting for the BlackBerry to ring. The Chinese-made BlackBerry, maybe?
Deadly Toys
The New York Times has reported that the potential dangers from toys produced in China may be a larger issue than we first thought. Read the article here.
We paid a dear price in the US for the enforcement of minimum safety and health standards- we lost a substantial portion of our manufacturing base. Who will be at the dock to test all of the incoming products from China? The importing sales agency companies with offices located in office campuses and surrounded by bucolic vistas? Don't count on it. They're too busy overseeing the installation of an outside kitchen at their summer houses- with a fire feature.
We should not give sanction to this in any way.
We paid a dear price in the US for the enforcement of minimum safety and health standards- we lost a substantial portion of our manufacturing base. Who will be at the dock to test all of the incoming products from China? The importing sales agency companies with offices located in office campuses and surrounded by bucolic vistas? Don't count on it. They're too busy overseeing the installation of an outside kitchen at their summer houses- with a fire feature.
We should not give sanction to this in any way.
Jun 18, 2007
Where I Live
I live in a place where there are good things mixed in with things less good, but I know from experience that all good things are brought to life by elfin magic. I am comforted by my knowledge of, and complete faith in, a future that insures me a rightful place at the table of plenty created by people who have no requirement to know my name or anything about me but still toil to maintain my comfort.
I am lucky enough to be able to maintain a certain distance ahead of what must surely be a bevy of those things less good and I am comforted in the knowledge of, and complete faith in, those people who will protect me.
This was a fantasy description of today's life in America. In the future postings here, I will rant and rave about rewarded mediocrity; energy created and distributed by elves; the lack of capital creation; our loss of manufacturing independence and why our country, plain and simple, has it's collective head inserted....... well, you get the picture.
No, I am not a proponent of Ayn Rand's objectivism, but I am a person who craves social sanity. Welcome to the Rearden Chronicles.
I am lucky enough to be able to maintain a certain distance ahead of what must surely be a bevy of those things less good and I am comforted in the knowledge of, and complete faith in, those people who will protect me.
This was a fantasy description of today's life in America. In the future postings here, I will rant and rave about rewarded mediocrity; energy created and distributed by elves; the lack of capital creation; our loss of manufacturing independence and why our country, plain and simple, has it's collective head inserted....... well, you get the picture.
No, I am not a proponent of Ayn Rand's objectivism, but I am a person who craves social sanity. Welcome to the Rearden Chronicles.
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