Dumb as dumb gets

USA companies have been outsourcing most of their manufacturing for years to China and other low-wage countries. That may have been good for their bottom line temporarily, but then when they can’t get supply because of reasons outside their control, their stupidity comes back to bite them hard in the posterior.

Think of the USA’s ability to get PPP when Covid-19 hit.

How about when they realized most of the USA drug manufacturing is done overseas.

Or when the Auto Industry runs out of computer chips from Taiwan. Etc.

Globalists – dumb as dumb gets.

On Wednesday, Ford CEO Jim Farley told attendees of the Wolfe Research Auto Conference that the United States needs to start building batteries for the industry’s planned deluge of electric vehicles now that semiconductor shortages have revealed the dangers of needing to source essential components from the other side of the planet.

Farley is likely correct in stating that America really should be able to supply itself, and not just in regard to semiconductor chips. Pandemic-related lockdowns crippled countless industries by upsetting the balance of supply lines. Halfway through 2020, farmers were dumping millions of gallons of milk per day and plowing up fields of eatable vegetables as restaurants were shutdown; factories were idled as part shortages became commonplace; cleaning supplies and disinfectants became impossible to find.

But it’s hard to translate that into sympathy for Ford because, while all the above was happening, the automaker’s leadership was saying that there was no good reason to manufacture its own batteries.

“The [battery] supply chain has ramped up since Elon [Musk] built his Gigafactory, and so there’s plenty there that does not warrant us to migrate our capital into owning our own factory,” former Ford CEO Jim Hackett said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call, held in August. “There’s no advantage in the ownership in terms of cost or sourcing.”

“We need to bring large-scale battery production to the U.S., and we’ll be talking to the government about [that],” Farley was quoted by Bloomberg as saying during the Wolfe Research Auto Conference. “We can’t go through what we’re doing with chips right now with Taiwan. It’s just too important.”

Another mental midget finally figures it out.

Dumb as dumb gets.