Tuesday Thoughts

16Dec2008 Filed under: Economic Development, Erie, Erie County, Promoting Erie, random thoughts Author: Dale Hannah

It looks like there is some great news, good news, and bad news on the employment scene in Erie these days.

Accuride has announced that it’s closing it’s plant in Ohio and moving the jobs and equipment to the Erie Plant. The great news here is that approximately 100 jobs will be added in Erie. I’m not sure how many will be transfers or if they will be new positions, but either way, it has to be good for the local economy. Tip o’ the hat to the GEIDC for facilitating this move.

Troyer Farms has been sold to Bickel’s Snack Foods, but the good news is that the operations in Waterford will not change, and there are no plans to eliminate jobs. Let’s hope the good news holds!!!

The bad news comes from Fairview, where PHB Corporation has announced a major lay-off, at least 70 workers, just a couple weeks before Christmas. There may be more to follow. Having worked with the owners, William Hilbert and his sons, Bill Jr., John, and Joe, for 40 years, I am certain this decision was not an easy one to make, but with the economy tanking, hard choices must be made.

Just a little editorializing here. Global competition is tough enough, but having to deal with a union just makes things harder. This country can no longer compete if the unions continue with their unreasonable demands. Either they begin to make realistic concessions, or they will push the entire country into the abyss.

All comments, pro and con, are welcome!!

Tags: Accuride, PHB Industries, Troyer Farms, unions

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One Response to “Tuesday Thoughts”

George Vietze
December 16th, 2008 at 4:39 pm

I just left California where the State of California is so bad off economically that the Govenor is trying to borrow money and use FUTURE lottery income as collateral, housing is down in some cases 30% and foreclosures are rampart and jobs continue to be lost.
I arrived in Arizona a few days ago and the economy is almost as bad, jobs are lost and real estate prices have plumetted.

The Government is throwing money at everything trying to stop deflation of values including lowering the federal funds rate to almost zero, the only bullets left are the “printing presses”, this can only lead to super inflation at some point down the road when the “piper” shows up for payment. I moved to Erie two years ago because Erie has a lifestyle that suits me and had not be flooded with excessive monetary behavior
like most of the country.

Throwing money at the auto industry who operates a bad business model and is unable to compete with foreign made vehicles partly because of the labor disparity. Giving them money will not affect their ability to compete globally. I am not an expert in manufacturing but if GE Capital can sell more equipment to China and is one of the few companies that sell more to China than it imports, it because they have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in TECHNOLOGY which allows them to produce 85 more engines than they used to produce 25 with the same amount of labor. The auto industry either has to produce more with better technology or get their labor costs in line with the competition or go broke OR BORROW THE PRINTING PRESS OF THE UNITED STATES TREASURY and spread their cost over the residents of the United States. The choices simple, compete globally with state of the art technology and lower total labor costs, continue their current plan and go broke or borrow the government press but no amount of money will work if they build the wrong automobile to fill the needs of the market. The governments ability to solve this problem has never worked in the past, they may be able to slow down the deflationary melt down by unloading all of the governments bullets, where do they go from ZERO INTEREST!!!!

Move to Erie, hunker down, live within your means, buy Erie real estate at these give away prices and ride the INFLATION TRAIN when it shows up.

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About 'What If?'

Dale Hannah I am a life-long resident of Erie County, twenty years of which were spent living in the City of Erie. I retired from the tool-and-die trade two years ago, and now have time to enjoy the opportunity to observe city and county goings-on in more depth.

I hope to create a venue to suggest new ideas and solutions to exisiting problems with my blog, 'What If?'.

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