The Lights Have Officially Gone Out In the US

Here’s a
news story that summates the US economy’s problems rather well:

The last major GE factory making ordinary
incandescent light bulbs in the United States is closing this month, marking a small, sad exit for a product and
company that can trace their roots to
Thomas Alva Edison's innovations in the 1870s.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/07/AR2010090706933.html?wpisrc=nl_headline

Here we have
a product, invented by one of America’s Greatest inventors (if not THE
greatest), of which the US was the premiere manufacturer, now being
manufactured ENTIRELY overseas:

How could
this have happened?

What made the plant here vulnerable is, in
part, a 2007 energy conservation measure passed by Congress that set standards
essentially banning ordinary incandescents by 2014. The law will force millions of American households to switch to more
efficient bulbs.

The
resulting savings in energy and greenhouse-gas emissions are expected to be
immense. But the move also had
unintended consequences.

Rather than setting off a boom in the U.S.
manufacture of replacement lights, the leading replacement lights are compact
fluorescents, or CFLs, which are made almost entirely overseas, mostly in
China.

This story,
more than anything else I’ve seen in recent weeks, summates beautifully the current
political/ economic situation for the US today.

Congress
which is comprised of individuals who know nothing about engineering,
chemistry, manufacturing, or any other technical know-how, pass a law based on
political agenda without even bother to consider the impact on the US economy.

As if that
weren’t ignorant enough, Congress then proclaims that the new clean energy
policies will CREATE jobs, once again
proving they don’t have a clue what they’re talking about when it comes to real
economic conditions in the US.

The end result?

An industry
that has flourished in the US for over a century, founded by an American
genius, has now been entirely outsourced overseas. That’s just one more nail in
the coffin for the American manufacturing base. And one more wave of American
workers finding themselves at the unemployment line (the last existing plant in
Winchester, VA is laying off 200 people this month).

Please
understand, I am not against Clean Energy at all. What I AM against is stupid
policies losing Americans jobs just to fatten profit margins at the large
multi-nationals.

The real
winner of this whole set-up is of course the multi-national company, in this
case GE, which, by the way, owes its very existence to tax payer bailout money
from 2008. GE will very likely see a slight bump in profits by cutting down on
the operational costs of its light-bulb manufacturing wing (labor is cheaper in
China).

This hammers
home one of the founding theses of my socio-political newsletter The
Phoenix World Views Digest, that the US is comprised of two groups of
people:  individual citizens and
the large multi-nationals. These two operate under a completely different set
of rules. And the system is entirely rigged to benefit the latter (the
multi-nationals) at the expense of the former (individuals).

Until this
changes, the US will remain as it has been for the last 30 years: an oligarchy
masquerading as a democracy.

Good Investing!

Graham
Summers

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Comments

[williambanzai7]

They want you to believe Mexicans are the problem. I think not. Although I do not understand why we are the only country in the world where illegal aliens can work and receive government benefits. Try that in Hong Kong.

[williambanzai7]

This is a problem but not the root of all misery as some would like us to believe.

There are those who want us all to worry about immigration law, koran burning, mosques, gays in the military, same gender marriage...anything but the power structure.

It's called misdirection. 

[KevinB]

Look north, my friend. Up here, they don't even have to work. Just claim you're a "refugee", and you not only get health care, you get housing, clothing, etc.

Just last month, a boatload of 500 Tamil "refugees", who somehow managed to cough up $50,000 each for passage, landed in Vancouver. Most of them will be granted refugee status, so we'll end up paying for them for years. What a country!

[sgt_doom]

Oh yeah....riiiightt...like we're gonna fall for propaganda from one of you sneaky Canucks?

Bet you snuck into Canada, too, huh?

Yeah, sneaky bastard, stay away from Canada, the 51st state.

Oh, you claim you never got that memo?

Like anyone would believe a sneaky Canook!

[tmosley]

Yeah, I know, right.  It's not like they are being massacred in their homeland or anything.  Certainly the Sri Lankan military wouldn't drop pamplets telling citizens to flee to safe zones and then fire on those areas.

Oh wait... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Civil_War#Humanitarian_Impact

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/17/srilanka-tamil-tigers-trappe...

Of course, they shouldn't be getting a free ride from the Canadian government, but that is your government's fault, not the fault of legitimate refugees.

[fajensen]

The Tamils were imported from India to Sri Lanka by The East Indian Company specifically to piss off the locals. Which they duly went along and did - especially after the Tamil Tigers went along and imposed the "Breathing Tax", the guerilla version of CO2 quotas. All in all a group of people well deserving of a divisional size artillery stonk, IMO.

One wonders (actually, not!) why they flee all the way to Canada when the Tamil Nadu, India is a much shorter trip??

[Reductio ad Absurdum]

Basically, I've come to the same conclusion in recent years and completely agree with the author's post. The system in the U.S. has developed in such a way that a small number of powerful people run everything and do so purely for their own (monetary) benefit. Patriotism -- loyalty to a people or a cause or a culture -- no longer plays a role. Nowhere is this more evident than in the recent flood of Mexicans into the U.S. For 400 years we kept the Mexicans out of our territory, even fighting and crushing them on several occasions. Yet in a mere 30 years all the work and sacrifice of our ancestors has been undone as Mexicans pour into the country by the tens of millions.

Amongst our competitors, most notably China and the mohammedan nations, patriotism is central. The Chinese are loyal to the motherland and the Chinese race. They will never allow large numbers of foreigners into their country. This gives ordinary Chinese a sense of sacrificing for a greater cause -- the preservation and improvement of China. It's a huge motivating force.

So what motivates the rich and powerful in the U.S.? Simple: they are making money by running the U.S. into the ground. And when the U.S. has finally been destroyed/Mexicanized, these wealthy and powerful people will just take their wealth and move somewhere else.

[Quantum Nucleonics]

Eh, I think you need a history lesson.  400 years ago, Spain controlled most of North America and there was no such thing as a Mexican.  England was just establishing a colonial presence in what is now New England and eastern Canada - having only recently checked Spain's naval power.  There were Aztecs and Mayans in what is today Mexico.  Their hobbies were cutting out each others hearts to appease a patheon of gods and taking neighboring villages' women and children as slaves and war booty.

[RockyRacoon]

David Rosenberg has something to say:

This is what a depression is all about — an economy that 33 months after a recession begins, with zero policy rates, a stuffed central bank sheet, and a 10% deficit-to-GDP ratio, is still in need of government help for its sustenance. We had this nutty debate on Friday on Bloomberg Radio (Tom Keene is a class act, by the way) and another economist was on — the architect of the ECRI I think, who was claiming that there was no evidence of any indicator pointing to renewed economic contraction. And yet, that very day, the ECRI leading economic index comes in at a recessionary -10.1% print for last week. Go figure. The market for denial remains a lucrative one we would have to assume.

A depression usually involved a liquidity trap. In other words, expunging the debt excesses of the previous cycle leads to an ongoing contraction of credit where the demand and supply of loan-able funds is basically non-existent. This is why Libor (three-month interbank) rates are down to five-month lows of under 0.3%.

With President Obama’s approval rating all the way down to 43%, the Democrats are about to embark on a series of confidence-bolstering announcements.

Banks continue to sit with over $1 trillion of cash on their balance sheets and despite survey evidence suggesting a big thaw in once-tight lending guidelines, there is no indication that the Fed’s attempt to restart the credit engines is working. Companies are sitting on tons of cash themselves so they don’t need the money from the banks and households don’t seem ready or willing to take on major credit-sensitive spending commitments. Perhaps with one-quarter of Americans with a sub-650 FICO score, the typical U.S. bank loan officer doesn’t want to get fired for making the same mistake that got us into this mess in the last cycle and is actually requesting some documentation and proof of income (surely you jest).

Finally, you know it’s a depression when, 33 months after the onset of recession…

• Wages & Salaries are still down 3.7% from the prior peak
• Corporate profits are still down 20% from the peak
• Real GDP is still down 1.3% from the peak
• Industrial production is still down 7.2% from the peak
• Employment is still down 5.5% from the peak
• Retail sales are still down 4.5% from the peak
• Manufacturing orders are still down 22.1% from the peak
• Manufacturing shipments are still down 12.5% from the peak
• Exports are still down 9.2% from the peak
• Housing starts are still down 63.5% from the peak
• New home sales are still down 68.9% from the peak
• Existing home sales are still down 41.2% from the peak
• Non-residential construction is still down 35.7% from the peak

Folks, in a normal recession-recovery cycle, practically all these indicators are making new highs at this juncture of the business cycle.

[Milestones]

You state to the effect  "the thiefs will take their wealth and move on". Move on to where? Mars, Uranaus the greater cosmos?

My friend they are as locked in as are you and I. We are f***ed, but so are they.

Their "wealth" is only good here on Earth. As soon, the instant they the "wealthy" blink someone will be there to take it all back.

It is a forever game that they must play if we are going to be forced to play it also. There will be no cutting and running. The dance lasts until it ends--and it always has and always will.

Milestones

[Gully Foyle]

Milestones

"You state to the effect  "the thiefs will take their wealth and move on". Move on to where? Mars, Uranaus the greater cosmos?"

I've often thought that the main reason there is no serious move into space is the immediate goldrush of elements would create instant billionaires which would threaten the elites.

[lynnybee]

TO:  Reducio & Absurdom:     wow ... i am absolutely floored that your comment got junked !   What you wrote was the truth & people junked it !   ....... amazing that the truth gets junked.

[ATG]

http://www.uncoverage.net/2010/07/how-president-eisenhower-deported-ille...

[kinetik]

GG racism.  Go away please.

[maddy10]

To where?????????

The elite do want all the money in the world and want wages to remain low.

That's where mexicans come in.

That's all.

And patriotism,religion are opium for the masses- just to keep the cattle busy while pulling their carts

[tmosley]

I guess you missed the part where we annexed 2/3rds of Mexico, and with it, quite a few Mexican citizens.  Sure, the borders should be sealed, but there shouldn't be limits on how many people can come here to work legally.  "Deytukrjbs" should not be government policy.  You also need to understand that those evil mexicans aren't the ones harming this country.  It's Washington.  100%.

Also, there is no "Chinese race" any more than there is a "European race", and "the citizens of "mohammedan" nations don't really feel a lot of patriotism for the most part, as a goodly portion of them want to violently kill their respective dictators.  Lots of countries are happy to allow huge numbers of non-natives into their borders.  Witness the explosion of Chinese citizens of Pacific Islands.  Even though the Chinese "get all the good jobs", they are the ones that created the jobs in the first place.

[Suisse]

No limits on people coming to "work"? I think you'd be surprised how many tens of millions of third world aliens would love to get here simply due to wage disparity. Witness the explosion of ethnic tensions related to those same Chinese in the book "World on fire".

Sorry, but the real world is not and will not ever be a libertarian fantasy as the rest of the world refuses to play by those rules.

[shargash]

 For 400 years we kept the Mexicans out of our territory, even fighting and crushing them on several occasions.

ROFLMAO! That's the funniest thing I've read all day. It is just like when we try to keep the Iraqis away from our oil or the Vietnamese away from our jungles. It does raise the odd question as to why we named all those states of ours with Spanish names, when all we wanted to do was keep the Mexicans out of them.

[sgt_doom]

Vietnamese getting into our jungles!!!

WTF!!!

We're gonna have to keep our eyes pealed for any Canadians sneaking into Canada (clever bastards, those Canucks!).

[gmrpeabody]

+1

There weren't too many gringos pushing West 400 years ago. Unless, of course, you consider Spanish as a gringo. Ah, but they were pushing East. There are Spanish families in my home state that have been on the same land since it was given to them by the King of Spain. Those that were able to protect it, anyway, from the gringos pushing West. 

It's kind of a "chicken or the egg" thing. Except to the Indians.

[knukles]

Quit bellyachin'

Our politicians wanted green jobs, they got 'em. 
In China, but they got 'em, God damnit.
Another success for the election cycle.... add it to the jobs saved or created; truth, the whole truth and nothin' but the truth.

[doolittlegeorge]

Actually I've found Tusla, OK pretty darn nice.  People are darn friendly--save for the usual bank hold 'em up and knock down of the local pharmacia.  My kinda people.

[still kicking]

In OKC we let our pharmacists shoot the robbers multiple times.

[Almost Solvent]

If one had the proper stopping power, it would only take one time.

[ShatteredArm]

No mention of Nikola Tesla?  Oh wait, he was a Serb, so he didn't invent anything.

[hbjork1]

Tesla: Was truely a genius.

Was one of those people that was truly ahead of his time.  He was inventing in so many different areas that he could not really capitalize by sales of products possible from his inventions.  He was the originator of AC for power transmission and distribution but had to contend with the established Edison who was working on DC.  He was enormously productive and of course is, of course, well recognized today

[hbjork1]

Tesla: Was truely a genius.

Was one of those people that was truly ahead of his time.  He was inventing in so many different areas that he could not really capitalize by sales of products possible from his inventions.  He was the originator of AC for power transmission and distribution but had to contend with the established Edison who was working on DC.  He was enormously productive and of course is, of course, well recognized today

[hbjork1]

Tesla: Was truely a genius.

Was one of those people that was truly ahead of his time.  He was inventing in so many different areas that he could not really capitalize by sales of products possible from his inventions.  He was the originator of AC for power transmission and distribution but had to contend with the established Edison who was working on DC.  He was enormously productive and of course is, of course, well recognized today

[Pondmaster]

Edison stands in the shadows of Nicolai Tesla , as a man , as an  inventor , and as one giving FREELY of his dicsoveries to the world . No avarice or greed . Maybe if Thomas would have been tossed even harder from the train , we would have had Alt Current  10 yrs sooner . No mentioned either of the thousands killed by high current DC wires running all over the cities on racks by the hundreds , within reach of tenamenet windows  and streets . Edison was a put up fraud . 

[shortus cynicus]

Nicola Tesla was a looser.

He wasn't such a marketing genie like Edison, who for example tortured to deadth one prisoner with not functioning electric chair, just to "prove" that concurrent (Tesla's) products (alternate current) was dangerous for health.

Please take a lesson: cheating, lying, fucking all other around - that is necessary

background for any promising enterprise of 20"th century.

Let see if 21"th century change it.

[VeloSpade]

You should be put to death based on your derogatory comment of Tesla alone, serious or not.  It's a big mistake to dismiss the greatness of Tesla and an even bigger mistake to do it here on Zero Hedge.  You've been warned... you fucking shortus cynicus shit ass tool moron mother fucker!!!!

[Kayman]

Sorry shortus,

Though Edison was a great inventor, Tesla's discovery and adaption of Alternating Current is the only reason you have power to your house so you can run your computer.

Edison's DC power died a still birth.

[Vampyroteuthis ...]

Tesla's AC won out in the long run. Plug almost all appliances into outlets and you get Tesla's AC and not Edison's DC. It has to do with AC's ability to be transported over long distances while DC can not.

[Ancona]

I would do a little research before declaring Tesla a "looser" (sic). This man was one of the most talented and intelligent electrical engineers and inventors of all time.

With 111 patents to his name, he single handedly advanced civilization by at least two decades. While certainly a rival of Edison, he was at the very least on-par with him with respect to his accomplishments, most of which were solo performances. Edison had many dozens of assistants in his laboratory, yet Tesla often worked alone or with a few select assistants. Perhaps your comment was made in jest, and perhaps not, either way it is an unfair ass3essment of a brilliant inventor and one of the finest electrical engineers in history.

[arby63]

You are a typical contrarion moron. Was Tesla from China? Idiot.

[Sabibaby]

Edison stole a lotfrom Tesla, and mysteriouslyTesla's entire lab was ransacked and burned to the ground in Colorado Springs, CO

[ATG]

Who said the country that controls magnetism will rule the earth?

Tesla made that possible for the USA.

Tesla was the mystic scientific son of an Serbian Austro-Croation Archbishop. Tesla earned his doctorate at 17, developed a unified gravitational field force theory beyond Einstein and read Vedic philosophy as a practicing celibate, eugenicist, OCD and vegetarian and visionary who recorded at least 300 patents around the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Tesla_patents

He was a critical, reclusive showman, friends with Mark Twain, Robert Underwood Johnson/John Muir/Yosemite and George Westinghouse. Tesla outlived Edison, pointing out with bathing, calculation, education and theory, Edison could have saved 90% of his round the clock labour and been even more productive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla

T invented AC current, ion drive, logic gates, radio, remote control, robotics, spark plugs, VTOL aircraft, wireless power transmission, 5000 hp blade-less turbine and the death ray.

Westinghouse owed Tesla $10 M+ for his AC generator turbine royalties, fell on a rough patch with Niagra Falls DC generator competition with Edison and Tesla forgave what would have made him the modern age's first billionaire before Rockefeller.

When JPM realized Tesla did not want to meter charge for his radio power towers on Long Island and Pikes Peak, JPM withdrew his $150,000 51% funding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower

Some speculate George Scherff was a Rockefeller agent, Tesla assistant and confiscated Tesla's work with J Edgar Hoover that became Alaskan HAARP and Area-51 UFOs after Tesla died.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_VOP646hxQ 1:00

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4651808977954921152#docid=21885...

http://proliberty.com/observer//20070405.htm

[Miss Expectations]

Here's Edison's propaganda film showing the dangers of Westinghouse's (Tesla's) alternating current...killing Topsy the elephant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkBU3aYsf0Q&feature=related

[Ripped Chunk]

But AC became the standard and "the American Hero - Inventor"  Edison was wrong.

[Problem Is]

Edison was a Monopolist Dick...
Tesla was a genius.

Edison was a cheap skate slave driver who took all the credit for his employees inventions... 19th Century Bill Gates, anyone?

But Tesla cut into cartel profits so he was arson-ed and ran out of the industry in true Amerikan corporate criminal TBTF fashion....

[ATG]

Let us not forget the Edison X Ray for Health coming soon to airport, border and mobile vans everywhere.

Oh wait, his/JPM's employee lost his hand, arms and life at 39 developing it?

Wonder how the medical, pension was...?

http://home.gwi.net/~dnb/read/edison/edison_xrays.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Madison_Dally

[williambanzai7]

How exactly do green light bulbs create American jobs other than more Mexican caretakers for Jeff Immelts backyard?

[williambanzai7]

I'm not saying they should not move the jobs or have the right to.

What they should not be doing is telling everyone it is creating American jobs. The only American jobs it creates is a hand job.

[FEDbuster]

I am afraid there is no "reach around" with deindustrialising the US, only a dry ass pounding.

[FEDbuster]

So a trade war (or real war) with China, and it's lights out in 2-5 yrs.?  I have read we don't have the industrial capacity to make steam generators or transformers anymore here in the U.S.  Going long candle makers....

[Larry Darrell]

This comment isn't in response to your post, but I feel it's important for people who don't know that ALL of your light bulbs should be on dimmers.  The reason:  you'll only have to change bulbs after a power outage (if I'm correct on the science of it all, and anyone with more knowledge can feel free to expand on this thought). 

The reason is, light bulbs only "blow out" when the filaments are old and you turn on the switch supplying a current surge.  In theory (I think), if you never shut the light completely off, but use a dimmer to raise/lower the power flowing through the filament, the bulb will never fail.

[hbjork1]

LD,

The failure mechanism is correct. Bulb off: filament cold=resistance low.   Bulb started on, large current flow for a very short time until filament is very hot (several thousand degrees F). The tungsten of the filament slowly evaporates with use at full 120 volts. The filament eventually gets thin and breaks somewhere, often during the turn on current surge.

[Gully Foyle]

hbjork1

"The filament eventually gets thin and breaks somewhere, often during the turn on current surge."

The same is true for most electronics, they mainly blow during the turn on current surge.

[Imminent Crucible]

Never mind the green light bulbs.  They're crap, they give off a bilious dim light and they fail at about 20% of expected life.

The important thing is to frontrun 2014 by stocking up on cases, cases and more cases of incandescents, while you can still get them.

Your friends and neighbors will reward you handsomely for reminding them how nice and bright things were before 2014.

[Kayman]

And don't forget in northern climates incandescent bulbs help to heat your house.