Migrants back or not

For many years most Americans (polls show 80%) agree that the immigration system is broken but politicians knew that if they brought up the issue, they would be accused of being uncompassionate or worse being racist so they remained quiet. Obama changed the way they count deportations by including turn arounds at the border. This increased his numbers to the point where he could offset the claim of racism by suggesting the children who were born here should be citizens (DACA). People were still upset with the migrants and Trump came along and capitalized on the issue and got elected. The press who didn’t like Trump considering him racist went after his border stance but the people held firm. On day one when Biden took office, he reversed Trump’s border policies and migrants poured in by the thousands. Defenders said these people were just the poor trying to have a better life but these poor were around long before Biden made the changes. As the number of migrants passed the 200,000 per month mark nothing was said in the press except for Fox news who had a reporter on the border with a drone showing nightly pictures of migrants streaming across. Then in August of 2022 one man stepped up to the plate and everything change. Governor Abbott of Texas started sending migrants to northern cities and the press had to cover the situation. This then led to Trumps elections and the fight has now switched to whether the migrants should be sent back or not.

PFAS

Back in the 1970’s companies were burying harmful substances. These plant managers were mostly chemical engineers and were fully aware that in 30 or 40 years these steel containers would rust away and these dangerous substances would get into the ground water. As expected, the government created the Super Fund to clean up these thousands of places at a cost of billions. More recently 3M paid 10 billion in fines to clean up the Polyfluorolkyl Substances commonly called PFAS which they had buried and it contaminated the ground water. Chemical waste has been found in high concentrations around multiple 3M facilities in the US, including its 1,750-acre factory in Minnesota, where the state claims there is a 100-square-mile underground plume of leaked PFAS. These chemicals are used in the manufacture of solar panels and each year 5 million used panels are buried in the US and this number is expected to rise. Solar panels may very well save the planet. But the way they’re being produced and disposed of right now is seriously hurting the environment. Thousands of tons of PFAS waste are put in landfills each year — and the sector has no idea how to deal with it. While the mining and processing of materials needed for solar panels is currently done mostly in China the disposal of these panels is done in the USA. Once again, the problem is just buried for future generations to handle.

Solar panels

A good example of the difference between China and US production is the solar panel business. First off, most solar panels are made in China. In 2022, about 1.9% of the solar panels installed in the U.S. were made in the U.S. The vast majority, roughly 88%, were imported, primarily from Asia, with China accounting for nearly 78% of all panels globally. China not only makes the solar panels but they use coal energy to mine the rare earths while they contaminate the ground water, use cheap labor sometimes child labor while forcing people to move out of their homes. They have no worker protections and the government subsidizes the industry. In the early part of 2024, over 100 US solar companies went bankrupt. This number is significantly higher than previous years, and some sources even estimate that at least 100 more companies could fail. Major solar companies that have closed or filed for bankruptcy include SunPower, Pink Energy, and Lumio. Mining rare earths in the US would be opposed by environmental groups. The one US mine in Navada was shut down in 2002 and reopened in 2017. Even today the ore is sent to China for processing because of environmental concerns. The US prefers to send the processing out of the country to protect the environment. Old solar panels are sent to landfills. Solar panels contain several potentially hazardous materials, primarily due to the metals used in their construction. These include lead, cadmium, silver, and arsenic. Additionally, some solar panels may contain hexafluoroethane and polyvinyl fluoride, which are also considered toxic, as well as copper indium selenide and copper indium gallium (di)selenide.

Change or not

Ten years ago, when Trump came on the scene, he was considered a joke and was not taken seriously by the national press. In time his dual claims of draining the swamp and make America great again caught the attention of the voters, especially the low- and middle-income people. The first group to be caught up in the Trump revolution was the old standby republican party. The old leaders like George Will, Bill Crystal, Mitt Romney and Mitch McConnel were moved aside to make room for new younger faces like Rubio, Kristi Noem and Tim Scott. The next to fall were the old-time democrats like Pelosi, Biden and Schumer and the new faces are now gaining prominence. While the change in the republican party has been smooth because of Trumps leadership the democrats are in disarray as they try to find a new leader. While the republicans have goals like securing the border, bringing jobs back home, deporting criminals, reducing waste and fraud and ending the Ukraine War, the democrats concentrate on Trump saying he will end democracy and calling him a dictator. The next group to be challenged is a combination of the press, Hollywood, big business and academia. These people see the end of globalization as a threat to their power. The net result is that the low- and middle-income people have moved away from the democratic party which is now controlled by rich, White, college educated, mostly coastal people. All of this has caused a major overhaul in the politics of the country and the battle lines are set. If Trump wins it will mean an earth quake shift toward working people and if he loses it means going back to the old ways. The chances of a Trump win are slim because it is hard to beat City Hall.

Future

Available capital in our society comes mainly from people between the ages of 50 and 65 and the baby boomers have been the largest contributors of capital for the past 15 years but they are retiring and shifting their investments from stocks to fixed accounts. This removes a lot of money from investment and thus raises the cost of capital. This is coming at a time when the country is experiencing a manufacturing revolution which will lead to the doubling of the industrial base in just few short years. To the rescue will be private industry. US companies are sitting on $7 trillion in cash just waiting for the right time to expand and build new facilities. Apple recently announced that it plans to invest $500 billion in the US. Add to this the other US companies and the estimate $5 trillion of foreign investments coming in and the capital needs will be met. Economic expansion will follow and wages will rise as productivity rises. This will be accelerated by the innovations that always follow expansion.

AI vs labor

During the past 50 years while manufacturing was offshored the primary motivating factor was labor cost but thanks to technology and AI that is no longer the case. The move toward reshoring is prompted by the fact that the efficient operation in new factories is not determined by labor cost. When computers first came on scene the driving force was programmers but in this new world the need is for tradesmen. AI will be the new programmers. New factories will be much larger and contain much more technology. First it takes large numbers of skilled craftsmen just to build the facility. Then it takes others to build the machines that will build the machines to install in the factory. While engineers will lay out the plans, it will be workers who put the plans into effect. People will receive on the job training on how to operate the machines (robots) that build the finished product and it will be people learning on the job how to build the robots that build the robots. All of those jobs that left the country during the past 50 years will be coming back to build the future. Some jobs will be eliminated, some will be created and all jobs will be changed but as has happened throughout history since the start of the industrial revolution, more jobs will be created than lost. The biggest need will be for electric power and small nuclear reactors are ready to satisfy this need.

Nuclear power France

In 1953 President Eisenhower recognized the potential for nuclear energy and proposed Atoms for Peace. By the mid 1960’s the US was well on its way to building nuclear power plants. The same thing was happening in France but soon opposition to nuclear power took front stage and this slowed development in the US but not in France. The French government took control and the opposition was stymied. The result is that today the US produces 18.9% of its power from nuclear and France get 70%. The result is that the US emits 14.57 metric tons of CO2 per person while Francs is at 4.63 tons. This is the result of groups like Green Peace who even to this day are opposed to nuclear power. Today’s nuclear power plants are more efficient, safer and produce far less waste yet there is still far more regulations than France.