Ditto for the "“This
unelected gaggle of insufferable mediocrities" line.
From Manufacturing.net, June 27:
Major Aluminum Manufacturer Shuts Down
The Century Aluminum plant in Hawesville, Kentucky is shutting down production due to rising energy costs.
In a statement, the company says the plant idling is the "direct result of skyrocketing energy costs," specifically blaming the Russian war in Ukraine for the dramatic increase.
The production stoppage will impact some 628 workers who will be laid off at the second largest employer in the area, according to the Messenger-Inquirer.
The company will close the smelter for nine to 12 months beginning today, until energy prices return to normal levels. The company only gave employees about three days' notice, informing them on the closure last Wednesday.
According to the company, the plant is its largest U.S. smelter and the largest producer of high purity aluminum in North America.
The aluminum is used extensively in the defense industry as well as in aerospace applications. For example, it's used in F16s, naval war vessels, Boeing 747s and even at the International Space Station.....
....MORE
Bloomberg wrote (July 7):
The US Industrial Complex Is Starting to Buckle From High Power Costs
Surging bills are forcing companies to scale back industrial operations, threatening a greater drag on the economy.
It was only a matter of time, really.
Europe’s fertilizer plants, steel mills, and chemical manufacturers were the first to succumb. Massive paper mills, soybean processors, and electronics factories in Asia went dark.
Now soaring natural gas and electricity prices are starting to hit the US industrial complex.
On June 22, 600 workers at the second-largest aluminum mill in America, accounting for 20% of US supply, learned they were losing their jobs because the plant can’t afford an electricity tab that’s tripled in a matter of months. Century Aluminum Co. says it’ll idle the Hawesville, Kentucky, mill for as long as a year, taking out the biggest of its three US sites.A shutdown like this can take a month as workers carefully swirl the molten metal into storage so it doesn’t solidify in pipes and vessels and turn the entire facility into a useless brick. Restarting takes another six to nine months. For this reason, owners don’t halt operations unless they’ve exhausted all other options.
It’s the most poignant signal yet of what’s to come—but not the only one.
At least two steel mills have begun suspending some operations to cut energy costs, according to one industry executive, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. In May, a group of factories across the US Midwest warned federal energy regulators that some were on the verge of closing for the summer or longer because of what they described as “unjust and unreasonable” electricity costs. They asked to be wholly absolved of some power fees—a request that, if granted, would be unprecedented.
It’s no wonder. By the beginning of June, natural gas prices had tripled what they were a year earlier, threatening households and businesses alike with some of the biggest utility bills they’ve ever seen. This summer, electricity rates for industrial customers are set to hit their highest levels ever, based on US government forecasts. Because US plants and factories depend on both electricity and gas, this could very well be the moment the rug’s pulled out from under American industry....
....MUCH MORE
Earlier: "Norsk Hydro Shuts Aluminum Plant as Europe’s Power Woes Deepen"
If Putin wanted to destroy the West's manufacturing base he could not have done a better job than what the European and American politicians and policy peeps have accomplished with their ineffective sanctions and domestic energy policies..
And if the U.S. tips over into recession, and don't get me wrong, recessions happen and they are not the end of the world, but if the U.S. enters one it won't be because of what the Fed has done, getting the policy rate to a range of 2.25% to 2.50% and a total reduction since June 1 of the $8,915,000,000,000 balance sheet, of $35.912 billion.
They've done nothing. 2.5% in the face of 8.5% inflation?
