of course you had to know someone to get hired. Never got so lucky and headed for Florida.

My first car was built there. I've never been to Lordstown; but I when I heard these news I felt sick.

Damn NAFTA, Old Man Bush, and his narco sidekick Salinas for foisting this on us.

I don't blame Clinton as much, as he merely signed it (which would've happened either way). This was Bush's baby all the way.

I was in high school then and went with my parents. I still have the yardstick with a misspelled "Lordtown" on it. There was an inside joke on QC there. The Mako Shark Corvette concept was on display though the plant first built Impalas and Caprices.

I considered a job there when I graduated, but nearby Packard Electric (Division of GM) called first. I started there at 19 years of age and spent the next 30 years until it was closed, retiring at 49 with a full pension and supplement. That was sixteen years ago. I fear losing my pension until it arrives every month. Lucky so far. I'll be wearing blue in support Friday.

Thank you for sharing that. What an experience.

The Republican attack on good paying union jobs continues

A severely-indebted, de-industrialized shadow of its former self. 180,000 jobs lost last year alone.

Argentina just got a lot of the Mexican and Chinese contracts for corn and soybeans thanks to Trump.

Farm commodity prices, as you know, are now at record lows relative to all other prices. What little foreign exchange that will bring them is probably equal to no more of two months of capital flight at the current rate (over $2 billion a month).

The proceeds, moreover, aren't likely to see Argentine soil since, due to Macri's financial deregulation decrees from 2015, exporters aren't required to deposit them locally or even report them for tax purposes.

Macri's response to the wave of capital flight - the result of markets realizing in Feb./March 2018 that foreign debt had reached unsustainable levels - has been two-fold:

One is to raise interest rates on short-term gov't debt to 50-70%; the other has been to borrow heavily from the IMF - some $29 billion since June but on condition of deep budget cuts (w/o reducing budget deficits much, due to falling revenue).

Both have pushed the economy into near free-fall: 7% GDP decline as of December, with industry and construction falling 10-15%.

In short, the next administration will inherit a similar situation to what Raúl Alfonsín inherited from the dictators in 1983, albeit somewhat less severe (there was 400% inflation at the time, compared to 50% now).

One of the dictatorship's chief economists, Juan Alemann, boasted at the time that Alfonsín "will have almost no latitude to enact changes, given the severity of the debt crisis we left him."

The same, sadly, is likely to apply to whoever's the next Argentine president.

You do realize that our external debt is now $22 TRILLION. Our trade deficit is up 40% since tRump took office. God only knows what the balance of payments is, as we've done so much to piss off the Chinese and Mexicans, I doubt if they're investing here anymore. Despite secrecy on the part of the tRump administration, some are saying that government revenues will go down by $1.0T to $1.5T anually, due to tRump's tax legislation. I have a feeling that this is what Putin wants. Although I sympathize with the plight of the Argentinians (I spend two months there every year, and lived in BA for three years), I think they'll be able to take care of their 39 million citizens more easily than we'll be able to take care of ours. I think things are going to start changing here.

But there's a key advantage we have that most other countries (inc. Argentina) don't: a Federal Reserve with virtually unlimited capacity to cover any financing gaps - by "creating the money out of thin air" as a ledger entry if need be.

Fortunately, they haven't had to do so as yet (the Fed still owns less than $3 trillion of the public debt). But as the 2008/09 crisis proved, if they really had to due to a mass unloading by either foreign entities (who hold $7 trillion) or the U.S. domestic private sector ($12 trillion), they could.

And whatever else could be said against the dear old Fed, thank goodness they can.