[michael_b]

Interesting article, long but interesting.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/01/magazine/remington-guns-jobs-huntsville.html

 

[HollowHead]

I live just north of Cody, Wyoming...a state that has successfully attracted Weatherby and Magpul. If conglomerates keep this up, it will be Wyoming spring forever. HH

 

[3007]

Horribly written and of course they had to bash a Trump appointee.

 

[papershoot]

The Huntsville plant is about a 15 minute drive from my home. Remington has been a disappointment for the area. It is not surprising that a New York Times article would paint the city of Huntsville in a negative light, based on the opinions of a preacher/union promoter. Almost all of the union plants in the area have closed. The old Chrysler building that Remington moved into, was a one of them.

"White students at nearby schools were so far ahead of my child it was almost sickening, he said." Obviously his son was the victim of a racist/segregationist city. Is it possible that the parents did not prioritize academics enough to insure their son did well in school? There are some very successful black people here. Some live in million dollar homes next door to white people.

The Huntsville metro area is the 2nd. largest in Alabama and is growing. The counties where Birmingham, Montgomery, and Mobile are located have been experiencing flat to negative growth. Blacks make up over half of the population in the above cities.

The Redstone Arsenal has been bringing in new defense/aerospace jobs for years. Recently, the FBI said they would be moving people to HSV.
https://www.al.com/news/2018/11/fbi-announces-1350-jobs-moving-to-huntsville.html
Polaris has a new plant building Rangers and Slingshots near HSV. Just down the street from Polaris, a large Mazda Toyota automotive joint venture is under construction. This will be the second Toyota plant in the area.
https://www.al.com/news/2019/04/maz...lestone-at-huntsville-plant-construction.html

 

[rj1939]

New Yawk and anything related to New Yawk, have no relevant opinion on business of any kind.
Like illinois has no relevant opinion on fiscal responsibility

 

[flyover]

When you let the company be taken over by an investment group...

 

[Z71bill]

I didn't read all of that.

The thing many can't understand - mostly because they have never tried to run a large company.

Most of the time - just keeping things the same is a road to total failure.

The thought that if this company would have just kept selling the same "high" quality hand crafted stuff rather than cost cutting every thing - that they would have been just fine - is just not true.

 

[WeeWilly]

Well, they pretty much hit all the social hot buttons (I wonder if the NYT has some AI software reading every piece to verify all the boxes have been checked in each article?).

With all of that, I felt the article itself was relatively even handed.

It always tickles me when I read about evil private equity, buying a company, levering up with debt, extracting all the asset value and leaving it for dead.

What the hell do people think GE did?

What the hell do people think is being done with almost every public company on earth these days of "emergency monetary policy"? They are levering up and buying back stock, does wonders for quarterly earning per share, right up until the next recession.

The thing about humans is with all our powers of reason, we are about as dumb a species as ever walked or swam the earth.

 

[sciolist]

Too smart for common sense. Way too evolved for that.

 

[rock_castle]

As usual, the NYT missed the most important part: Remington makes **** products. If they made good products that are in demand then they would be fine. They don’t.

 

[michael_b]

When you let the company be taken over by an investment group...

This