Michigan State Money Being Used in Unfair Trade Agreement?
The Marshall Megasite
Megaplan for a Megaplant
I
am writing concerning the unexpected location of a gigantic battery plant that
will be run by administrators and managers from the People’s Republic of China.
General Information and Location
At time the Government of the State of Michigan
is set to fork over another $750M on the Ford battery plant in Marshall. The total stands now at about $1.7 Billion. The
population of Marshall, Michigan is about 6,780 citizens.
Marshall is a rural community. There are offices there of the USDA Farm
Service Agency (FSA) and businesses like the Marshall Feed & Grain Co and
the Bosserd Family Farm.
It may seem an unusual place to build a
battery plant. Ford
Motor Company CEO Jim Farley would be familiar with the choice process
that leads to the location of a major plant like this in farmland and forested
areas.
In the parlance of the industry in the
United States and in their operations around the world this is referred to as a
‘Green Field’ project. The land has
essentially already been graded and smoothed by generations of farmers and
residents. The land can be purchased at
a discount because, according industry and the Michigan government, centuries
of agricultural activity have left the land ‘undeveloped’.
Along with the 2,500 workers that will
descend upon this community there will be thousands more of Ford Hangers-On
which are also known as suppliers. The
Automotive Industry has become, for most of the large players, a relatively
hands-off business. Now that unions have
been broken and younger workers are unaware that their lives, which are
possible because of the sacrifices of their ancestors, large corporations can
operate gigantic facilities like this with low paid workers and contractors
with a sprinkling of union workers as icing on the cake.
Ford Executives offer the reasoning that
they are securing the company’s supply chain for batteries and will be able to stop
relying on foreign battery purchases.
This doesn’t quite make sense as their partner is a foreign supplier
backed by a nuclear armed and aggressive government that is methodically moving
to secure the production and transport of all of the mining production in the
world. Kind of hard to eliminate supply
chain issues by relying on the companies and governments that are causing
supply chain issues for American, Asian, European and African companies.
A Green
Field Project allows corporations to prime land cheaply
and then conduct their businesses largely outside of any reasonable
regulation. It is not clear if the plant
in Marshall will actually be in Marshall.
Whether or not it is, in the daily operations of the plant, it won’t
matter. Ford will build their project
and operate it as they see fit. Any
reasonable regulation regarding air, water, soil, sound and light pollution
will be difficult to work out. In the end
if any real traction gets going to ensure that the company actually behaves
like the good neighbor it purports to be then political pressure can be applied
to silence dissent or the real needs and interests of other businesses and
residents still in the community that have not yet been pushed out.
A Comparative Example
The City of Marshall’s Future with the
City of Wayne’s Past, Present and Precarious Future
A good example of what the people of
Marshall and any neighboring farmers or other land uses can expect is presented
by the City of Wayne. The City of Wayne,
Michigan, with a population of about 17,481 has hosted Ford Motor Company as a
business resident for nearly a hundred years.
Local folklore has it that Henry Ford, as he
was working in Detroit prior to starting his eponymous company, like to go to
Wayne. The main reason it is reported is
that he went there to get a haircut.
While there, the story goes, long barbershop
conversations would be held and who knows what other tomfoolery those future
billionaires might have gotten up to.
There is a detail here that needs to be
remarked upon. We learn in high school
industry that Henry Ford invented the assembly line to speed the manufacture of
cars and so transformed American society and the world.
At the time there was a company in Wayne
called the ‘Prouty
Carriage and Glass Co.’.
They made surreys and wagons and sleds. They were busy people and very
successful. So, the story goes, Henry is
invited to see what they are doing over there because, at the time, he was
engaged in making cars in Detroit using the ‘one-at-a-time’ method.
It might appear to be a quaint story cooked
up by locals if it weren’t for the photographs of the actual operations at the
time. The same operations that Henry Ford would have witnessed first hand. The rest, we say, is history.
The two
plants that Ford operates in the City of Wayne
were not the first of his industrial factories but they have been there for
quite some time.
As the local lore includes the story about
the Prouty Carriage Assembly Line it also includes stories, augment and
attested to by previous employees, local officials and neighbors that Ford was
no slouch when it wanted to get rid of waste materials. Reports of dumping of paint and other
materials at rates that sometimes turned the flow into a murky, rubbery and
highly colored chemical mess include tales of the times when Ford turned the
river Yellow or Red or Blue – depending on what was being done at the plant.
Those days are gone, for the most part.
Runoff from the plant is still an issue.
They work with a lot of chemicals and store thousands of cars so there
are accumulated materials that run, without treatment, into the drains which
are directly connected to the Lower River Rouge. So where the materials used to have be pushed
into the creek now gravity does it all and delivers the materials within a few
minutes directly into the river!
There are approximately 3,000 workers at one
plant alone. There may be an additional
1,500 at the supporting plant. When they
are all there in the City they make up about 18% of the population. Their production is very high. Right now they are making so many vehicles
that they don’t have enough room to park them and they are filling up lots and
fields far away from the plant. The cars
are driven by contractors. In fact,
there are many contractors employed there. They all come from outside of the
City of Wayne. The economic benefits to
the City of Wayne are very low. The
speed limit is high, except for the downtown area, and traffic flows through.
Michigan Avenue, which is also United States
12 was built and expanded sometime in the 1960’s when the Government of the
State of Michigan, at the height of the War in Vietnam and Riots at home,
decided to inflict upon the City of Wayne a project termed Urban
Renewal.
The problem with Urban Renewal in Wayne was
that, for some reason still unknown to locals, the State of Michigan bought up
land in the very center of Wayne, which was a Trolley
Car hub.
These street cars were light rail.
An example of light rail is found in San Jose, California
where light rail is the preferred method of travel.
As in Los Angeles, however, having a trolley
company that precluded the necessity for millions of cars the trolley
operations came to a swift and unpleasant ending.
All of the buildings, historic or not, were
destroyed by the State of Michigan, all of the rails buried under concrete and
asphalt and the center of the city was surrounded by a split in the highway
that cut the city into three pieces and isolated the prime business area. In a kneejerk reaction to what they did the
State of Michigan, taking advantage of the now further depressed real estate
prices, situated social services, work programs and low-income housing. All that work then produced the result that
Urban Renewal is designed to eliminate.
Trolley cars, however, were removed from the
market and the functional strength of the local government was broken. It worsened as leading citizens moved just to
the north and used the cash provided to them by the State of Michigan for this
misguided scheme and started a completely other city called Westland which
prospered and grew. Wayne is on a
rebound from vastly different circumstances which are built on, amazingly, the
businesses and community relationships that existed before Ford showed up. It took over 60 years for this to
happen. There is no guarantee it will
succeed but many residents have pledged their lives, fortunes and honor to the
effort. At this time Wayne has become
host to a large population of elderly, physically and mentally handicapped
persons with a population that has a 20% poverty rate.
The State of Michigan offered another way
for Wayne to survive and that was in the process known as a Downtown
Development Authority. A DDA is supposed
to be used by a community to restore local business activity and to rebuild and
vitalize the downtown, especially in historic districts.
What? Reliable income from a huge Ford Plant for a
tiny city of 17,481 is not enough? Well,
no, because the tax rate for the Ford property is not that much. They were paying into the DDA which is a
system administered by the State Government of Michigan.
It should be noted that once that box of
goodies was opened just about everybody jumped in. One prime example is the Charter Township of
Canton, Michigan, with a population of 98,600 more or less. I should mention that the Charter Township
form of government in the State of Michigan is intended for small communities,
about the size of Marshall, to allow them to collect enough revenue to provide
minimal fire and police protection.
In fact, the Police Department in the very
rich Charter Township of Canton is actually called the Public Safety Department
and encompasses, the last time I looked at it, the Fire Department and other
services.
The City of Wayne remained struggling and
was beginning to reach some sort of equilibrium when Ford Motor Company decided
it was paying too much into the Wayne Downtown Development Authority and sued
the city for overcharging. The
multi-million dollar payout awarded to Ford took years for the City of Wayne to
pay and in the meantime the city lost police, fire, EMT, Public Works,
Engineering, reduced senior services and eliminated the small Parks and
Recreation Department that had existed since the 1950’s. The local history museum fell into disrepair
– that’s the museum you can find the photos of the Prouty Carriage Company
at. The local library, built with cash
received from the State of Michigan and other sources following the destruction
of the center of the city also fell into disrepair. Extreme measures were taken by local
residents and officials to keep it open.
Ford as a corporation is a participant in
local matters in only the most rudimentary way.
Generally their main presence in the community is noted by the giant
sign in front of their operations, the degraded and ugly frontage they maintain
without landscaping, peppered with trash and broken concrete.
A major impact on the community and the
local area and region, including neighboring cities has to do with
traffic. They move hundreds of cars a
day with individual drives who take them to parking lots scattered across the
region. If you’ve ever bought a brand
new car from Ford it may have enjoyed a nice tour of Wayne and other places in
Southeast Michigan before it was even shipped to you.
Recently a company called Precision decided
to build a parking lot to hold over 2500 Ford vehicles. The cars will need to be driven about 3 miles
to the parking lot where they are held until finally being loaded onto trucks
for transport.
Cars are also loaded onto trains moved by
Norfolk Southern and sent to locations across the United States and possibly
Canada or otherwise internationally.
Another company that Ford attracted is a
supplier that makes custom liners for Ford pickup trucks. They are called Ground Effects. They use chemicals called Isocyanates. Isocyanates are very dangerous
materials. They make very nice truck bed
liners but if you use them incorrectly or are exposed to them you may suffer
serious short or long term respiratory damage, or, in some circumstances,
instant death. ‘Going Green’ means a lot
more than what we’ve been led to believe.
If exposed to water Isocyanates release an odorless, tasteless,
invisible gas that is toxic and deadly.
Local resident report hearing warnings from the company’s loudspeaker
system at 3AM in the morning, on the weekend and other times with the message
‘This is an Emergency! Get Out
Immediately!’
No explanation was provided by the
company. As an extra note, the company
posted a sign outside the building ‘Warning : Isocyanates’. No local residents were apprised of the use
of these materials at the location. The
local fire department, depleted over time as a result of the heavy weight of
hosting the Ford Motor Company and suffering under the depredations of the Ford
legal suit against the Wayne Downtown Development Authority do not have and
cannot afford to purchase the required equipment to enter that facility or even
go near it in the event of an emergency.
Ford
Motor
The new money request popped up after the
Michigan Strategic Fund earmarked more than a billion dollars of incentives. This places the total direct investment of
the Government of the State of Michigan in this project at about $1.8 billion.
It is expected that the Legislature will
approve the deepening involvement of the Government of the State of Michigan to
ensure that this project, which is a private business project of the Ford Motor
Company (F),
which is a publicly traded company and a company with headquarters in Ningde
China, about 150 miles away from Taiwan.
The company is called Contemporary
Amperex Technology Co. Ltd.
The founder and apparently majority owner of
Contemporary Amperex is Zeng
Yuqun.
Zeng Yuqun is a powerful member of the
national committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference
(CPPCC). The CPPCC is tightly integrated
into the Chinese Communist Party’s “United Front” campaign.
The United Front is an operation that the
Dictatorship of the People’s Republic of China uses to smear, isolate and neutralize
sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of the despotic
Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Unfortunately, we have already seen a
contamination of the American political system as phrases, comments and
behaviors of Michigan State Government officials, both elected and employed,
have been used against citizens, local governments, businesses and investors
that have identified this project as a handout to Ford, Norfolk Southern,
Contemporary Amperex and ultimately the militaristic and aggressive government
of the People’s Republic of China.
This is an excerpt from the U.S.
China Economic and Security Review Commission :
“China uses “United Front” work to co-opt
and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of
its ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP’s United Front Work
Department (UFWD)—the agency responsible for coordinating these kinds of
influence operations—mostly focuses on the management of potential opposition
groups inside China, but it also has an important foreign influence mission. To
carry out its influence activities abroad, the UFWD directs “overseas Chinese
work,” which seeks to co-opt ethnic Chinese individuals and communities living
outside China, while a number of other key affiliated organizations guided by
China’s broader United Front strategy conduct influence operations targeting
foreign actors and states. Some of these entities have clear connections to the
CCP’s United Front strategy, while others’ linkage is less explicit. Today,
United Front-related organizations are playing an increasingly important role
in China’s broader foreign policy under Chinese President and General Secretary
of the CCP Xi Jinping. It is precisely the nature of United Front work to seek
influence through connections that are difficult to publically prove and to
gain influence that is interwoven with sensitive issues such as ethnic,
political, and national identity, making those who seek to identify the
negative effects of such influence vulnerable to accusations of prejudice.
Because of the complexities of this issue, it is crucial for the U.S.
government to better understand Beijing’s United Front strategy, its goals, and
the actors responsible for achieving them if it is to formulate an effective
and comprehensive response.”
An
ongoing problem that has appeared in Michigan and across the United States
deals with lead in water lines going into the home.
Clearly
the problem is a public health emergency.
Recognized by local communities, following the failure of the State of
Michigan to complete a useable process for drinking water in the City of Flint,
it turned out that many homes in Michigan had long ago had lead used in the
pipes carrying drinking water into their homes.
At
this writing it appears that the enormity and impact of this problem has had
and is having over the course of generations has not been fully
comprehended. The State of Michigan as a
unit still seems to be operating in a vacuum of understanding regarding this
critical public health issue.
To
correct this the cost is about $10,000 at homes affected by this.
There
are approximately 460,000
lead service lines that need to be replaced in the State of
Michigan.
Lead
is very dangerous. Lead
is incredibly dangerous and destructive to have in drinking water.
The
following is from EPA’s information at Basic
Information about Lead in Drinking Water
It causes many health problems, including,
but not limited to :
For Children
Even low levels of lead in the blood of
children can result in:
Behavior
and learning problems
Lower
IQ and hyperactivity
Slowed
growth
Hearing
problems
Anemia
In
rare cases, ingestion of lead can cause seizures, coma and even death.
For Pregnant Women
Lead can accumulate in our bodies over time,
where it is stored in bones along with calcium. During pregnancy, lead is
released from bones as maternal calcium and is used to help form the bones of
the fetus. This is particularly true if a woman does not have enough dietary
calcium. Lead can also cross the placental barrier exposing the fetus to lead.
This can result in serious effects to the mother and her developing fetus,
including:
Reduced
growth of the fetus
Premature
birth
For Adults
Lead is also harmful to adults. Adults
exposed to lead can suffer from:
Cardiovascular
effects, increased blood pressure and incidence of hypertension
Decreased
kidney function
Reproductive
problems (in both men and women)
In
the City of Wayne there are over 400 lead service water lines that need to be
replaced. It will cost about 4 million
dollars. The City is struggling to pay
police officers, hire the needed number of firefighters and is seeing the
Department of Public Works struggling with staggering requirements and a low
Public Works headcount.
The
City of Wayne dutifully then reached out for support. No assistance could be expected from Ford as
they had previously indicated their position in the community by suing it for
millions of dollars.
The
County of Wayne was the next step and they stated that most of the money they
had was already assigned and to essentially come back next year.
The
State of Michigan was then approached at which point some strange things began
to happen.
The
State, at first, was closehanded about the situation and seemed to not even
acknowledge the problem. The intent was,
as in the past, to have private citizens and companies foot the bill. Considering the numbers involved and the
seriousness of the health issue and lack of local monies (most of which are
consumed by unfunded mandates demanded by the State of Michigan from all
communities) it was necessary to pursue the matter further.
Eventually
the State of Michigan slowly opened its grasp and acknowledged the breadth of
the issue. They issued an unfunded
mandate that stated a certain percentage of the total had to be replaced each
year. It was flippant response that
would leave many of the residents with lead contaminated water for up to 20
years.
After this became known they still did not
change their behavior but added a process In a rare fit of fiscal conservative
action which was to offer loans to the suffering communities to pay for
this. Parts of the loans would be
forgiven if certain criteria were met and sometimes you could get a negative
loan from the state or a loan without interest…all of which involved the
government of the State of Michigan to loan out tax monies collected for just
such emergencies and then to have another permanent presence in the fiscal
affairs of local governments of all sizes.
Poisoned Drinking
Water
An ongoing problem that has
appeared in Michigan and across the United States deals with lead in water
lines going into the home.
Clearly the problem is a public
health emergency. Recognized by local
communities, following the failure of the State of Michigan to complete a
useable process for drinking water in the City of Flint, it turned out that
many homes in Michigan had long ago had lead used in the pipes carrying drinking
water into their homes.
At this writing it appears that
the enormity and impact of this problem has had and is having over the course
of generations has not been fully comprehended.
The State of Michigan as a unit still seems to be operating in a vacuum
of understanding regarding this critical public health issue.
To correct this the cost is
about $10,000 at homes affected by this.
There are approximately 460,000
lead service lines that need to be replaced in the State of Michigan.
Lead is very dangerous. Lead is incredibly dangerous and destructive
to have in drinking water.
The following is from EPA’s
information at Basic Information about Lead in Drinking Water
It causes many
health problems, including, but not limited to :
For Children
Even low levels of
lead in the blood of children can result in:
Behavior and
learning problems
Lower IQ and
hyperactivity
Slowed growth
Hearing problems
Anemia
In rare cases,
ingestion of lead can cause seizures, coma and even death.
For Pregnant Women
Lead can accumulate
in our bodies over time, where it is stored in bones along with calcium. During
pregnancy, lead is released from bones as maternal calcium and is used to help
form the bones of the fetus. This is particularly true if a woman does not have
enough dietary calcium. Lead can also cross the placental barrier exposing the
fetus to lead. This can result in serious effects to the mother and her
developing fetus, including:
Reduced growth
of the fetus
Premature birth
For Adults
Lead is also
harmful to adults. Adults exposed to lead can suffer from:
Cardiovascular
effects, increased blood pressure and incidence of hypertension
Decreased kidney
function
Reproductive
problems (in both men and women)
In the City of Wayne there are
over 400 lead service water lines that need to be replaced. It will cost about 4 million dollars. The City is struggling to pay police
officers, hire the needed number of firefighters and is seeing the Department
of Public Works struggling with staggering requirements and a low Public Works
headcount.
The City of Wayne dutifully then
reached out for support. No assistance
could be expected from Ford as they had previously indicated their position in
the community by suing it for millions of dollars.
The County of Wayne was the next
step and they stated that most of the money they had was already assigned and
to essentially come back next year.
The State of Michigan was then
approached at which point some strange things began to happen.
The State, at first, was
closehanded about the situation and seemed to not even acknowledge the
problem. The intent was, as in the past,
to have private citizens and companies foot the bill. Considering the numbers involved and the
seriousness of the health issue and lack of local monies (most of which are
consumed by unfunded mandates demanded by the State of Michigan from all
communities) it was necessary to pursue the matter further.
Eventually the State of Michigan
slowly opened its grasp and acknowledged the breadth of the issue. They issued an unfunded mandate that stated a
certain percentage of the total had to be replaced each year. It was flippant response that would leave
many of the residents with lead contaminated water for up to 20 years.
After this became known
they still did not change their behavior but added a process In a rare fit of
fiscal conservative action which was to offer loans to the suffering
communities to pay for this. Parts of
the loans would be forgiven if certain criteria were met and sometimes you
could get a negative loan from the state or a loan without interest…all of
which involved the government of the State of Michigan to loan out tax monies
collected for just such emergencies and then to have another permanent presence
in the fiscal affairs of local governments of all sizes. In the City of Wayne there are over 400 lead service water
lines that need to be replaced. It will
cost about 4 million dollars. The City
is struggling to pay police officers, hire the needed number of firefighters
and is seeing the Department of Public Works struggling with staggering
requirements and a low Public Works headcount.
The City of Wayne dutifully then
reached out for support. No assistance
could be expected from Ford as they had previously indicated their position in
the community by suing it for millions of dollars.
The County of Wayne was the next
step and they stated that most of the money they had was already assigned and
to essentially come back next year.
The State of Michigan was then
approached at which point some strange things began to happen.
The State, at first, was
closehanded about the situation and seemed to not even acknowledge the
problem. The intent was, as in the past,
to have private citizens and companies foot the bill. Considering the numbers involved and the
seriousness of the health issue and lack of local monies (most of which are
consumed by unfunded mandates demanded by the State of Michigan from all
communities) it was necessary to pursue the matter further.
Eventually the State of Michigan
slowly opened its grasp and acknowledged the breadth of the issue. They issued an unfunded mandate that stated a
certain percentage of the total had to be replaced each year. It was flippant response that would leave
many of the residents with lead contaminated water for up to 20 years.
After this became
known they still did not change their behavior but added a process In a rare
fit of fiscal conservative action which was to offer loans to the suffering
communities to pay for this. Parts of
the loans would be forgiven if certain criteria were met and sometimes you
could get a negative loan from the state or a loan without interest…all of
which involved the government of the State of Michigan to loan out tax monies
collected for just such emergencies and then to have another permanent presence
in the fiscal affairs of local governments of all sizes. Local government nearly
collapsed. Just recently the Japanese
travelled to the island and provide materials for the hospital so it could
operate.
During
all of this infighting and other intrigues and large amounts of cash moving
around the government of Solomon Islands decided to no longer recognize Taiwan
and teamed up with the People’s Republic of China.
This
same pattern of massive amounts of cash with little supervision and incomplete
projects is spread across Africa. The
People’s Republic of China has even showed up in South America.
On
a separate note, their support of the Russian invasion of Europe is front page
news.
Putting
all that aside let us return to the State of Michigan and their responsibility
towards the citizens from which they take taxes. We’ll take this last, short section to look
at the lead poisoned water lines.
Taking
into account the 460,000 water lines physically contaminated with lead and a
repair cost of $10,000 per then the total cost to replace all of them will be
$4,600,000,000. That is four billion and
six hundred million dollars.
Given
that the amount of money being freely given by the State of Michigan in order
to shore up the operations of a private corporation deeply in debt and to enable
the People’s Republic of China and the Communist Party to found yet another
critical industry in the United States adds up to about $1,700,000,000 then
what were are looking at is :
$1,700,000,00
is 36.95% of $4,600,000,000.
The
amount of money that would allow the State of Michigan to replace more than 36%
of the total number of contaminated lead lines in just one year is being
squandered.
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