Saturday 7 April 2018

Trump #4: Davos Friends - Krupp

Thuyssen Krupp last but not least of the #TrumpDavos15Friends. And perhaps all the more relevant against the backdrop of USA steel tariffs for UK and EU. And as UK furnaces roar back into life at Rotherham steelworks - opened last month by Prince Charles - then Germany's Krupp (#Davos15) is the bedrock of a Foundation Industry across Europe.

Indeed Krupp one of the inventors of the European steel industry that galvanized the Industrial Revolution with everything from steam engines then to VW cars now.
As well as Henry Ford’s cars in Dagenham and Port Talbot now.

Even that rusty-looking Marine One helicopter used to transport POTUS Trump around Switzerland and Florida looks in need of galvanising. Let's hope the only bits that fall out of it are aid pallets across the Sahel from Sudan to Senegal, as UK opens its first embassy in Chad.

USA and French troops carrying the load in stabilisation across Mali and Niger. And the astonishing failure in the continued carnage in Libya on the shores of the Mediterranean just a few miles from mainland Europe.

And, as with Rolls Royce and Rotherham steel - just down the road from the new Boeing HQ in Sheffield - a focus on specialist hi-tech steels is what UK and Germany do extremely well that Chinese SOE volume steel dumping simply can't yet match.

With my Sincerity Advertising hat on I've never understood why all 50 states aren't viable for ad agencies.

Although surely the dynamic Eve Li at EastWestClub is urging more Chinese steel deployed in constructing more shipping containers for China’s expanding OBOR trade. Those Chinese computers and mobile phones and vaccines needing to be wrapped in steel boxes, not silk, no matter how crush-proof as they head through Russia and Europe via xxx dryport in Kazakhstan.

Those SAP (#Davos7) or Siemens (#Davos1) conductors wouldn't work so well in Volvo (#Davos6) driverless cars either. That all the more important given the first road death from Uber car trials in Arizona and with UK already a world leader in driverless cars.

And there’s less chance of the cars running off the road if the sensors are in the road in the first place. UK leading the way from 1930’s with cats-eyes road safety.

While Heinz in East Lancashire might need to compete with Nestle (#Davos4) or Campbell's for metal cans for its soup and snacks - or at least with ABB (Davos9) for its robot materials. Those Ford cars in Wales or Essex (and Nissan, Honda and Toyota too) might build themselves soon but they'll need the steel to do it.

Even Copart car recycling from Dallas, Texas here in East Kent.

While Jeep no doubt bashing more metal together from their UK sponsorship and advertising at the moment for Kent’s Rolling Stones and their new No Filter tour.

The UK does have a plan to cope with the rise in robotics and fall in jobs and disposable income? It does?

While the delay in bringing the UK's wonder material graphene online with actual products (just one Taiwanese lightbulb from the lavish new Graphene Institute after all these years?) is something Krupp engineers might take on board to develop as the future of steel.

Krupp also a shining light in healthcare with one of the first employee healthcare schemes almost 200 years ago. And its Essen base giving most companies a run for their money with a Garden City fashioned from the Zollverein coalworks.

A real Garden City too - UNESCO World Heritage and European Industrial Trail - not a bit of builder's flannel for more tarmac that seems to form the basis of UK overbuild housing forecasts. And worth scrutinising Ebbsfleet Garden City as a part of the Thames Gateway in Kent, Europe's largest building project to extend the City of London, with Paramount theme park as a cornerstone.

Or should that be Disney theme park or Busch Gardens?

Trees still an afterthought to tarmac rather than central - as Sheffield Council are proving in destroying its leafy habitat that belies its steel origins. Krupp and Essen would have fixed the problem by now.

Irn Bru may be made in Scotland with girders but the real thing from Krupp – girders not fizzy drinks - with HSBC (Davos3) financing - will be needed to support Thames Gateway too.

All 15 companies of the #TrumpDavos15Friends should be helping make the economies of America and UK and Europe greater again.

Rocket Man in North Korea must also be rethinking a rocket-fuelled nuclear strategy (Korean reunification and reconstruction, as with East Germany, no doubt soaking up all that Chinese steel and more).

With the Chinese Tiangong1 space station crashing to Earth or rather just 62 miles off Tahiti – a very near miss - and only the first space junk probe last week from UK with NASA to begin to clear up 60 years of space debris, surely a definitive global space plan is needed.

Then the rocket men of NASA and UK and European and new Australian Space Agencies – and Russia, India, Japan and China -must be thinking how Krupp can really reinforce Mars 2030 satellite needs and Space exploration.

Time for Change
@timg33

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