Wednesday, February 20, 2019, T+49 -- The Good, Bad, And The Ugly

Bad: Minnesota: the entire state is pretty much closed today due to global warming.

Winter advisories across the state have shut down almost everything. I guess this gives Amy a chance for a do-over announcing her candidacy for president. Or not.

Ugly: Revolving door at Tesla: over at The WSJ. 

Tesla replaces top lawyer just after two months in latest major departure. Veteran trial lawyer Dane Butswinkas returns to a law firm, while company insider Jonathan Chang takes his place.

Ugly: Brexit: Theresa May -- tick, tick, tick -- who will go first? Maduro or Theresa May? Over at the WSJ. 

Good: Bullet train to nowhere: over at The WSJ.

Federal government to cancel funds for California high-speed rail. Trump administration halts $928 million in aid; Gov. Newsom calls move ‘retribution’ over wall suit.

“And by the way, I am not interested in sending $3.5 billion in federal funding that was allocated to this project back to Donald Trump, ” Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, said in his State of the State speech.

Those remarks were widely interpreted as an admission the system wouldn’t be completed as designed, though Mr. Newsom has said his remarks were misinterpreted.

Comment: don't these guys ever learn?

Ugly: The A380: from "jumbo" to "dumbo." Over at The WSJ. World’s largest passenger plane was hurt by misjudged market trends, internal dysfunction and production problems.

When Airbus launched the A380 superjumbo in 2000, it touted the two-deck plane as “the Eighth Wonder of the World.” Instead, the world’s largest passenger plane exposed dysfunction inside the European aerospace company and now offers a textbook case of a company misjudging its market and losing big.

Airbus has sunk at least $17 billion into the project yet sold fewer than half of the 750 superjumbo jetliners it promised to deliver by the end of this year. On Thursday Airbus said it would cease producing the 555-seat plane at the end of 2021.

By then, Airbus expects to have sold 251 A380s—one more than its original break-even target, set before production delays added billions of dollars in costs. At its peak, A380 deliveries never reached 5% of annual Airbus deliveries—less than half its target.

Comment: Dysfunction in the EU -- a consortium led by the strike-prone German and French workforce -- I'm shocked, shocked!

Ugly: A major new branch of the service? Never mind.

Typical of the president, he flipped on this one. The "space force" will be part of the US Air Force. He found out later (he obviously knew all the time but facts don't matter) that he can't do this unilaterally; it requires Congressional approval and, of course, that won't happen on his watch. Over at The WSJ.

Good: Making America great, just as President Trump promised, predicted:

Honda will shift some UK Civic production to North America. Over at The WSJ. England plant that produces 150,000 cars/year will close amid Brexit uncertainty. I'm hearing through the grapevine the Honda move is not unique; other companies are struggling with the uncertainty of Brexit. Companies have difficulty dealing with uncertainty. International companies with headquarters and/or operations in the UK are now hedging their bets. Honda? Moving out. By the way, my favorite of all time: my 2012 Honda Civic. Bought in Williston, ND, late 2011. I recall that the 2012 got bad reviews but I certainly didn't notice, but then again, I don't know much about cars.

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Amtrak

Updates

Later, 8:26 p.m. Central Time: from Chesto over at The Boston Globe --

In another WSJ scoop, Amtrak is exploring the possibility of curtailing service on its long-distance routes -- which incur the railroad’s biggest losses -- to focus on service along more densely populated lines similar to the Northeast Corridor.

According to the Journal: "The goal is to revamp the way Amtrak runs trains along the aging network of national routes it already maintains, with more frequent service between pairs of cities in the fastest-growing parts of the country, such as Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C., or Cleveland and Cincinnati. . . .

But that new service could come at the cost of curtailing some long-distance routes, where storied trains like the Empire Builder and the Southwest Chief have small but fervent bases of support and lineage stretching back to the golden age of railroads."

Bad: Amtrak plans could negatively impact long-haul. Over at The WSJ.

But that new service could come at the cost of curtailing some long-distance routes, where storied trains like the Empire Builder and the Southwest Chief have small but fervent bases of support and lineage stretching back to the golden age of railroads.

Comment: This is why the Founding Fathers made sure "fly-over" country had as many US senators/state as the East Coast.

#12 in the map above -- 

City of New Orleans, Arlo Guthrie