8/18/2020

DJT,

            All of my windows are open in my house & on my computer. I am hot. The weather is hot. Do you feel me? If you did, you’d be burning.

            Alas, I can’t continue my riff as I only have 2000 characters & I have already used 245.

            How was your trip to the Midwest yesterday? I noticed that you mentioned MN mines so I did some digging (notice the pun?) & found that they produce 85% of the iron ore in the USA which sounds great until you dig deeper to find that the US is pretty low on the list of world-wide producers of Taconite pellets – Brazil produces 10 times as much as we do & Australia tops the list, with twice as much as Brazil. As you know there’s an economy of scale in mining & we just can’t compete. Since China buys more than half of the world’s supply of iron & they aren’t buying much of anything right now, I’m not sure today’s $120.50/tonne price is going to last. If we want to get excited about jobs in MN, Target would be your best bet. They have 8300 employees at the corporate headquarters in Minneapolis, while there are only 5700 miners in the Iron Range.

Maybe this emphasis on jobs, jobs, jobs needs to be reconsidered. WI is currently down 16,000 manufacturing jobs from when you took office. That’s due, in part to the pandemic, but they had a dip in jobs even before CV hit. Places like the Verso mill in WI Rapids just shut down & it doesn’t look like anyone is too interested in continuing to use the glossy paper that they produced. Perhaps if we funded the USPS & gave some kind of discount to deliver magazines, we could get that paper mill up & running again.

While you were in Oshkosh, did folks tell you about Airventure, the summer airshow put on by the Experimental Aircraft Association?  Every July, Oshkosh is literally swarming with funny little planes people build in their garages. This year’s cancelation cost the local economy $170 million. Perhaps you can do something to help them out.

I hope your travels go well today.

HYITL,