Maxidyne

When you look at where the tax revenue mostly comes from, the metros, it's pretty obvious that NY would go bankrupt without NYC, etc..

So we're supposed to let them die?

More correctly, before 1890 when the federal government took jurisdiction over immigration. Previous to that federal pre-emption, if you could walk off the boat you were free to wander the country 'til you found a city or state that would grant you citizenship. Or not bother becoming a citizen...

Ford Ottosan does great media!

There are twice as many suicides as homicides in the U.S.: https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/annual/measure/Suicide/state/PA

Large numbers of blacks and latinos and other low income folks are getting COVID-19 because they're stuck in jobs where they can't isolate. Meanwhile, the black kids on the inner city basketball courts and lilly white young invincibles hanging out together in rural america will keep congregating and spread the virus to their parents and grandparents who aren't so invincible. Fact is, there's a few jackasses everywhere and they come in all colors.

Agreed- Read the other day of the hundreds of times Detroit Police have had to break up basketball games in the parks. That's why we all need to put politics aside like we did in World War II and defeat COVID-19.

I'm not just talking about the presidency, I'm talking about races all down the ballot. Control of the White House, Senate, House, and a lot of state legislatures are decided by a handful of swing states where there are almost equal numbers of democrats and republicans. If either party loses even just a percent or two of their voters or has them unable to vote in hospitals that could throw the election. That's why I'm surprised so many republicans are taking such risks with the pandemic.

Has anyone considered that by ignoring the COVID-19 pandemic and not protecting themselves enough republicans will die to throw the election to the democrats?

The AIDS pandemic can teach us a lot about COVID-19- Early in that pandemic all we knew was that gay men in America and everyone in parts of Africa was dying of the mysterious disease. Years later we learned how AIDS spread and identified cases that were never diagnosed at the time of death going back to the 1960s and probably even earlier. We're seeing something similar with COVID-19- There are probably thousands who died in the early waves of the disease whose death certificates gave common causes of death like pneumonia. etc.. even though COVID-19 was the real cause. This is one of the trademarks of a major disaster- Like Katrina and the great Mississippi flood, we never get a full count of the dead.

I had a chance to drive the three most common generations of USPS MC and MR tractors. The first was the mid 80s MC which didn't even have an air ride seat with steel spring suspension in back, it actually rode pretty well. The next generation from around 1990 were MRs with a heavier frame and air seats and rear suspension which rode a bit rougher, probably due to the thicker MR frame. The notorious ones were the 1996 models which had a different seat and perhaps other changes Mack didn't tell us about, they caused something like 100 injuries from drivers hitting their heads on the ceiling due to the too bouncy seats. Mack ended up replacing the front springs and seats on them and putting on smaller steering wheels to give the drivers more belly room. That helped the ride some, and the tandems ended up a decent riding truck. The common thread in all these MC and MR cabovers is that the trucks are built for heavy loads, IIRC a 3/8" frame is standard on the MR and most are sprung for heavy loads too. Thus they ride rough with no or light loads and a heavy compactor dump box helps the ride a lot.

Most MRs are built with fairly long wheelbases, so the potential gross weight under Bridge Formula would be about the same as a set back front axle conventional.

The deep center section of the frame was too improve ride, at the then current 55 MPH limit a lot of tractors had a frame resonance that produced a rough ride, the more rigid frame fixed that. Several other manufacturers offered the same deep frame center section during the late 70s and 80s.

The RC2, RB2, and RX2 models that came out in the 70s. The RX2 is still being built with evolutionary improvements by Autocar.

America's great strength is our diversity- We take the best from all over the world and remix it into the best products. Was not Henry Ford the son of Irish immigrants? And some of our greatest industrial designers were Jewish immigrants from Europe, same with some of our greatest American composers. You mentioned the 8N, it was as much the design another Irishman, Harry Ferguson, as Ford's. Or the GT40, brought to us as much by Brits as Americans and shepherded by an Italian-American whose influence on the automobile is still visible. No surprise that the chief engineer for the current Mustang is a Vietnamese immigrant who fell in love with the Mustang when he first saw one as a child in Vietnam. And how about designer Larry Shinoda, who grew up in a WWII Japanese internment camp and went on to give us Corvettes, Boss Mustangs, White trucks, the Grand Cherokee, and who knows how many other great vehicles he designed are hidden behind non-disclosure agreements? The "Father of the Corvette"- A Russian Jew named Zora whose family escaped to America just ahead of the Nazis overrunning Europe.And Mack? Clearly the great engineers at Mack didn't work with the blinders on, they followed truck development from all over the world and weren't afraid to adopt best practices from anywhere. Mack adopted Scania technology more than once, and Renault invested heavily in Mack to bring a new generation of products to market and put the Mack V8 in their own Premier top of the line cabover. And those little Kubotas and Deeres? Great tractors, designed in Japan and America, and made in both countries too.

They probably got some stowed away somewhere... But they don't know where.

Not that I know of. But they did buy some U.S. assembled Volvo F6s with the next generation of the club cab, Cat 3116 engines, and Allison automatics.

Don't assume only people from the big cities will bring the virus "out here"- It's already here. I just dug up some stats in Minnesota and the number of infected is increasing over twice as fast in rural areas as it is in the metro areas!

Rural areas aren't safe either- The virus is everywhere and appropriate precautions need to be taken. Here in southwest Minnesota while the MSP metro and Sioux Falls have been reporting cases for a couple weeks now, the reported cases have been spreading county by county. In my county the 1st case was reported a couple days ago and another today so given the incubation period and testing delays the virus has been here for a week or so. The experts also pretty much agree that there are at least ten times as many cases out there as the testing reveals and the number of cases doubles every 3 to 6 days= My little rural county has not 2 but probably over 40 cases! So if you maintain social distancing, decontaminate, and wear PPE you can be safe in the city, and if you ignore those precautions like too many rural people do, you can catch the virus anywhere!

Was checking a Postal Worker forum for opinions on the new tractors and didn't find any, but did find that they're buying a bunch of right hand drive Mercedes Metris vans and the Postal Workers weren't impressed by them. They pointed out problems with poor visibility and general flimsy construction. Sounds like these RHD Metris vans will be a stopgap replacement for the aging LLVs until the Postal Service decides which long term LLV replacement they like.

Haven't seen any of these up close yet, but they didn't have these problems with the Mack conventionals. The International's cab is too low for good visibility and I don't see any braces running to the ends of the bumpers.

I'm very impressed with several of the governors who are filling the gap left by federal inaction. And at this point survival is the major issue, while guns are useless against a virus and doctors are too busy to do abortions.

From some of the maps predicting the spread of the pandemic, some of the safest places might be some remote places like north central Montana. Nice place to live if you're set up for it, At the Costco in Billings I've seen ranchers come into town to sell their cattle, then return with the cattle trailer loaded with enough supplies to last them months!

Hope that "bugout" works for you, might be no safer than you usual abode as there's one coronavirus case in neighboring Cass county.

An automakers liabilities are huge in a recession, especially one that builds on speculation and finances a significant portion of their sales. Ford's probably got a half million unsold vehicles they own outright, darn near as many in dealer inventory that they're flooring, and maybe 15 million more vehicles Ford is financing or leasing. That's a million new vehicles wholesaling for mid $30k each= $30B, which is about Ford's assets minus liabilities. Then there's maybe another $150B in hopefully not bad debt in all those vehicles Ford is financing or leasing... If those debts go bad en masse, Ford is bankrupt.