Collins Accused of Investor "Rip Off"

17 comments

A website that recently appeared online accuses former Erie County Executive and current NY-27 Republican congressional candidate Chris Collins of “ripping off” a group of local Buffalo investors for his own gain. More shockingly, it alleges that, when the investors asked to meet with Collins about the matter, he insisted on doing so only in his then-office on the 16th floor of the Rath Building; discussing a private business matter on public property. No one has taken responsibility for the website. 

“CollinsRipoff” explains that a former neighbor of Collins’, Richard Conway, invented the “Balance Buddy”, a device that helps parents teach their kids to ride a bike without training wheels. Conway sought investment from several prominent businessmen in WNY, but when orders increased he needed a quick infusion of cash to pay the Chinese factories to ramp up production. Conway’s company was called Jiri, Inc., and state records reveal it was dissolved in early 2010. 

The “ripoff” website alleges that, when the investors balked at ponying up more cash, Conway turned to Collins for help. But instead of joining Jiri as a new investor, Collins chose instead chose to buy the “Balance Buddy” patent outright, and wrap it into a company he already owned called “Ingenious Products” (warning: obnoxious music). In so doing, Collins paid off a secured lien Jiri owed to former Buffalo Bill Kurt Schulz, and pay the needed advance to the factory in China. As a result of the way in which the 2008 deal was made, Jiri lost its only asset, and the remaining investors were stiffed completely out of an estimated $1 million. Why? 

Chris Collins never speaks of Ingenious Products on the campaign trail, never holds it out as a shining example of his corporate acumen. That’s probably because the company isn’t doing well. According to court filings, today it is worthless. 

In fact, Ingenious Products was in dire need of at least one ingenious product. More important, Ingenious Products was pining for huge big box retailers to sell their mélange of middling geegaws. So, instead of simply joining the group of investors already in for $1 million, Collins had a better idea: he would buy Balance Buddy outright and fold it into Ingenious Products. Why not? Balance Buddy had supplier numbers at Dick’s, Sears and the Mecca for Chinese products, Walmart. Collins hadn’t been able to get the time of day at these mega-retailers for his ingenious hair bands. But with Balance Buddy’s previous relationship he might be able to fold in an order or two of yoga mats with the bike bolt on.

Ingenious Products then hired Conway for $5,500 per month, but he declared personal bankruptcy in 2009, listing just under $3,000 in assets and close to $950,000 in liabilities, including his Spaulding Lake association fees and all the money owed to the remaining investors in the Balance Buddy. 

Collins-JIRI Closing Statement

We’ve heard countless times about what a savvy businessman Collins is, but if the allegations in that website are true (and they appear to be backed up by authentic court filings and other documents), he seems also to be a somewhat ruthless one, as well. None of that, of course, is criminal or anything. However, if the story about Collins insisting on meeting with the Jiri investors at the Rath Building is true (naturally, no one would comment on this or confirm it), that poses some serious questions about Collins’ use of the Rath Building to handle personal business and blatantly intimidate them. It may be illegal, to boot. 

Running government like a business – does that mean cheating people, underhanded dealings, intimidation through power and privilege, and hawking Chinese-built tchotchkes? 

Collins ought to give some answers about Ingenious Products and the Balance Buddy while on the campaign trail throughout NY-27. If Collins will treat prominent Buffalo families – who invested in an invention in good faith – with dismissiveness and intimidation, how is he going to represent constituents and average people?

Incidentally, the Collins campaign has been busy trying to please various subsets of the NY-27 population (farmers, small businessmen), but nary a word about service and the reasons why he wants to representan economically diverse population in a multigenerationally depressed area. 

Collins Accused of Investor “Rip Off”

17 comments

A website that recently appeared online accuses former Erie County Executive and current NY-27 Republican congressional candidate Chris Collins of “ripping off” a group of local Buffalo investors for his own gain. More shockingly, it alleges that, when the investors asked to meet with Collins about the matter, he insisted on doing so only in his then-office on the 16th floor of the Rath Building; discussing a private business matter on public property. No one has taken responsibility for the website. 

“CollinsRipoff” explains that a former neighbor of Collins’, Richard Conway, invented the “Balance Buddy”, a device that helps parents teach their kids to ride a bike without training wheels. Conway sought investment from several prominent businessmen in WNY, but when orders increased he needed a quick infusion of cash to pay the Chinese factories to ramp up production. Conway’s company was called Jiri, Inc., and state records reveal it was dissolved in early 2010. 

The “ripoff” website alleges that, when the investors balked at ponying up more cash, Conway turned to Collins for help. But instead of joining Jiri as a new investor, Collins chose instead chose to buy the “Balance Buddy” patent outright, and wrap it into a company he already owned called “Ingenious Products” (warning: obnoxious music). In so doing, Collins paid off a secured lien Jiri owed to former Buffalo Bill Kurt Schulz, and pay the needed advance to the factory in China. As a result of the way in which the 2008 deal was made, Jiri lost its only asset, and the remaining investors were stiffed completely out of an estimated $1 million. Why? 

Chris Collins never speaks of Ingenious Products on the campaign trail, never holds it out as a shining example of his corporate acumen. That’s probably because the company isn’t doing well. According to court filings, today it is worthless. 

In fact, Ingenious Products was in dire need of at least one ingenious product. More important, Ingenious Products was pining for huge big box retailers to sell their mélange of middling geegaws. So, instead of simply joining the group of investors already in for $1 million, Collins had a better idea: he would buy Balance Buddy outright and fold it into Ingenious Products. Why not? Balance Buddy had supplier numbers at Dick’s, Sears and the Mecca for Chinese products, Walmart. Collins hadn’t been able to get the time of day at these mega-retailers for his ingenious hair bands. But with Balance Buddy’s previous relationship he might be able to fold in an order or two of yoga mats with the bike bolt on.

Ingenious Products then hired Conway for $5,500 per month, but he declared personal bankruptcy in 2009, listing just under $3,000 in assets and close to $950,000 in liabilities, including his Spaulding Lake association fees and all the money owed to the remaining investors in the Balance Buddy. 

Collins-JIRI Closing Statementhttp://www.scribd.com/embeds/95206138/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list&access_key=key-2me7es470tzv952mqcwr

We’ve heard countless times about what a savvy businessman Collins is, but if the allegations in that website are true (and they appear to be backed up by authentic court filings and other documents), he seems also to be a somewhat ruthless one, as well. None of that, of course, is criminal or anything. However, if the story about Collins insisting on meeting with the Jiri investors at the Rath Building is true (naturally, no one would comment on this or confirm it), that poses some serious questions about Collins’ use of the Rath Building to handle personal business and blatantly intimidate them. It may be illegal, to boot. 

Running government like a business – does that mean cheating people, underhanded dealings, intimidation through power and privilege, and hawking Chinese-built tchotchkes? 

Collins ought to give some answers about Ingenious Products and the Balance Buddy while on the campaign trail throughout NY-27. If Collins will treat prominent Buffalo families – who invested in an invention in good faith – with dismissiveness and intimidation, how is he going to represent constituents and average people?

Incidentally, the Collins campaign has been busy trying to please various subsets of the NY-27 population (farmers, small businessmen), but nary a word about service and the reasons why he wants to representan economically diverse population in a multigenerationally depressed area. 

Chris Collins: Excellence

6 comments

1. Good luck finding Collins’ campaign website. Searches on Google for “Collins for Congress“, “Collins for Congress 2012“, or “Chris Collins for Congress” reveal no relevant hits on the first page of results. 

2. Collins released a “Small Business Bill of Rights”, a set of talking points masquerading as policy proposals, wrapped up in a faux parchment wrapper.  He released it on Wednesday, and a glaring error – uncaught through Eagle eyes or Six Sigma process review – remains evident there today. 

Click to Enlarge

3. David Bellavia, who is running in a Republican primary against Collins, called this out as blatant plagiarism.  He noted that former NY-26 Congressman Chris Lee was a co-sponsor of a “Small Business Bill of Rights” in 2010, which also included provisions for tax and regulatory relief, limiting union influence, health care costs, and intellectual property protection.  Lee also released a “Manufacturing for Tomorrow” plan with the aim of strengthening manufacturing in the Buffalo area. It also called for tax relief, tort reform, and IP protections. Collins’ calls for China to not be an authoritarian pseudo-Maoist brute crony capitalist bad actor in international trade is cribbed – at least in part – from former Congressman Tom Reynolds, who co-sponsored a bill to address China’s currency manipulation. As Bellavia points out, it’s ironic to call for IP protections while cribbing others’ work without attribution, and the rest of the “Bill of Rights” is just a generic Republican recitation of typical platform positions, with a smidge of Obamaphobia mixed in. 

4. Collins’ media geniuses at Greener and Hook posted this to Twitter yesterday: 

5. Collins’ people don’t know how to spell. Not only is there the error on the Bill of Rights, which has been out since Wednesday, but even silly “forget the market – the government must manipulate gas prices” pieces have glaring errors. Of course, that’s before you get to the fact that Collins (a) doesn’t rebut the fact that domestic oil production is at an all-time high; (b) merely calls for more drilling on federal lands; (c) demands that an oil pipeline be built; (d) and otherwise completely ignores the fact that the world has been jerking from oil crisis to oil crisis since 1973, with no end in sight, and that it might be time to switch to renewable sources of energy, or more efficient engines such as biodiesel. It couldn’t be a stupider piece of writing, directed at a fundamentally ignorant audience. He thinks you’re just stupid. Must be why he won’t go meet with or listen to your genuine concerns as a middle-class suburban or rural New Yorker, and instead just regurgitates what he reads in the memos he gets from his handlers and pollsters.

6. Collins refuses to debate Bellavia; refuses to negotiate for any debates. 

7. Collins refuses to release his tax information. He figures he can wait it out until after the primary, during which he can simply out-spend Bellavia on direct mail and TV ads, and deal with it in the Fall. The problem is that, like Mitt Romney, it’s quite likely that there’s some juicy stuff in Collins’ returns that he doesn’t want to reveal. Does he pay less than 20% on his multi-million dollar income? Has he taken advantage of federal amnesty provisions for offshore tax avoidance accounts? No one knows. Bellavia made his returns available several weeks ago, but Collins directly refuses to do the same. I thought wealth wasn’t something to be ashamed of?  

Collins appeared before a Niagara County audience, and directly told them that he’ll never reveal his tax returns because, “his business partners’ income would be exposed and his competitors would pounce on the information to somehow kill jobs in western New York.” This ignores the fact that any such confidential material not relevant to the tax Collins pays is easily redacted, but Collins claimed that, for tax year 2011, he paid 44% of his income in taxes, including “my state income tax, my property tax and my federal tax last year.”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsLqlMd3CGQ]

 So, math geniuses, how much is that? Collins’ property and school taxes are close to a whopping $24,000 per year. What is he hiding or ashamed of? 

8.  Collins got caught backtracking and blaming aides (never his fault) for his membership in a Bloomberg-sponsored anti-illegal-gun group. Being for gun control is acceptable for New York City Republicans, but not for Republicans here in WNY. 

On the bright side, so far, Collins has refrained from making any sexist or vaguely anti-Semitic remarks about donors or other political figures, so he’s got that going for him, which is nice. 

 

Corasanti Acquitted

45 comments

An Erie County jury yesterday acquitted Dr. James Corasanti of 2nd degree vehicular manslaughter, 2nd degree manslaughter, leaving the scene of an accident that resulted in death without reporting it, and two counts of tampering with evidence. He was convicted of one lesser, misdemeanor charge of DWI.

The vehicular manslaughter charge requires a finding of “criminal negligence“, which basically means he fails to see or perceive something that he should have, and that his failure to do so represents a “gross departure” from the reasonable person standard of care. If the defendant was DWI, there is a rebuttable presumption that his mental condition contributed to the death. 

The 2nd degree manslaughter charge requires a finding of “reckless” culpable conduct. As compared with criminal negligence, recklessness requires a finding that the defendant was aware of a substantial risk of unnecessary harm, and disregarded it. 

In this case, Corasanti took the stand – something he was under no obligation to do as a criminal defendant. His legal team took a calculated risk in exposing him to the scrutiny of cross-examination, and it was completely up to the jury whether to believe him when he said he didn’t see Alix Rice on her longboard; that he didn’t know he had hit a person – much less killed her; that he wasn’t drunk; that he wasn’t texting; that he wasn’t speeding or weaving. The jury bought it. 

That’s not the fault of the prosecution, or the judge, or the jury. That’s no one’s fault at all. That’s just how it shook out.

Mad at Corasanti? Of course. He hit and killed a girl with his car. Privileged rich guy with a 5-series and a low-number EC license plate. The very embodiment of local WNY monied privilege. But that wasn’t the issue – whether he committed that act, but whether he had the culpable mental conduct in doing so that would justify sending him to jail.  His wealth and prominence weren’t an issue, either in the commission of the crime. Mere accident, or something that would have/could have been prevented had Corasanti acted like any reasonable person? This jury found that this was a tragic accident, not one punishable by jail time – not one that he could have prevented. 

Face it – if you were in Corasanti’s shoes, you’d have paid every penny to buy the best damn criminal defense you could afford, too. 

Alix Rice, via Facebook

A jury is specifically instructed – carefully selected – to be impartial; to set aside prejudices or sympathies they may have. They most certainly didn’t insult the memory of Alix Rice last night – they couldn’t have; weren’t allowed to.  The judge explicitly told them to set any such feeling aside. Juries aren’t supposed to convict people because they feel badly for the victim or her family. Juries aren’t supposed to convict people because popular opinion will be outraged at what they did. Juries aren’t supposed to decide based on sympathy or empathy. 

Juries are specifically instructed to analyze the facts presented to them in the courtroom, and apply the law to the facts as they find them. Jurors are uniquely empowered to make determinations about the credibility of evidence and witnesses before them. This jury worked hard and did what was asked of them. They were careful, methodical, and thoughtful. They analyzed the evidence. It just so happened that they had what they considered to be a reasonable doubt about Corasanti’s guilt on the homicide counts. 

They apparently found that Corasanti never saw Rice – that she was operating her longboard in such a way that she was very difficult to be seen. They may have found that Rice contributed to her own death by the way in which she was operating the longboard. That’s enough to conclude that Corasanti was neither criminally negligent nor reckless. 

But the public outcry – it’s totally reasonable for people to be outraged. A young girl is dead, and a wealthy, prominent person was able to buy himself the best local criminal defense team he could afford. In this case, he probably dropped six figures to buy accident reconstructionists, expert witnesses, and some of the most effective criminal defense lawyers in town. Is it fair? Are the people who are outraged going to agitate to change the laws so that indigent or middle-income criminal defendants have equal access to expert defense witnesses?  A turning point in this case was the expert testimony that Rice’s longboard may have veered across the fog line into Corasanti’s path. That testimony cost a lot of money, and likely saved Corasanti from prison.

Left the body in the brambles? Call Joel Daniels. Caught by a sleuth? Call Cheryl Meyers-Buth. Need a jury uncertain? Call Tom Burton. 

Most people would have probably taken a plea. This trial was a huge gamble. A massive risk. All or nothing for Corasanti. Insert your big-win-gambling-analogy here. 

Had Alix Rice ran down a prominent doctor late at night after leaving “martini night” at a friend’s house, and registering a .1 BAC a few hours later have gotten away with it? We’ll never know, but I doubt it. Maybe it depends on the defense her family could have afforded. 

Justice? Justice is what you make of it. Corasanti probably thinks he found justice. Supporters of Alix Rice don’t. But this isn’t over. Civil suits have been brought against Corasanti on behalf of Rice’s estate. There, the standard of proof for a plaintiff is significantly lower than in criminal court. Corasanti may never go to jail, but depending on how well-insured he is, he very well may be financially destroyed. If his personal assets are exposed, all his wealth will be at risk, his future and his legacy demolished. Is that justice? 

After the verdict, Corasanti’s legal team started in with “nobody’s a winner here” and other mouth-noises about how sad this all is for everybody. I’d suggest that the legal team is better at defending criminals than public relations. Now is a great time for them to keep quiet. No one wants to hear their platitudes about winning and losing. Quite palpably, Dr. Corasanti is the winner and Alix Rice is the loser. Corasanti woke up this morning in his own home, convicted only of a first-offense misdemeanor. He’s surrounded by his wife and family. Alix Rice remains dead, her life gone, her future destroyed, her friends and family even more distraught and filled with loss. It’s quite clear that there was a winner and a loser in this case. Corasanti’s team should dummy up and let Rice’s family grieve, and let her supporters be outraged. 

Judge DiTullio did not allow reporters to live-blog or Tweet during the trial. She didn’t allow the proceedings to be televised, as is the norm in New York State. I think it’s long past the time to change that rule. If we’re going to subject ourselves to criminal trial porn, then it’d be helpful if the general public was better informed about what was going on in court, in real time. 500-word summaries of a day’s worth of testimony don’t cut it. Unless you were in that courtroom for the entirety of the proceedings, you have only a generalized, condensed idea what that jury saw and heard. Court proceedings are public in nature, but the public works for a living. It’s time New York changed its rules to permit electronic media in court as a general rule, and leave judges discretion to exclude them, not the other way around. 

Please don’t vilify the jurors. They did what they were supposed to do, and they did it thoughtfully. You can disagree with their verdict, but they aren’t the bad guys and they aren’t your enemy. If jurors start fearing for their lives or start getting harassed because they fulfilled their civic duty, you deal a blow to our system – an imperfect one in an imperfect world.  Please, media, stay away from the roadside shrine to Alix Rice. Let people grieve and remember in peace. Get man-in-the-street voxpops somewhere else. Anywhere else. 

Lawyers win, lawyers lose. Juries get it right, juries get it wrong. The guilty go to jail, and the guilty get off. The innocent get off, and the innocent go to jail. The innocent sometimes die. Life isn’t fair, money is important, and sometimes things don’t go the way you expect them to go. As long as the matter was tried fairly – and no one, anywhere, has suggested otherwise – we must accept what happened last night. We don’t have to like it, and we can analyze it every which-way, but if you’re ever charged with a crime, you’ll come to appreciate the inherent fairness of our system, and the protections it affords the accused.  Neither sending Corasanti to jail, nor sending him to the poorhouse will ever bring Alix Rice back. But the latter will make him literally pay for what he did that night. 

After all, the jury in the civil suit will only need to find that he was culpable for Alix Rice’s death by a preponderance of the evidence, a lower standard than that within which the criminal jury worked. 

Perhaps then, the public will feel that justice has been done. 

//

Chris Charvella: His Path to Atheism

4 comments

Because he proposed the ultimate, NSFW title he used for this introspective series on faith, and I suggested that he use that very title on Facebook and promised to link to it when he did, I now link to it and suggest that you read it. 

Chris is a former colleague of mine from WNYMedia.net, living and working in Batavia and providing news and views from a rural Democrat’s perspective. Please add his blog to your readers. 

Wield Your Influence

3 comments

In light of a discussion that was generated by this post and this post, I attended a meeting of preservationists Tuesday morning. In an area where progress and action is unfortunately fueled by transactional politicking, I recommended that the preservationist community become more active in that world. There isn’t a problem plaguing WNY that doesn’t have a political cause and solution. 

For instance, one speaker related how Mayor Brown refused to write a simple letter in support of the Central Terminal master plan because it wasn’t a priority for him – downtown is. (If downtown is a priority for the Mayor who’s served since 2006, I’d say his list of accomplishments is horrifically microscopic.)

So, how does a preservationist community that is as sincere as it is factionalized become an effective political force?  Less reactive and more proactive? 

1. Unify. There are too many preservationist organizations in Buffalo. I can’t tell one from the other, and there seems to be little actual thought or reason behind it. Egos and ambition should be set aside to present a unified front to promote their issues and goals.

2. Start a PAC. By doing so, the preservationist community can advocate for ideas and for policies. They can draft proposed legislation that would create a city or regional “do not demolish under any circumstances” list, and an objective set of criteria for other buildings to be added to that list in the future.

3. Start a political club. Perhaps more effective, by doing this the preservation community can vet and endorse candidates. They can hold events that don’t just raise money for their cause, as with a PAC, but actually hold fundraisers for favored political figures. They can publicize their electoral choices among their membership and elicit detailed information from candidates for public office regarding their positions regarding preservationist issues. With promises of money, influence, and warm bodies to canvass, stuff envelopes, and make phone calls, the preservationist community can help do the dirty work of electing candidates friendly to their cause. 

4. Create a fusion party. While not my personal favorite, this is an option that’s available to the preservationists – a “Preservation Party,” which can not just endorse and raise money for candidates, but actually provide them with another party line, and actual votes. 

The people who make up the preservationist community are some of the best-connected in town, with existing access to media, elected officials, the regional apparatchik class, the money-rich foundations, and the moneyed elites. Yet instead of capitalizing on that, they reduce themselves to “this place matters” passive resistance and emergency leafletting or litigation. They’re often referred to as “obstructionist” specifically because of that. While they may not care about it, and rationalize it, it’s a perception that can be changed rather easily. 

Steel Tube Production for Lackawanna

One comment

Chris Smith came across a notice for a public hearing, which was held on the morning of Tuesday May 29th in Lackawanna City Hall regarding an application Welded Tube, USA, Inc. made to the Erie County IDA for a land and incentive package at the “Tecumseh Business Park, Lakewinds Site Parcel 3 at the intersection of Route 5 and Ridge Road in Lackawanna”.  

Under the proposal, Welded Tube intends to build a “new, high speed, efficient steel tube production line for the production of multi-faceted cold formed carbon and HSLA tubular steel for use in the energy tubular industry”.  

The ECIDA would purchase the land and lease it back to Welded Tube, and “contemplates that it will provide financial assistance to the Company for qualifying portions of the Project in the form of sales and use tax exemptions, a mortgage recording tax exemption, and a partial real property tax abatement consistent with the policies of the [ECIDA]”. 

The property in question is a 400 acre brownfield site that sits perhaps not coincidentally right next to the embattled Bethlehem Steel North office building. 

Alfred Culliton, COO of ECIDA says that Welded Tube is a “Canadian operation” looking to open up its first US operation on this Lackawanna site. Culliton says Welded Tube intends to construct further south on the property, near the South Branch crossing, and is in no way related to, or spurring the push to demolish the Bethlehem Steel North office building. 

Welded Tube USA, Inc. is not incorporated in New York State, and there are no Google hits for that name, except for the ECIDA hearing notice.  It appears that cleaning up the former Bethlehem Steel property for prospective residential or recreational purposes is not a priority, and the land will instead further be used for industrial purposes. This place – does it matter? How, and for whom?

Lake Effect Ice Cream’s Punditella

Leave a comment

On Tuesday, I got an ice cream named after me. 

I’m a huge fan of Lake Effect Ice Cream, the plucky little Lockport factory of deliciousness behind awesome flavors like Salty Caramel, a Date at the Zoo, and Peanut Butter Epiphany. Jason Wulf and Erik Bernardi are doing great things, but most importantly they love their fans and are responsive to new flavor ideas. 

So, all last summer, I harassed them to do a Nutella ice cream. The Italian chocolate-hazelnut treat is my favorite – especially schmeared on a fresh slice of scala bread. I’ve tried to make it at home, but I don’t have the patience to do it right. Fortunately, Jason and Erik have that patience, and they’ve already got several years’ worth of experience making truly excellent ice cream flavors. 

A few weeks ago, Lake Effect tweeted that they had been perfecting their Nutella ice cream, and asked me to name it, suggesting “Punditella”, as an amalgam of “Pundit” and “Nutella”. I laughed and thought it sounded like a horribly evil Disney Princess. So, naturally, they Photoshopped my face onto Maleficent from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. 

Here’s how Lake Effect describes the resulting ice cream: 

What a great way to come off the Memorial Day weekend! Today at the shop we will be adding, for a limited time our brand new Punditella flavor. Inspired by local Artvoice writer Alan Bedenko’s constant urging for a Nutella ice cream we have created this new flavor for everyone!

It is an ultra rich chocolate hazelnut ice cream with pieces of hazelnuts swirled throughout. We have only made a few batches and it is only available at our scoop shop. So stop in and grab some before it’s gone!

Nutella and hazelnut bits? It’s the answer to the question, “invent the best possible ice cream you could possibly invent”. Available at Lake Effect’s scoop shop in Lockport, Punditella is available for only a short time. To say I’m honored is a vast understatement.  I bow to these guys. 

//
//

[googlemaps https://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&q=lake+effect+ice+cream+lockport&fb=1&gl=us&hq=lake+effect+ice+cream&hnear=0x89d378cc417f46d9:0x5c8e1aaf00c3cb4c,Lockport,+NY&hl=en&view=map&cid=14606294331529146995&t=h&ll=43.171852,-78.693244&spn=0.007512,0.013733&z=16&iwloc=A&output=embed&w=640&h=480]

Pyongyang Traffic

One comment

Here’s something odd I found on a North Korea Flickr group. A person rode around Pyongyang taking picture of buses and trolleys, categorizing the types he found. Here are two incidental finds that I found puzzling, as these vehicles are distinctly American, and we don’t exactly export to the hermit kingdom. 

The first shows a Dodge Ram van, sold until 2003 and replaced by the Mercedes-built Sprinter vans. The second shows a VW Routan, which is a rebadged Chrysler Town & Country minivan. It’s a vehicle that is not sold anywhere outside of North America, as the rest of the world is too good for such a cynically awful amalgam of American mediocrity and European badge engineering. My best guess is that they’re either owned by Canadian diplomats, UN services, or some NGO or another. I just think it’s surreal.

CIMG9409

CIMG9553

1 … 131 132 133 134 135 … 166