Tag: manufacturing

  You are starting to see a lot of news articles talking about “reshoring”.

 “There is evidence here of reshoring because of transportation costs and lead times,” Mr Bergmann said. “The global supply chain allows you to chase lower cost of labour, but the total costs are reflected in the decision on where you produce for a given geography.”

 The decline of the American middle class have finally reached the point that American workers can compete against Chinese peasants. Victory is in sight!

 With any luck our corporate masters will soon be installing suicide nets outside our factories.

No money for infrastructure? Get ready to crumble! July 28: Ed Rendell, former governor of Pennsylvania, talks with TRMS guest host Melissa Harris-Perry about the litany of benefits that would come with more investment in US infrastructure and the certain disaster if Republicans succeed in slashing government spending.

Not only infrastructure but add in alternative energy and new needed grid needs for.  

This week, we take advantage of the House’s absence by releasing an interview with Congressman John Garamendi (D-CA10) in lieu of a new summary. Rep. Garamendi is the sponsor of H.R. 613, the Airports, Highways, High-Speed Rail, Trains, and Transit: Make it in America Act, one of the centerpieces of the House Democrats’ Make it in America agenda.

In our interview, Mr. Garamendi offers an impassioned defense of his legislation, highlights the need for government action to create jobs, and scathingly critiques both the wisdom and motives of those who oppose Buy American requirements. Check it out:

Look below the fold for our summary and one-pager of Garamendi’s Make it in America bill…

Click here to receive Main Street Insider emails, including weekly delivery of new episodes of 90 Second Summaries.

With Republicans in the House failing to produce any jobs bills, Democrats in the minority have decided to propose their own initiatives. This week’s episode, season 2 episode 12, focuses on one of those proposals, H.R. 613, the Airports, Highways, High-Speed Rail, Trains, and Transit: Make it in America Act, sponsored by Representative John Garamendi.

What this proposal does, is ensure that projects being funded by tax dollars are purchasing materials made in the US. After their passage of H.R. 3, Republicans in the House are going to have to explain why they find it morally acceptable to spend tax dollars on foreign-made products while so many Americans are out of work and our manufacturing jobs are steadily moving overseas.

Remember this guy ?    

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent, …..  captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.

Fresh off of letting the former Minerals Management Services oil bomb a third of our nation’s seafood supply from the Gulf of Mexico into oblivion through regulatory neglect, and letting the EPA perform the world’s largest biology experiment with Corexit spraying,

He’s come up with a great new manufacturing stimulus program to end our nation’s economic malaise of millions of unemployed.

And Dept of Defense Secretary Gates is enthusiastic, saying it will “build high walls around a smaller yard” by narrowing in on the nation’s “crown jewels.”

What could this be ?   Is it a bird, is it a plane, no, it’s more than that,  it’s

  Enlarging the United State’s market share of the international weapons exporting business !  He’s going to double it by 2015.  That would take us from 30% of the market to 60% of the world market.    

What could possibly go wrong ?

India, which currently is seeking 126 fighter-jets worth over $10 billion, 10 large transport aircraft worth $6 billion, and other multi-billion dollar defense sales, could be among the possible beneficiaries. Allies seeking advanced U.S. weaponry and equipment, who now often buy elsewhere due to the cumbersome U.S. approval process, would draw immediate benefit from the reforms, U.S. officials said.

Isn’t this the world’s largest multicultural Asian democracy which currently is embroiled with a little misunderstanding with its Muslim neighbor, Pakistan, which we just happen to be giving money to with one hand, and droning with the other ?  

Although a “Democrat” in the House,  Berman,  is writing a version of the bill, others are also expressing enthusiasm for their kind of stimulating one stop shopping Mall of the Americas experience.   And there will be seasonal sales, and back to school specials, as the boring old technology is rotated to the clearance racks and the new, stylish and advanced technology is put on the front of the aisles.

Rep. Donald Manzullo, R-Ill., represents a district with aerospace and other manufacturers, and said reform is needed for the survival of U.S. manufacturing.

“We can begin to manufacture our way out of this recession by reforming our export controls,” Manzullo said in a speech at the American Enterprises Institute, a conservative think tank.

Okay, they’re a little bit worried about who might get the clearance rack weapontry items, but not too much.

Ah, streamlining ! Transparency !  Hope and Change !

Your kid didn’t need that publik skoolun fer kollage anyway. Call your local recruitment office now and reserve him or her a space for 2015.  They’ll leave the lights on for ya.  

One thing I am always impressed about on Docudharma is how we not only talk about how to change the political system that currently exists but how to upend it using disruptive politics, technologies and techniques.

We talk about restoring the centrality of community to our lives.  It is this concept of community which, many of us feel, will provide a needed bulwark against the depredation of corporate feudalists and looters.

The social aspect of community, and what Americans are lacking in that regard, is well established and has been for a long time.

It’s not my favorite genre of music, but the best example of exactly what I think of as wrong in terms of American community or lack thereof goes like this:

And, if you think about it this way, the fact that our culture is sick and overrun with parasitism begins to make sense if you think about it in an organic way.

For decades, we have had a monoculture of American expectations .. what Americans are supposed to do, how Americans are supposed to live.

But one thing you learn about in Biology 101, is that monocultures die out.  Why do they die out?  Because they are far more vulnerable to predation by parasites.  Any given parasite can more easily infect and destroy a population if that population is the same than if there are many different and varied populations.

Elusive Goal of Greening U.S. Energy

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE, Dec 2, 2009

The Great Green Hope for lifting America’s economy is not looking so robust.

[…]

Growth in clean energy industries and in green jobs has been considerably slower and bumpier than anticipated, industry experts say.

[…]

Last week, the Gamesa wind turbine plant in western Pennsylvania announced it was laying off nearly half its 280 workers. Last month, General Electric said it would close a solar panel factory in Delaware

[…]

There are myriad reasons why green jobs have grown more slowly than hoped. The clean energy component of the $787 billion stimulus package has only recently started to kick in. Energy experts say that banks, which have been reluctant to lend generally, have been especially loath to lend for alternative energy projects.

And renewable-energy companies are hesitating to invest in new plants and equipment before Congress enacts new environmental mandates, like cap and trade, to limit carbon emissions.

[…]

When it comes to getting around, Americans love to consider the question of “what if…?”

As a result, our cars have evolved into “land yachts”, our trucks have become “monster trucks”, and the desire to drag our living spaces around with us has morphed into converted busses with rooms that pop out of the side, a Mini-Cooper hidden under the master bedroom floor, and self-tracking satellite dishes that fight for space on the roof with air conditioning equipment.

And for more than a few of us, “what if…?” has even extended to “what if my car…was a jet car?”

In today’s improbable reality I’m here to tell you that Chrysler engineers asked that exact same question, for roughly a quarter of a century, and as a result they actually designed and deployed seven generations of cars with jet engines-and they came darn close to putting the eighth-generation design on sale to the general public.

It’s a story of pocket protectors and slide rules and offices full of guys who look a bit like Drew Carey…but as we’ll see in Part Two, it may also be a story of technology that couldn’t be perfected “back then”, but could be reborn in our own times.

“People who are my age have no idea what they are going to do,” Suter said, trying to angle a workbench into his trailer. “How they are going to live on $12 an hour without benefits when we’re used to $29 with benefits? You can’t make an economy on cleaning somebody else’s shirts or selling mutual funds. What are towns like Ypsilanti going to do?”

Ypsilanti is not the most besieged city in Michigan, but is an auto town, and its problems mirror those of the larger industrial Midwest. Just four square miles and 35 miles west of Detroit, it has lost more than 25 percent of its population since 1970. Schools have closed, as did its two other auto-related plants. Outside the Visteon plant, located on Factory Street in Ypsilanti alongside Interstate 94 and Ford Lake, the building that housed the UAW Local 849 is for sale. –snip–  

Well hello everyone, and welcome to a new edition of the Manufacturing series! For those new to the Manufacturing series, I try to cover anything related to the topic at hand regarding new developments like green manufacturing. Our industrial base has been neglected, its foundations eroded due to short-sightedness.  Thankfully, though, America (and our friends up North) have learned to survive in this new mad environment.  American manufacturing is always transforming, counted out by many, the assembly-line man and woman in this country have shown they not only could get the job done, but often better!  

Been ill again, so haven’t kept up.  Rest assured, I’m in somewhat top form now.  But enough about me, we got manufacturing stuff to talk about! Some interesting news out there, but first, of course the Numbers!

Welcome everyone to the latest edition in the Manufacturing series.  I do hope everyone is doing better than our economy.  The President was on television talking about jobs.  He had visited a town in Indiana where the unemployment rate had reached 18%.  The stimulus plan being laid before us, President Obama hopes, will eventually lead to several million jobs. But before we get to the latest on jobs and manufacturing, let’s look at this week’s Numbers.

Hello friends, welcome to another edition of the Manufacturing series.  This was intended to be released yesterday, but family issues came up that needed to be resolved (this seems to be happening a lot to me on these days lately!).  So, please accept my appologies on the delay.  Saying that, though there is a silver lining, I’m going to go ahead and basically give you a more “fresher” version of what was planned for yesterday (I normally write these up on Saturday and Sunday). So without further adieu….