The scene inside the Home Depot on Weyman Avenue here would give the old-time American craftsman pause.
This isn’t a lament — or not merely a lament — for bygone times. It’s a social and cultural issue, as well as an economic one. The Home Depot approach to craftsmanship — simplify it, dumb it down, hire a contractor — is one signal that mastering tools and working with one’s hands is receding in America as a hobby, as a valued skill, as a cultural influence that shaped thinking and behavior in vast sections of the country.
That should be a matter of concern in a presidential election year. Yet neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney promotes himself as tool-savvy presidential timber, in the mold of a Jimmy Carter, a skilled carpenter and cabinet maker.
The Obama administration does worry publicly about manufacturing, a first cousin of craftsmanship. When the Ford Motor Company, for example, recently announced that it was bringing some production home, the White House cheered. “When you see things like Ford moving new production from Mexico to Detroit, instead of the other way around, you know things are changing,” says
Gene B. Sperling, director of the National Economic Council.
Ask the administration or the Republicans or most academics why America needs more manufacturing, and they respond that manufacturing spawns innovation, brings down the trade deficit, strengthens the dollar, generates jobs, arms the military and kindles a recovery from recession. But rarely, if ever, do they publicly take the argument a step further, asserting that a growing manufacturing sector encourages craftsmanship and that craftsmanship is, if not a birthright, then a vital ingredient of the American self-image as a can-do, inventive, we-can-make-anything people.
That self-image is deteriorating. And the symptoms go far beyond Home Depot. They show up in the wistful popularity of books like
“Shop Class as Soulcraft,” by Matthew B. Crawford, in TV cooking classes featuring the craftsmanship of celebrity chefs, and in shows like
“This Old House.”Traditional vocational training in public high schools is gradually declining, stranding thousands of young people who seek training for a craft without going to college. Colleges, for their part, have since 1985 graduated fewer chemical, mechanical, industrial and metallurgical engineers, partly in response to the reduced role of manufacturing, a big employer of them.
The decline started in the 1950s, when manufacturing generated a hefty 28 percent of the national income, or gross domestic product, and employed one-third of the work force. Today, factory output generates just 12 percent of G.D.P. and employs barely 9 percent of the nation’s workers.
Mass layoffs and plant closings have drawn plenty of headlines and public debate over the years, and they still occasionally do. But the damage to skill and craftsmanship — what’s needed to build a complex airliner or a tractor, or for a worker to move up from assembler to machinist to supervisor — went largely unnoticed.
“In an earlier generation, we lost our connection to the land, and now we are losing our connection to the machinery we depend on,” says
Michael Hout, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley. “People who work with their hands,” he went on, “are doing things today that we call service jobs, in restaurants and laundries, or in medical technology and the like.”
That’s one explanation for the decline in traditional craftsmanship. Lack of interest is another. The big money is in fields like finance. Starting in the 1980s, skill in finance grew in stature, and, as depicted in the news media and the movies, became a more appealing source of income.
By last year, Wall Street traders, bankers and those who deal in real estate generated 21 percent of the national income, double their share in the 1950s. And Warren E. Buffett, the amiable financier, became a homespun folk hero, without the tools and overalls.
“Young people grow up without developing the skills to fix things around the house,” says Richard T. Curtin, director of the
Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers. “They know about computers, of course, but they don’t know how to build them.”
Manufacturing’s shrinking presence undoubtedly helps explain the decline in craftsmanship, if only because many of the nation’s assembly line workers were skilled in craft work, if not on the job then in their spare time. In a late 1990s study of blue-collar employees at a General Motors plant (now closed) in Linden, N.J.,
the sociologist Ruth Milkman of City University of New York found that many line workers, in their off-hours, did home renovation and other skilled work.
“I have often thought,” Ms. Milkman says, “that these extracurricular jobs were an effort on the part of the workers to regain their dignity after suffering the degradation of repetitive assembly line work in the factory.”
Craft work has higher status in nations like Germany, which invests in apprenticeship programs for high school students. “Corporations in Germany realized that
there wa
s an interest to be served economically and patriotically in building up a skilled labor force at home; we never had that ethos,” says
Richard Sennett, a New York University sociologistwho has written about the connection of craft and culture.
The damage to American craftsmanship seems to parallel the precipitous slide in manufacturing employment. Though the decline started in the 1970s, it became much steeper beginning in 2000. Since then, some 5.3 million jobs, or one-third of the work force in manufacturing, have been lost. A stated goal of the Obama administration is to restore a big chunk of this employment, along with the multitude of skills that many of the jobs required.
And there is an incipient upturn in the monthly employment data, although the president will almost certainly finish his first term with the manufacturing work force well below the 12.6 million it was when his administration began. (It was nearly 11.9 million last month.)
“We sit in rooms with manufacturers who tell us that location decisions to move overseas that were previously automatic are now a close call, and that the right policies can make a difference,” Mr. Sperling says.
THAT is particularly the case if federal, state and local governments intervene with generous subsidies, like those seen in China, Germany, Japan, France, India and other countries eager to sustain manufacturing.
Government subsidies are helping to make manufacturing in America more attractive, but the turnaround may be hard to sustain. And it may be too late. Big multinationals already operate factory networks in Europe and Asia, as well as in the United States. Stepping up exports to those markets from the United States, rather than producing in them, is becoming less of an option — short of an international agreement like the Plaza Accord of 1985, which realigned currencies and gave American manufacturers a temporary boost.
As for craftsmanship itself, the issue is how to preserve it as a valued skill in the general population. Ms. Milkman, the sociologist, argues that American craftsmanship isn’t disappearing as quickly as some would argue — that it has instead shifted to immigrants. “Pride in craft, it is alive in the immigrant world,” she says.
Sol Axelrod, 37, the manager of the Home Depot here, fittingly learned to fix his own car as a teenager, even changing the brakes. Now he finds immigrant craftsmen gathered in abundance outside his store in the early morning, waiting for it to open so they can buy supplies for the day’s work as contractors. Skilled day laborers, also mostly immigrants, wait quietly in hopes of being hired by the contractors.
Mr. Axelrod also says the recession and persistently high unemployment have forced many people to try to save money by doing more themselves, and Home Depot in response offers classes in fixing faucets and other simple repairs. The teachers are store employees, many of them older and semiretired from a skilled trade, or laid off.
“Our customers may not be building cabinets or outdoor decks; we try to do that for them,” Mr. Axelrod says, “but some are trying to build up skill so they can do more for themselves in these hard times.”
Cargill Recalls Ground Beef After Link to Salmonella
UncategorizedPublished: July 23, 2012
Hannaford is offering refunds to customers who have any ground beef in their freezers bought in its stores with its store brand and stamped with sell-by dates ranging from May 29 through June 16. It has posted signs in its meat departments and on its Web site, and sent media advisories locally and nationally.
In a pop-up announcement on its Web site, Cargill Meat Solutions Corporation, which processes and distributes pork, beef and turkey products to retailers and food service outlets, said it was voluntarily recalling the meat, which it described as an 85 percent lean ground beef product.
Hannaford bought the meat in bulk from Cargill and repackaged it under its own name. It will be making refunds on all such ground beef stamped with the specified dates regardless of the fat content, a spokesman said.
Salmonella infections, which tend to be most severe among infants, older adults and the sick, can be life-threatening to those with weak immune systems. Typically, they strike within 72 hours after the consumption of tainted food. The Department of Agriculture recommends cooking meat to an internal temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit, as measured by a thermometer, to ensure against salmonella poisoning.
The department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has been investigating an outbreak of salmonella Enteriditis, one of the most common types of salmonella serotypes, affecting 33 patients in seven states, including those where Hannaford has stores, as well as Rhode Island and Virginia. That continuing inquiry involves the health departments in those states as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Through epidemiology and by tracing purchases, investigators were able to link the illnesses of five people, two of whom had been hospitalized, to meat produced at Cargill Meat Solutions. Not all meat samples led back to a specific point of sale.
A Nation That’s Losing Its Toolbox
UncategorizedPublished: July 21, 2012NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y.
It’s all very handy stuff, I guess, a convenient way to be a do-it-yourselfer without being all that good with tools. But at a time when the American factory seems to be a shrinking presence, and when good manufacturing jobs have vanished, perhaps never to return, there is something deeply troubling about this dilution of American craftsmanship.
That should be a matter of concern in a presidential election year. Yet neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney promotes himself as tool-savvy presidential timber, in the mold of a Jimmy Carter, a skilled carpenter and cabinet maker.
The Obama administration does worry publicly about manufacturing, a first cousin of craftsmanship. When the Ford Motor Company, for example, recently announced that it was bringing some production home, the White House cheered. “When you see things like Ford moving new production from Mexico to Detroit, instead of the other way around, you know things are changing,” says Gene B. Sperling, director of the National Economic Council.
Ask the administration or the Republicans or most academics why America needs more manufacturing, and they respond that manufacturing spawns innovation, brings down the trade deficit, strengthens the dollar, generates jobs, arms the military and kindles a recovery from recession. But rarely, if ever, do they publicly take the argument a step further, asserting that a growing manufacturing sector encourages craftsmanship and that craftsmanship is, if not a birthright, then a vital ingredient of the American self-image as a can-do, inventive, we-can-make-anything people.
That self-image is deteriorating. And the symptoms go far beyond Home Depot. They show up in the wistful popularity of books like “Shop Class as Soulcraft,” by Matthew B. Crawford, in TV cooking classes featuring the craftsmanship of celebrity chefs, and in shows like “This Old House.”
Traditional vocational training in public high schools is gradually declining, stranding thousands of young people who seek training for a craft without going to college. Colleges, for their part, have since 1985 graduated fewer chemical, mechanical, industrial and metallurgical engineers, partly in response to the reduced role of manufacturing, a big employer of them.
The decline started in the 1950s, when manufacturing generated a hefty 28 percent of the national income, or gross domestic product, and employed one-third of the work force. Today, factory output generates just 12 percent of G.D.P. and employs barely 9 percent of the nation’s workers.
Mass layoffs and plant closings have drawn plenty of headlines and public debate over the years, and they still occasionally do. But the damage to skill and craftsmanship — what’s needed to build a complex airliner or a tractor, or for a worker to move up from assembler to machinist to supervisor — went largely unnoticed.
“In an earlier generation, we lost our connection to the land, and now we are losing our connection to the machinery we depend on,” says Michael Hout, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley. “People who work with their hands,” he went on, “are doing things today that we call service jobs, in restaurants and laundries, or in medical technology and the like.”
That’s one explanation for the decline in traditional craftsmanship. Lack of interest is another. The big money is in fields like finance. Starting in the 1980s, skill in finance grew in stature, and, as depicted in the news media and the movies, became a more appealing source of income.
By last year, Wall Street traders, bankers and those who deal in real estate generated 21 percent of the national income, double their share in the 1950s. And Warren E. Buffett, the amiable financier, became a homespun folk hero, without the tools and overalls.
“Young people grow up without developing the skills to fix things around the house,” says Richard T. Curtin, director of the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers. “They know about computers, of course, but they don’t know how to build them.”
Manufacturing’s shrinking presence undoubtedly helps explain the decline in craftsmanship, if only because many of the nation’s assembly line workers were skilled in craft work, if not on the job then in their spare time. In a late 1990s study of blue-collar employees at a General Motors plant (now closed) in Linden, N.J., the sociologist Ruth Milkman of City University of New York found that many line workers, in their off-hours, did home renovation and other skilled work.
“I have often thought,” Ms. Milkman says, “that these extracurricular jobs were an effort on the part of the workers to regain their dignity after suffering the degradation of repetitive assembly line work in the factory.”
Craft work has higher status in nations like Germany, which invests in apprenticeship programs for high school students. “Corporations in Germany realized that
there wa
s an interest to be served economically and patriotically in building up a skilled labor force at home; we never had that ethos,” says Richard Sennett, a New York University sociologistwho has written about the connection of craft and culture.
The damage to American craftsmanship seems to parallel the precipitous slide in manufacturing employment. Though the decline started in the 1970s, it became much steeper beginning in 2000. Since then, some 5.3 million jobs, or one-third of the work force in manufacturing, have been lost. A stated goal of the Obama administration is to restore a big chunk of this employment, along with the multitude of skills that many of the jobs required.
And there is an incipient upturn in the monthly employment data, although the president will almost certainly finish his first term with the manufacturing work force well below the 12.6 million it was when his administration began. (It was nearly 11.9 million last month.)
“We sit in rooms with manufacturers who tell us that location decisions to move overseas that were previously automatic are now a close call, and that the right policies can make a difference,” Mr. Sperling says.
THAT is particularly the case if federal, state and local governments intervene with generous subsidies, like those seen in China, Germany, Japan, France, India and other countries eager to sustain manufacturing.
Government subsidies are helping to make manufacturing in America more attractive, but the turnaround may be hard to sustain. And it may be too late. Big multinationals already operate factory networks in Europe and Asia, as well as in the United States. Stepping up exports to those markets from the United States, rather than producing in them, is becoming less of an option — short of an international agreement like the Plaza Accord of 1985, which realigned currencies and gave American manufacturers a temporary boost.
As for craftsmanship itself, the issue is how to preserve it as a valued skill in the general population. Ms. Milkman, the sociologist, argues that American craftsmanship isn’t disappearing as quickly as some would argue — that it has instead shifted to immigrants. “Pride in craft, it is alive in the immigrant world,” she says.
Sol Axelrod, 37, the manager of the Home Depot here, fittingly learned to fix his own car as a teenager, even changing the brakes. Now he finds immigrant craftsmen gathered in abundance outside his store in the early morning, waiting for it to open so they can buy supplies for the day’s work as contractors. Skilled day laborers, also mostly immigrants, wait quietly in hopes of being hired by the contractors.
Mr. Axelrod also says the recession and persistently high unemployment have forced many people to try to save money by doing more themselves, and Home Depot in response offers classes in fixing faucets and other simple repairs. The teachers are store employees, many of them older and semiretired from a skilled trade, or laid off.
“Our customers may not be building cabinets or outdoor decks; we try to do that for them,” Mr. Axelrod says, “but some are trying to build up skill so they can do more for themselves in these hard times.”
The Factory Factor: Why Outsourcing and 'Made in America' Could Decide this Election
UncategorizedScott Paul
Executive Director, Alliance for American Manufacturing
Voters of all political stripes are far ahead of the debate inside Washington, D.C. More importantly, perhaps, is that nearly all Americans — not only working-class Ohioans — share this view.
So don’t be surprised if both campaigns escalate the rhetoric and attacks on shipping jobs overseas in the coming weeks, in part to mask their own shortcomings.
That’s because no one is a knight in shining Made in America armor when it comes to this issue. Mitt Romney (rightly) criticizes President Obama for not labeling China as a currency manipulator, but glosses over the fact that Republican leaders in Congress are blocking a bipartisan currency bill that would pass overwhelmingly. Romney has also been on the wrong side of Administration decisions to defend American tire workers against China’s cheating and successfully rescue Chrysler and General Motors.
The GOP hypocritically accuses Obama of sending stimulus dollars overseas, while Republican Senators tried to block Buy America requirements for stimulus spending.
The fact is, accusing your political opponent of shipping jobs overseas is now an established American campaign tradition. What is missing is an honest debate about what could actually be done to promote American manufacturing jobs. Voters are ready for such a dialogue.
Public opinion research conducted for the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) by the bipartisan team of the Mellman Group and North Star Opinion Research concluded that voters overwhelmingly embrace a bold, popular, and effective agenda for growing American manufacturing jobs. Now we just need Washington to listen.
A strikingly large percentage of Americans (56 percent) believe our nation is no longer the world’s strongest economy. Americans believe that we should be number one, and understand that manufacturing is the most important part of our economy. But, less than a quarter of voters believe anyone in Washington is doing a great deal to defend American manufacturing against cheating on trade or to create new manufacturing jobs.
Voters want a national manufacturing strategy and they favor proposals to crack down on China’s cheating, train a skilled workforce, and enforce Buy America policies by a margin of more than 8 to 1 — perhaps even surpassing apple pie.
But what can get done in this time of partisan gridlock? More than you think. Exactly one substantive bill passed the Senate last year over a filibuster attempt led by Mitch McConnell: legislation to penalize China for manipulating its currency, which was supported by most Democrats and one-third of Republicans. That bill would sail through the House this year if Speaker Boehner allowed a vote.
The manufacturing majority is strong and diverse. It has never been effectively harnessed because of often competing agendas between global companies and labor unions; we are the exception to that rule.
Voters will be forced to endure an endless series of 30-second TV ads telling us how bad the other guy is on offshoring. The least they deserve is a good manufacturing policy after the election.
Follow Scott Paul on Twitter: @ScottPaulAAM
Made in America: States and Businesses Can Restore American Manufacturing
UncategorizedHaley Barbour and Terry McAuliffe
for The Huffington Post
Some have given up on American industry, saying manufacturing jobs are not coming back. Business leaders beg to differ, evidenced by growing efforts at reshoring and a recommitment to the “Made in America” label. And Mississippi, among other states, is leading the way. Since 2004, an aggressive job-creation agenda has brought higher skilled, higher paying jobs to Mississippi. The result: Employment is higher now than it was before Hurricane Katrina and per capita income increased 34 percent over the last eight years.
These successes stem from state and local governments and business leaders accepting that the renaissance of American manufacturing won’t happen overnight, and resolving to bring the restoration about by rolling up our sleeves and getting to work. There is no magic pill from Washington. Job creation is driven by the growth of small businesses and real gains can be made when entrepreneurs collaborate with their state and local governments to develop innovative solutions.
As a Virginia businessman and a former Mississippi governor, we are proud of our success story. We have been able to slow the rapid loss of manufacturing jobs in one hard-hit part of the country because of a jobs-before-politics philosophy exemplified in our unlikely partnership: a Democratic businessman who purchased an award-winning, advanced Chinese car company and moved it to America, and a Republican governor who fought hard to bring manufacturing jobs to his state. As the former chairs of the Democratic and Republican national committees, we’ve had plenty to disagree about over the years. But we found common ground in creating new jobs. Jobs should not be a partisan, political issue.
Now two years later, GreenTech Automotive’s first manufacturing facility in Horn Lake, Miss., is creating hundreds of new jobs and supporting thousands more. Furthermore, these jobs are built for the future, providing next-generation solutions to America’s energy needs by manufacturing all-electric, zero emission passenger vehicles.
In addition to these new jobs, GreenTech Automotive is shipping Made in America vehicles around the world and proving that America remains the world’s best place for manufacturing quality products. We’re not content to stop here. For example, similar efforts are underway to restore jobs in Virginia, where we are exploring repurposing a shuttered facility to produce wood pellets for export into the growing European biomass market.
Long-established automakers including Toyota and Nissan have come to Mississippi in the last decade, creating some ten thousand jobs. Advanced manufacturers from General Electric Aviation and EADS’ American Eurocopter in aerospace, the Russian steel giant Severstal, truck maker PACCAR and several alternative energy manufacturers have taken advantage of the state’s quality workforce and business-friendly environment. They join Chevron’s largest North American refinery and Huntington-Ingalls shipyard in proving manufacturing has a future not only in Mississippi, but also America.
Our Mississippi and Virginia-based GreenTech Automotive offers an example of how states and businesses can work together to get the job done. To continue this growth in other parts of the country, state governments need to recognize their role, not in being the source of jobs, but in fostering an environment conducive to job creation. They must level the playing field for competition; implement smarter tax policies that promote growth rather than punish success; invest in worker training; and promote innovation as well as the manufacturing required to make the products that result. Businesses, too, must commit to American manufacturing. They will find the risks are few. The U.S. is still home to the world’s best workers and technology.
We have begun to accomplish great things in a state committed to creating a business-friendly environment by putting aside our differences and embracing Made in America as both a corporate goal and a deeply held value. Other states and other businesses should do the same.
Mass Shooting at Colo. Movie Theater, 12 People Dead
UncategorizedWitnesses in the movie theater said Holmes crashed into the auditorium through an emergency exit about 30 minutes into the film, set off a smoke bomb, and began shooting. Holmes stalked the aisles of the theater, shooting people at random, as panicked movie-watchers in the packed auditorium tried to escape, witnesses said.
“You just smelled smoke and you just kept hearing it, you just heard bam bam bam, non-stop. The gunman never had to reload. Shots just kept going, kept going, kept going,” one witness told ABC News.
“I’m with coworkers and we’re on the floor praying to God we don’t get shot, and the gunshots continue on and on, and when the sound finally stopped, we started to get up and people were just bleeding,” another theatergoer said.
Police said 10 victims died inside the theater, while dozens of others were taken to local hospitals, including a child as young as 6 years old.
A San Diego woman identifying herself as James Holmes’s mother spoke briefly with ABC News this morning.
She had awoken unaware of the news of the shooting and had not been contacted by authorities. She immediately expressed concern that her son may have been involved.
“You have the right person,” she said.
“I need to call the police,” she added. “I need to fly out to Colorado.”
Holmes was wearing a bullet-proof vest and riot helmet and carrying a gas mask, rifle, and handgun, when he was apprehended, according to police. Holmes mentioned having explosives stored, leading police to evacuate his entire North Aurora apartment complex and search the buildings early this morning.
The highly-anticipated third installment of the Batman triology opened to packed auditoriums around the country at midnight showings on Friday morning, and features a villain named Bane who wears a bulletproof vest and gas mask. Trailers for the movie show explosions at public events including a football game. Though many moviegoers dressed in costume to attend the opening night screening, police have made no statements about any connection between the gunman’s motives and the movie.
Police in New York have intensified security around showings of the film throughout the five boroughs today, with police commissioner Ray Kelley saying that “as a precaution against copycats and to raise the comfort levels among movie patrons in the wake of the horrendous shooting in Colorado, the New York City Police Department is providing coverage at theaters where the ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ is playing.”
The Paris premiere of the movie has been cancelled in the wake of the shootings. “Warner Bros. is deeply saddened to learn about this shocking incident. We extend our sincere sympathies to the families and loved ones of the victims at this tragic time,” the movie’s producers, said in a statement.
Witnesses watching movies in theaters next to the one where the shooting took place said bullets tore through the theater walls and they heard screaming.
“The suspect throws tear gas in the air, and as the tear gas appears he started shooting,” said Lamar Lane, who was watching the midnight showing of the movie with his brother. “It was very hard to breathe. I told my brother to take cover. It took awhile. I started seeing flashes and screaming, I just saw blood and people yelling and a quick glimpse of the guy who had a gas mask on. I was pushed out. There was chaos, we started running.”
One witness said she saw people dropping to the ground after the gunshots began.
“We were maybe 20 or 30 minutes into the movie and all you hear, first you smell smoke, everybody thought it was fireworks or something like that, and then you just see people dropping and the gunshots are constant,” witness Christ Jones told ABC’s Denver affiliate KMGH. “I heard at least 20 to 30 rounds within that minute or two.”
A man who talked to a couple who was inside the theater told ABC News, “They got up and they started to run through the emergency exit, and that when she turned around, she said all she saw was the guy slowly making his way up the stairs and just firing at people, just picking random people,” he said. “The gunshots continued to go on and on and then after we didn’t hear anything…we finally got up and there was people bleeding, there was people obviously may have been actually dead or anything, and we just ran up out of there, there was chaos everywhere.”
Witnesses and victims were taken to Gateway High School for questioning.
Hundreds of police and FBI agents are involved in the investigation. A senior official who is monitoring the situation in Washington said that early guidance based on the early snapshot of this man’s background indicated that this act does not appear to be linked to radical terrorism or anything related to Islamic terrorism.
Though police have said that they believe the shooter was acting alone, they checked all cars in the parking lot and cleared the area near the theater.
Dr. Comilla Sasson, at the University of Colorado Hospital where many of the victims were taken, said they are currently operating on nine critical patients and have treated 22 in all. She called the hospital “an absolutely terrifying scene all night.”
“The good news is that the 3-month-old has actually been discharged home and is in the care of their parents
In a statement, President Obama said, “Michelle and I are shocked and saddened by the horrific and tragic shooting in Colorado. Federal and local law enforcement are still responding, and my administration will do everything that we can to support the people of Aurora in this extraordinarily difficult time. We are committed to bringing whoever was responsible to justice, ensuring the safety of our people, and caring for those who have been wounded.”
A man who was in the adjacent theater with his son, said that the commotion began as one of the action scenes was starting up.
“These guys came through, and they say someone’s shooting,” he said. “I thought, ‘Oh, they must have heard the fireworks, you know … I had no idea. And then the alarms started to go off in the theater.'”
An explosive device was also found inside the movie house. Police are not sure whether the device, which investigators are calling a bomb, was already in place or whether it was thrown into the crowd.
Ambulances rushed to the scene as audience members fled the theater.
Investigators are now interviewing friends and associates of the suspect to get a sense of the man’s background.
Matthew Mosk contributed to this report.
Source: YAHOO! News
Hatch Calls Dems' 'Insourcing' Bill 'Misleading'
Uncategorized“There is an utter lack of seriousness with this proposal,” the ranking member on the Finance Committee said. “On the surface this might sound reasonable … but as far as tax policy goes, this is a joke.”
Hatch said the bill was straight from President Obama’s campaign committee.
“It’s devoid of serious content because it is a product of political rather than economic priorities,” Hatch said on the floor Thursday.
Hatch said the bill should have come from the Finance Committee. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who is on the Finance Committee, introduced the measure.
Under current law, companies can deduct the cost of moving people and equipment overseas from their taxes. S. 3364 would eliminate that deduction, and create a new 20 percent tax credit for all costs associated with moving overseas jobs back into the United States.
But Hatch said Democrats are being misleading by saying that there is a tax break for outsourcing.
“I’ll keep this book of tax codes at my desk here, if someone wants to show me the tax code that allows deductions for shipping jobs overseas,” Hatch said while holding the large book. “I’d like to see it, but it’s not in here.”
It’s unclear if the bill will clear the voting hurdle to end debate. Republicans were expected to support it until Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he was unlikely to include any Republican amendments.
Hatch said he’s recommending that the bill be sent to his committee for tweaks.
Source: THE HILL
Russian Spin on Olympic Apparel Fray
UncategorizedBy DAVID LIPKE and CATHERINE BLANCHARD
But do they really? ABC did not source that apocryphal sentiment to any actual Russians. WWD reached the Russian Olympic and Paralympic Organizing Committee to check on the group’s sourcing proclivities as they plan for the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. “The Sochi 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Organizing Committee is not in negotiations with American Apparel for the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. The official outfitter of the Russian team up to 2016 is the company Bosco Sport,” relayed the organization.
Moscow-based Bosco Sport manufactured uniforms for the upcoming London games in Asia and Europe, according to a spokesman. “Bosco is the official and exclusive outfitter to the Russian Olympic Committee. Our contract with the ROC means Bosco will be dressing Russia’s Olympians and Paralympians through to Rio 2016, in the same bold and beautiful designs we have been creating for the team since Salt Lake 2002. There is no reason for that to change in the foreseeable future,” the company told WWD.
It was unclear at press time whether Bosco had engaged in any discussions with American Apparel about potentially sourcing future uniforms from its Los Angeles facility. Charney declined to comment on whether American Apparel has had any talks with Bosco.
“I had contact from an organization that is connected to the government. Nothing has been signed but we were in dialogue,” insisted Charney. “I invited them to come to our London store and buy samples at our expense and see what interests them.”
Asked about the denials from the Russian Olympic Committee that there have been any negotiations with American Apparel, Charney responded: “I don’t know that every senior person there knows everything that’s going on with an inquiry about product.”
Besides ABC’s misleading inference, both Forbes.com and Cocoperez.com incorrectly reported on their sites that American Apparel had a done deal for Russian Olympic uniforms — something neither Charney nor the Post had actually stated.
——————–
Original article
In trying to get you the story as quickly as possible, we failed to do our due diligence. We will try to be more diligent in obtaining more information before we publish any news going forward.
Bring Jobs Home Act Blocked by Senate. Here is the 'Roll Call'
Uncategorizedas compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate
Vote Summary
Question: On Cloture on the Motion to Proceed (Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to S. 3364 )
Vote Number: 181 Vote Date: July 19, 2012, 02:15 PM
Required For Majority: 3/5
Vote Result: Cloture on the Motion to Proceed Rejected
Measure Number: S. 3364 (Bring Jobs Home Act)
Measure Title: A bill to provide an incentive for businesses to bring jobs back to America.
Vote Counts: YEAs 56 – NAYs 42 – Not Voting 2
Click here for Complete Roll Call
Senators Block ‘Insourcing’ Bill: S. 3364: Bring Jobs Home Act
UncategorizedThe Bring Jobs Home Act also would have given a tax incentives to companies that bring jobs back to the United States. The measure failed to advance on a 56-42 vote, with 60 votes needed to end debate on the bill.
Republicans were considering supporting the insourcing bill until Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he wouldn’t include any GOP amendments.
“At a time when millions of Americans are looking for work, I’m not sure what could be more serious than protecting good-paying, middle-class jobs,” Reid said. “This obstruction tactic is unfortunate, but it’s not surprising. After all, Republicans’ nominee for president made a fortune working for a company that shipped jobs overseas.”
The Bring Jobs Home Act would have created a new tax credit for companies that spend money to bring overseas jobs back to the United States, and eliminate a tax credit for companies that spend money to move jobs overseas.
Under current law, companies can deduct the cost of moving people and equipment overseas from their taxes. S. 3364 would have eliminated that deduction, and created a new 20 percent tax credit for all costs associated with moving overseas jobs back to America.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Scott Brown (Mass.) voted in favor of the measure. But other Republicans called the bill “political” and “misleading.”
“On the surface this might sound reasonable … but as far as tax policy goes this is a joke,” said ranking member of the Finance Committee Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). “It’s devoid of serious content because it is product of political rather than economic priorities.”
Reid said the bill was very serious to those losing their jobs.
“To 21 million Americans whose jobs could be the next ones sent to China or India, it’s a very serious proposal,” Reid said. “And to the 2.5 million Americans who jobs have already been offshored, it doesn’t get any more serious than this. The only ones who aren’t taking this legislation seriously are Republicans in Congress.”
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) introduced the bill as a jobs measure.
“It’s time to stop rewarding companies that send jobs to other countries and instead support businesses creating jobs here at home,” she said.
See how your Senator voted on the Bring Home Jobs Act: Senate Roll Call
Source: The Hill
You may find Ramsey Cox original article here. The Hill
Made in America: Apple's supply chain increasing US production
UncategorizedPublished: July 19, 2012 07:38 AM EST (04:38 AM PST)
But the iPhone and iPad — Apple’s two most popular products — are made up of much more than the CPU and glass that Cook highlighted. These complex mobile machines include power controllers, proximity sensors, cellular radios, Wi-Fi chips, audio and video chips, accelerometers and more — and a number of those parts come from American companies.
Of course, there’s no guarantee that any of the parts found in Apple’s products are, with absolute certainty, made in America, even if they’re sold by a U.S. company. Many chipmakers build their products at a number factories located around the world. And ever-secretive Apple doesn’t even disclose who makes many of the parts found in its products, leaving enthusiasts to tear the company’s devices apart and hunt for clues, sometimes to no avail.
But over the last year, some of the more prominent chipmakers that Apple does business with, including Texas Instruments and Avago Technologies, have begun to increase their stateside production of components.
One industry contact who spoke with AppleInsider said that many of these companies are expanding their U.S. production in part because of orders received from “a large personal electronics manufacturer” that continues to see record breaking sales. Afraid to identify Apple by name, some in the industry are said to jokingly refer to growing orders from a mysterious “fruit vendor.”
One Apple supplier, Avago Technologies, is currently expanding its manufacturing processes in Fort Collins, Colo., and is planning to buy as much as $130 million worth of manufacturing equipment. Avago is responsible for making a custom part for Apple’s iPhone 4S that allows one handset model to connect to multiple forms of wireless networks around the world, according to IHS iSuppli.
AppleInsider inquired with Avago about its U.S.-based chip fabrication, as well as its assumed partnership with Apple, but the company declined to comment.
Texas Instruments, another key Apple partner, is also currently ramping up production at its Texas chip fabrication factories. While the chipmaker is closing factories in Japan and Houston, one person familiar with the company’s operations said those moves have come as the company turns its focus to products seeing increased demand.
In particular, Texas Instruments is said to have seen orders grow considerably for its power management chips for mobile devices like smartphones. Texas Instruments already supplies a number of components to Apple, including the touchscreen controller in the iPhone 4S, as well as power management chips and a control device found in the new third-generation iPad. The company was also rumored in March to have begun manufacturing new power management chips for Apple’s next iPhone.
A person familiar with operations at Texas Instruments said its power control chip business, which is said to receive a significant number of orders from Apple, has generated “thousands of jobs” in the U.S. Many of those jobs are said to be high-paying technical jobs that require employees with engineering degrees, particularly at its Richardson, Tex., facility, known internally as “RFAB.”
Fairchild Semiconductor, which is believed to supply power supply chips for Apple’s iOS devices, is also said to be producing over capacity at its American facilities. The San Jose-based company, which has been around in various forms since 1957, saw record quarterly sales for mobile products in the first quarter of 2012, and is in the process of adding more equipment in the U.S.
An individual familiar with Fairchild’s business indicated to AppleInsider that the company’s 200-millimeter wafer fabrication plant in South Portland, Maine, is currently at full capacity, as is its 150-millimeter facility in West Jordan, Utah. This person said Apple-ordered components built by Fairchild will primarily come from its Maine plant in the second half of 2012.
There are also rumors in the industry that Maxim Integrated Products, a semiconductor manufacturer based in San Jose, has secured orders from Apple. The company has plants in San Antonio and Dallas, as well as Beaverton, Ore., and San Jose, Calif.
AppleInsider reached out to Maxim to comment on rumors that it has received orders from Apple, but the chipmaker declined to comment on that particular topic.
However, Vivek Jain, senior vice president of Manufacturing Operations at Maxim, did discuss his company’s general chip production business, and revealed that about 50 percent of its wafer fabrication production is based in the U.S.
Maxim recently began a multi-year investment in its American facilities, upgrading and expanding capacity at all of its U.S. fabrication plants. Jain said the investment will allow Maxim to improve product quality and upgrade its equipment while assimilating production from recently acquired companies. Maxim’s 380,000-square-foot semiconductor fab in San Antonio was purchased from Philip
s Semiconductor
s Inc. in 2003.
Jain said the companies Maxim partners with have not specifically asked the chipmaker to build more products in the U.S. But Maxim has focused on its American operations regardless, because the company feels it gives them a competitive advantage.
“We have a very talented pool of resources in Silicon Valley and across (the) U.S. to develop new process technologies and do cost effective manufacturing, while protecting critical intellectual property,” Jain said.
Combined, Maxim’s plants in San Antonio and Beaverton employ nearly 1,100 manufacturing and engineering staff. Even more high-end workers are expected to be added as the company continues its $200 million in upgrades aimed at expanding its U.S. semiconductor manufacturing facilities.
Breaking down the iPhone’s parts
It’s impossible to tell exactly how much of Apple’s products are truly built in the U.S. As evidence of this, Andrew Rassweiler, senior principal analyst at research firm IHS iSuppli, put together a breakdown of components found in the iPhone 4S, and 52.6 percent of the parts were considered “unknown.”
iSuppli’s research did find that Samsung Semiconductor, which builds Apple’s custom ARM processors in Texas, plays the biggest role in the iPhone 4S. They estimate that Samsung’s components represent 12.4 percent of the smartphone’s identifiable bill of materials.
Avago Technologies is estimated to account for 1 percent of the bill of materials in the iPhone 4S, while Texas Instruments is pegged at 0.6 percent, Maxim is estimated to account for 0.5 percent, and Fairchild Semiconductor has 0.1 percent.
Corning’s Gorilla Glass, which serves as the scratch-resistant surface for the iPhone 4S touchscreen and is publicly acknowledged to be made in America, is estimated by iSuppli to represent another 0.6 percent of the smartphone’s total bill of materials.
Other noteworthy iPhone component makers on iSuppli’s list are:
While a number of parts found in the iPhone, iPad and other Apple products come from American companies and are made in the U.S., those parts are still shipped to China where Apple’s assembly partner, Foxconn, puts together the final product. Cook noted at D10 that much of the media scrutiny regarding Apple’s overseas partnerships comes from an “intense focus on the final assembly.”
“Could that (assembly) be done in the U.S.? I sure hope so,” Cook said. “But look, how many tool-and-die makers do you know in America? I could ask them, nationwide, to come here tonight and we couldn’t fill this room.”
It’s also worthwhile to consider that assembly jobs with companies like Foxconn tend to be low paying positions, which is in part why so many Chinese workers take on large amounts of overtime for extra pay. In contrast, the engineering jobs required for chip fabrication at companies like TI, Avago, Fairchild and Maxim are highly skilled, more desirable positions.
“We do as many of these things [in America] as we can do,” Cook said at D10. “And you can bet that we’ll use the whole of our influence to do this.”