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As China Costs Rise, Technology Lures U.S. Factories Home

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General Motors assembly workers Monique Watson (L) and Evetta Osborne install an electric battery on the underside of a 2011 Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle at the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant in Hamtramck, Michigan November 30, 2010. | Photo Credit: Reuters/Rebecca Cook

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Jul 24, 2012 
By Scott Malone and Ernest Scheyder
Schenectady, NY/NEW YORK 
Seesmart Inc, a small California lighting company, used to make all of its LED products in China, but last year that started to change. 
Frustrated by expensive and slow shipping and wanting more control over the manufacturing process, the 15-year-old company started building factories in Simi Valley, California, and Crystal Lake, Illinois.

“When we do the numbers we’re actually ahead manufacturing here instead of paying for air freight and dealing with the logistical issues that we’re having in China,” said Raymond Sjolseth, the company’s president and co-founder.

With just $11 million in revenue last year, Seesmart is a tiny company, but it is one of many manufacturers of all sizes – from Master Lock to blue-chips General Electric Co and Caterpillar Inc – that are expanding production in the United States.

After decades roaming the world in search of lower costs, U.S. manufacturers are finding that factories at home can compete with China, India, Mexico and other low-cost countries.

To be sure, labor-intensive industries like clothing and electronics, which are heavily dependent on hand assembly, are seen as unlikely to come back to the United States in a major way. And the trickle of returning jobs is far from a flood.

But higher transportation costs and wage inflation in China could drive more production back to the United States.

Prime candidates for return are bulky, heavy items. GE has shifted production of appliances from Mexico and China to Louisville, Kentucky, partly due to rising shipping costs. The new plant that Caterpillar is building near Athens, Georgia, will employ about 1,400 and make small bulldozers and excavators.

As manufacturers have learned to run factories with fewer workers – whose jobs consist of keeping high-cost, high-speed machines running smoothly, rather than assembling goods by hand – they have found that wages are a less critical issue in choosing a factory site.

Caterpillar, which has announced nine new plants or expansion projects in the past year alone, said it has chosen to grow in the United States both to meet local demand and because it has been able to find a steady supply of workers able to run the advanced equipment that powers its plants.

A survey by the Hackett Group Inc consultancy found that 46 percent of executives at European and North American manufacturing companies said they were considering returning some production to the United States from China, while another 27 percent said they were actively planning for or are in the midst of such a shift.

In the face of continued high unemployment, outsourcing and offshoring have become potent issues with U.S. voters. In the race for the White House, President Barack Obama, a Democrat, has called attention to job cuts made by private equity firm Bain Capital, formerly run by Mitt Romney, the presumed Republican nominee.

Despite the gloom, there has been a slight rise in U.S. factory employment. Some 11.95 million Americans worked in production jobs as of May, up 4 percent from the sector’s recessionary low in January 2010.

Manufacturing gained its reputation as a key to the U.S. middle class, in part thanks to its historically unionized work force. However, companies including Caterpillar and the Detroit automakers have succeeded in winning concessions in labor negotiations that include two-tier wage structures that provide substantially lower wagers for the newest workers.

At Seesmart, shifting production from China to the United States is cutting logistics costs by about 30 percent as it no longer needs to fly merchandise across the Pacific. Products can also be made and shipped to customers more quickly, Sjolseth said.

“The LED business involves a very compulsive buy, and the client can’t tolerate long lead times,” he said. “So if you’re not delivering in four to six weeks, it’s not going to happen. You’re going to lose the deal and they’re going somewhere else.”

Higher wages have not been a roadblock for the company because its automated factories mean that labor costs represent less than 2 percent of the cost to manufacture lighting.

“Are our labor costs higher in the U.S. versus China? Yes, but in our case the total cost to produce our U.S. units is lower when all factors are calculated,” said Sjolseth. The company today makes 20 percent of its products in the United States, a number it aims to push to 75 percent by the end of next year.

NARROWING COST GAP

The falling share of wages in total costs also played a role in a new battery plant opened by General Electric in Schenectady, New York, this month.

“With all the manufacturing technology we have, labor is a relatively small component” of costs, said GE’s chief executive, Jeff Immelt. “That’s different today than it was 10 years ago.”

The new plant will employ 450 people, a slice of the 14,500 positions the largest U.S. conglomerate has added since 2009. It employs 301,000 people worldwide and 131,000 in the United States.

The plant is highly automated, with high-tech machines processing the ceramic forms that surround the batteries. Some processes are still done by hand; during a recent tour of the site, workers were applying a layer of carbon paint to the cells with paint brushes.

The hand-painting is a technique that GE researchers used in developing the batteries, and it remains a more reliable approach than applying the carbon by machine, said Prescott Logan, general manager of GE’s newly formed energy storage technologies unit. But GE is working on a way to reliably automate the process.

“There are a lot of parts of that factory that will look very different five years from now,” Logan said.

Rising wages in emerging markets and higher shipping costs are also closing the cost gap between developing markets and the United States.

In 2005 it cost 45 percent less to make electric motors for automobile windshield wipers in China and ship them to the United States, rather than make them domestically, according to an analysis by AlixPartners.

Today, the Chinese motor costs only 18 percent less than a U.S.-made model. The consultancy forecasts that by 2015 the Chinese motor will cost just 9 percent less, due to rising wages and shipping costs and an appreciation in the Chinese yuan versus the U.S. dollar.

The study also looked at costs for motors made in India and Mexico and found they had risen, though not as dramatically as in China.

“If you go back to the heyday of outsourc
ing to
China, at that time with the exchange rates and the ocean freight it was pretty hard to go wrong from a cost standpoint,” said Steve Maurer, a managing director at AlixPartners who specializes in manufacturing efficiency.

“Now that costs in China are increasing … people are stepping back and saying, ‘We need to reevaluate this.'”
Source: REUTERS
(Editing by Patricia Kranz and Leslie Adler)  

Cargill Recalls Ground Beef After Link to Salmonella

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Ground Beef Recalled

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By STEPHANIE STROM
Published: July 23, 2012
A unit of the giant agribusiness Cargill is recalling about 29,300 pounds of ground beef produced in late May, after it was linked to several cases of salmonella poisoning last month. 
So far, the only retailer known to have sold the contaminated beef is Hannaford Supermarkets, which operates about 180 grocery stores in Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. (List of stores where ground beef was recalled)

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

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PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Falco for The New York Times

Displays at Home Depot and other stores offer quick lessons in home projects. But they may also be a sign that mastering tools and working with one’s hands are receding as American cultural values. 

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By LOUIS UCHITELLE
Published: July 21, 2012NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. 
The scene inside the Home Depot on Weyman Avenue here would give the old-time American craftsman pause. 

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PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Falco for The New York Times

In Aisle 34 is precut vinyl flooring, the glue already in place. In Aisle 26 are prefab windows. Stacked near the checkout counters, and as colorful as a Fisher-Price toy, is a not-so-serious-looking power tool: a battery-operated saw-and-drill combo. And if you don’t want to be your own handyman, head to Aisle 23 or Aisle 35, where a help desk will arrange for an installer. 

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. 

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.”

The Factory Factor: Why Outsourcing and 'Made in America' Could Decide this Election

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07/20/2012  
Scott Paul
Executive Director, Alliance for American Manufacturing

American manufacturing is like apple pie to American voters: we love it and want more of it regardless of our politics, race, gender, income, or hometown. If you live in a swing state like Ohio, you already know that, because both presidential candidates have flooded the airwaves with ads labeling the other guy as the “outsourcer-in-chief.” 
Beneath the recent accusations and counter-accusations on outsourcing, there is a simple truth: citizens believe manufacturing is central to our nation’s economic health, that America is in economic decline, that outsourcing to China is largely responsible for this condition, and they want their elected leaders to do something bold about it.

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. 

Source: The Huffington Post
Follow Scott Paul on Twitter: @ScottPaulAAM 

Made in America: States and Businesses Can Restore American Manufacturing

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07/23/2012 
Haley Barbour and Terry McAuliffe
for The Huffington Post
At a time when all eyes seem directed at Washington for job creation solutions, businesses and state governments have been quietly taking the lead. Instead of waiting for a one-size-fits-all federal solution, they’re working together to pursue a comprehensive strategy for job creation that focuses on putting aside our differences and working together to create jobs in America. 
Our efforts start with bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States. The U.S. has lost more than 50,000 manufacturing facilities in the last decade and a half. We invent products here, but send the production jobs to Asia. The cycle adds to our trade deficit and speeds the disintegration of manufacturing, which has been the backbone of the American economy since the industrial revolution. The decline of manufacturing has wide repercussions beyond finances; it affects our communities, our education system, our national security and our global standing. When we fail to make things, we’re losing more than jobs. We’re losing a piece of our American identity.

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

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By ANTHONY CASTELLANO | Good Morning America  
A lone gunman dressed in riot gear burst into a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., at a midnight showing of the Batman film “The Dark Knight Rises” and methodically began shooting patrons, killing at least 12 people and injuring at least 50. 
The suspect, James Holmes, 24, of Aurora, was caught by police in the parking lot of the Century 16 Movie Theaters, nine miles outside Denver, after police began receiving dozens of 911 calls at 12:39 a.m. MT. Police said the man appeared to have acted alone.

Witnesses 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'

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By Ramsey Cox – 07/19/12 01:15 PM ET
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) called Democrats’ Bring Jobs Home Act “misleading” and “political.”

“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.”

The Bring Jobs Home Act — being voted on at 2:15 p.m. — would create 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.

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

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WWD Issue 07/20/2012
By DAVID LIPKE and CATHERINE BLANCHARD 
JUST SAY NYET: Russian dressing in the USA? Not exactly.
As Ralph Lauren licked its public relations wounds this past week after it was revealed that its official U.S. Olympics uniforms were made in China, Dov Charney managed to ride the jingoistic hubbub into some positive press via a story in the New York Post that reported Russia was considering making its 2014 Olympic uniforms in Charney’s American Apparel factory in sunny California. The rich irony was easy to grasp and the story spread as quickly as cheap offshore outsourcing in the Nineties. Diane Sawyer’s “World News Tonight” program on ABC — which first sparked the Ralph Lauren brouhaha on its July 11 newscast — obliquely invoked the Post story during a follow-up segment on July 16. “In a twist, we learned today that Team Russia also wants to wear Made in America in 2014. The Russians say they prefer American-made clothes,” Sawyer told her millions of viewers.

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

The Made in America Movement would like to apologize for distributing false information to our loyal readers in our article: Russian Olympians Will Wear Uniforms Made By American Brand originally picked up from Forbes: The Olympic Apparel Sourcing Controversy 
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'

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U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 112th Congress – 2nd Session
as 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

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By Ramsey Cox – 07/19/12 02:39 PM ET 
Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked an “insourcing” bill from Democrats that would have ended tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas.

The 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. 

Earlier in the week, Republicans also blocked the Disclose Act, which would have required the disclosure of campaign contributions of more than $10,000.

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

President Obama voiced his support of the bill.  Read press release here.
You may find Ramsey Cox original article here.  The Hill

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