Harry E. Figgie Jr.

The Washington Post has a nice roundup of President Obama’s State of the Union address. The piece highlights Obama’s comments related to manufacturing. Proposed eliminating tax incentives that make it more attractive for companies to ship jobs overseas. The proposal would require American companies to pay a minimum tax on their overseas profits in order [...]

Trade unions have been screaming for years that the United States must “do something” about the dollar. That “something” means somehow “pressuring” the Chinese to allow their currency to appreciate, so that American exports become relatively more competitive. Dean Baker, writing at the Huffington Post, makes a version of this argument in his latest column. [...]

The top story of the year is one that we hope will be an even bigger story in 2012 and beyond – the Obama administration’s deployment of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) – “a national effort bringing together industry, universities, and the federal government to invest in the emerging technologies that will create high quality [...]

New America Foundation Economic Growth Program Director Sherle Schwenninger and Associate Director Samuel Sherraden break down the “America’s Jobs Act” and focus on the plan for a national infrastructure bank. They write: The most encouraging part of the president’s speech was the administration’s endorsement of a national infrastructure bank and in particular the Kerry-Hutchison BUILD [...]

Clyde Prestowitz, writing at Foreign Policy, explains that a manufacturing renaissance is both possible and necessary to achieve a “significant, stable, and lasting recovery.” Prestowitz points to a Booz & Company report on the Future of American Manufacturing. He writes production from an American base can be quite competitive except in only a relatively small [...]

Marc Levinson, writing in Foreign Affairs, explains how the Japanese earthquake and tsunami revealed the risks of sourcing key components from a single supplier – especially when that supplier is half way around the world. Levison suggests that major international companies may reverse the trend of the last several decades and seek to minimize risks [...]

This piece by Adriana Gardella in the New York Times profiles Taphandles, a company that produces beer marketing materials, which it then sells to breweries. The article, entitled “A Company Grows, and Builds a Plant Back in the U.S.A.,” explains that Taphandles, which employes 33 people in Seattle and 450 in China, signed a lease [...]

Happy Holidays to all of our readers! In the spirit of the season, we are highlighting 5 of the most important manufacturing stories of the year in the posts that follow. We hope you enjoy. – The Editors

The Institute for Supply Management-Milwaukee has calculated the October seasonally adjusted Production Manufacturing Index at 55. Any level above 50 indicates growth in the manufacturing sector. Here is the story in the Manufacturing Weekly. – The Editors

Wells Fargo published a report today on U.S. manufacturing. The report notes that while employment in the sector is down, technological and productivity improvements have led to output growth. This story of The Business Journal contains a link to the full report. – The Editors