Manufacturing & Technology News articles from April 2009

Manufacturing & Technology News archives from April 2009

DOD to the U.S. specialty metals industry: we don't need you.
April 17, 2009... The health and well being of the U.S. specialty metals industry is not important to the Department of Defense, according to DOD's Strategic Materials Protection Board. Specialty metals are no different to DOD than materials such as plastic,...

Manufacturing index falls to historic low.
April 17, 2009... "The already battered manufacturing base appears headed for further decline," says the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI in its quarterly survey and business outlook. The group's composite index that includes prospective shipments, exports, orders,...

Economists: the Great Depression is upon us.
April 17, 2009... "The world is currently undergoing an economic shock every bit as big as the Great Depression shock of 1929-1930," according to two university research professors in an analysis of the economic data comparing the two eras. The 2008-2009...

Census Bureau gets ready to throw money away.
April 17, 2009... The Census Bureau is in the economic recovery game. The agency is getting ready to shovel $1 billion out the door in an effort to help revive the U.S. economy. The agency will "invest" $250 million in an "outreach" program that hires thousands...

DOE's stimulus will be spent on its labs.
April 17, 2009... The Department of Energy is spending its portion of the $787-billion federal government's economic "stimulus" by parking $1.2 billion in the national laboratories. The DOE will spend $150 million to finish building the National Synchrotron...

Lithium battery alliance is in high gear.
April 17, 2009... The recently created National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Batteries (NAATBatt) has selected Kentucky to build a new manufacturing plant for lithium-ion batteries. The consortium of 55 companies, associations and research laboratories...

Unemployed exceed mfg. jobs.
April 17, 2009... There are now more people in the United States who are unemployed than are working in the manufacturing sector. With a total loss of 663,000 jobs throughout the economy in March (including 161,000 manufacturing jobs), the total number of...

Federal funding of university research & development, 2007.
April 17, 2009... The top 100 universities receiving federal funding for research, development and engineering accounted for 82 percent of all such outlays to universities in 2007, or $21 billion of the $25.4 billion provided, according to the National Science...

Wind Energy had a very good year.
April 17, 2009... Last year was a very good one for the U.S. wind energy industry. The industry added 8,558 megawatts of capacity (about eight nuclear power plant's worth of power), the best year ever for new additions. Total installed capacity in the United...

The end of the world as we know it.
April 17, 2009... It is stunning what is happening to the ice sheets and glaciers in Antarctica. Massive pieces of ice are disappearing and the velocity of the glaciers is increasing at a rate never before contemplated, according to the United States Geological...

Obama appoints his trade team.
April 17, 2009... The Obama administration has named its top trade official at the Department of Commerce. Francisco "Frank" Sanchez, nominated to be the undersecretary for International Trade, joins the administration from the firm of CMPartners, headquartered...

Defense industrial base is on the verge of major retrenchment.
April 17, 2009... The commercial industrial segments of the United States economy might be in a deep recession, but that's not the case for the large publicly traded companies in the defense sector. During the last quarter of 2008, revenue for the S&P 500 fell...

Obama's 'transparent' government.
April 17, 2009... So you heard the news that the White House has provided the public with the financial disclosure forms of its top staff members. Now you would like to view those forms. Good luck. The forms are not available to the general public. To view...

Michigan think tank says manufacturing will never return and the state must re-think its future.
April 17, 2009... The State of Michigan has to abandon the idea that manufacturing will some day make it prosperous again, according an organization called Michigan Future Inc. With the current downturn, it has now become clear that the majority of jobs being...

Govt. stimulus masks long-term economic decline and leads to loss of U.S. sovereignty.
April 30, 2009... The United States economy will soon be facing a more severe crisis due to the Obama administration's spending splurge that is harming America's long-term prosperity. Obama's policies are focused on fixing a cyclical housing market downturn, and...

Nuclear industry revival offers manufacturers a potential market.
April 30, 2009... The nuclear power industry is on the cusp of a "renaissance." American electric utilities have submitted applications with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build 26 new nuclear units. They have also indicated that they will submit...

RFID did not catch fire as once expected.
April 30, 2009... The global market for radio frequency ID (RFID) tags is growing slowly. The value of RFID shipments is expected to be $5.56 billion in 2009, up from $5.25 billion in 2008, according to the market research firm IDTechEx. The total number of tags...

Japanese auto makers reach purchasing plateau.
April 30, 2009... The U.S.-based manufacturing operations of Japanese automobile companies have stopped increasing their purchases of U.S.-made parts. Japanese implants purchased $50 billion in American-made parts in 2007, according to the Japanese Automobile...

U.S. auto industry has already cost taxpayers tens of billions.
April 30, 2009... The ailing U.S. automobile industry has already tapped the federal government for $36.4 billion in subsidies to keep it afloat, but the entire affair could end up costing the federal government a lot more, even as the companies go out of...

Government is ready for cap and trade.
April 30, 2009... The federal government's Commodities Futures Trading Commission is "ready for trading in carbon markets," says CFTC commissioner Bart Chiltron, who is chairman of the commission's Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee. "Our agency...

U.S. does not utilize benchmarking as a tool for economic development.
April 30, 2009... In March, Manufacturing & Technology News editor Richard McCormack was asked to testify before the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission on the subject of "China's Industrial Policy and its Impact on U.S. Companies,...

New trade representative, same speechwriter.
April 30, 2009... President Obama's new U.S. Trade Representative sounds a lot like the old U.S. Trade Representative. The quotes below are taken from current USTR Ron Kirk's April 23 speech at the Georgetown University Law Center; and from President Bush's USTR...

New record for mass layoffs.
April 30, 2009... It's gone from bad to worse for manufacturing workers. Manufacturing jobs constitute less than 9 percent of the U.S. labor force (12.3 million out of a workforce of 141 million), yet they accounted for 50 percent of the lost jobs involved in...