Manufacturing & Technology News articles from March 2007

Manufacturing & Technology News archives from March 2007

Court ruling spotlights Department of Labor's disregard for labor.
March 13, 2007... The Department of Labor routinely denies benefits to thousands of workers whose jobs have been lost to free trade, according to a scathing court ruling issued last year that received little notice. The agency's routine denial of benefits and...

Behind the sound bites of Republican Presidential hopeful Rep. Duncan Hunter.(Interview)
March 13, 2007... Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), a 2008 candidate for President of the United States, sounds like an anti-free trade populist these days. But he's got reason. As former chairman of the House Armed Services Committee he experienced first-hand the...

Bush budget eliminates Technology Administration.
March 13, 2007... The Bush administration has decided to shut down the Department of Commerce's Technology Administration (TA). The agency, which was created with great fanfare and high expectation during the last competitiveness challenge of the late 1980s, is...

New competition for tech grants?
March 13, 2007... A couple of weeks after the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology placed on its Web site an announcement about its intention to run a new competition for grants, the White House said don't count...

NIST director has a change of mind over recompeting Manufacturing Extension Ctrs.
March 13, 2007... The director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology has decided to cancel plans to hold a re-competition of its Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) centers. NIST director William Jeffrey's Feb. 15 announcement before a...

Commerce opens new office seeking foreign investors.
March 13, 2007... The Department of Commerce has created a new program aimed at attracting foreign investment in the United States. The Invest In America initiative, run by the International Trade Administration, will promote the United States as a destination...

Uncertainty greets Mexican truck decision.
March 13, 2007... The Department of Transportation's decision on Feb. 23 to allow 100 Mexican trucking companies to make deliveries beyond the current 20- to 25-mile commercial zones currently in place in the Southwest border drew immediate negative reaction...

Washington coalition will push for export control reforms.
March 13, 2007... A new coalition of eight major trade associations has been created to pressure the U.S. government to reform its export control system. The Coalition for Security and Competitiveness has called on President Bush to make major changes to the way...

Council on Competitiveness defends its Competitiveness Index, but commentator Paul Craig Roberts strikes back.
March 13, 2007... In a recent essay in Manufacturing & Technology News, (Feb. 6, 2007), Paul Craig Roberts takes issue with our new report, "Competitiveness Index: Where America StandsS," which the Council on Competitiveness produced in collaboration with Prof....

Council on Competitiveness defends its Competitiveness Index, but commentator Paul Craig Roberts strikes back.
March 13, 2007... It is the Council on Competitiveness that deals in myth. The myth is that Americans benefit from corporations offshoring American jobs. The Americans who benefit, as income data make clear, are the top executives and shareholders of...

Another year, another Fair currency bill.
March 13, 2007... The currency manipulation bills that went nowhere in the last Congress has been introduced again in both the House and the Senate. The "Fair Currency Act of 2007" (HR-782), sponsored by Reps. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) and Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) in...

And another view of the Competitiveness Index.
March 13, 2007... I have observed the positions taken by the Council on Competitiveness for 15 years, and believe the organization has done little to significantly change the competitiveness of our nation. The group has watched the elimination of entire...

Energy Department wants to streamline efficiency standards.
March 13, 2007... The Department of Energy has asked Congress to pass legislation allowing it to significantly speed up the process of creating mandatory energy efficiency standards "and ultimately bring more efficient products to market sooner," says the...

Personnel changes at NAM.
March 13, 2007... Michael Baroody, the number two man at the National Association of Manufacturers, will be leaving the organization to serve as chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission--so long as he's confirmed by the Senate. Baroody joined NAM in...

China to adopt tariffs on targeted industries.
March 13, 2007... The Chinese government is expected to raise its income tax rate on foreign companies and lower that paid by Chinese firms, according to a report in the China Daily, the official news service of the Chinese government. Right now, foreign...

Lots more $ needed for roads.
March 13, 2007... State, federal and local governments are spending a lot more on highways, but there isn't much to show for it, reports the U.S. Department of Transportation. Spending on construction of new roads needs to increase immediately by 87.4 percent in...

Bush decision on Chinese imports leads to loss of 500 very good jobs.
March 29, 2007... Thank you, President Bush, for killing 500 good-paying American jobs--the ones that earn between $50,000 and $60,000 a year--and allowing the United States to become dependent on China for many of the components used to transport fresh water...

If Paul Revere were alive today he'd be yelling: 'the Chinese are coming!'.(Interview)
March 29, 2007... The oldest manufacturing company in the United States, created by the legendary Paul Revere in 1801, is in trouble. Revere Copper has announced plans to close its New Bedford, Mass., copper plate and sheet mill, laying off 85 workers at a...

U.S. Steel CEO scolds NAM over trade issue; NAM says, 'we're listening'.
March 29, 2007... John Surma, the chairman and CEO of United States Steel Corp., isn't pleased with the way the National Association of Manufacturers is promoting its policy position on trade issues. In a March 19 letter to NAM president John Engler, a copy of...

China and India are not attracting U.S. companies because of better engineers.(DUKE UNIVERSITY: NO ENGINEER SHORTAGE IN THE UNITED STATES)
March 29, 2007... There are no shortages of engineers in the United States, according to a study by the Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering. "Graduating more engineers just because India and China graduate more than the United States does is likely to...

Economists: align currencies or face meltdown.
March 29, 2007... In order to avoid a global financial collapse caused by unsustainable U.S. trade deficits, governments throughout the world must work together immediately to start a "major" re-adjustment of currencies against the dollar, according to a...

Business is big spender in Washington.
March 29, 2007... Lobbying Washington policymakers was a $2.45-billion industry in 2006, according to an analysis of public disclosure forms done by the Center for Responsive Politics. "We can't even guess at how much these disclosure reports underestimate the...

U.S. producers are paying for the health care costs of foreign rivals.(U.S. TAX SYSTEM IS A MONUMENTAL BURDEN)
March 29, 2007... Foreign countries' use of value added taxes (VAT) as their primary source of government revenue is helping put the United States out of business, according to Brian O'Shaughnessy, CEO of Revere Copper, one of the oldest companies in the United...

ITA chief: U.S. needs to get in front of foreign investment.
March 29, 2007... Foreign direct investment into the United States took a giant leap last year, the biggest on record, growing by 67 percent, from $110 billion in 2005 to $184 billion in 2006, reports the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Reinvested earnings...

U.S. falls to seventh place in machine tool production.
March 29, 2007... China's consumption of machine tools surged by 20 percent to almost $13 billion last year, more than double the consumption of U.S. industry. U.S. consumption of machine tools increased by almost 5 percent last year to $6.3 billion, according...

Democrats release principles of a new trade agenda.
March 29, 2007... The Democratic leaders of the House Committee on Ways and Means have released a "new trade policy for America," a plan they say "incorporates changes to strengthen pending free trade agreements and regain bipartisan consensus" on trade. A...