This week at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., 1,570 workers will vote on whether to join the United Auto Workers. It’s a big deal: While the big three American carmakers are all unionized, so far the foreign companies have avoided it by locating in Southern states with strong Right to Work laws. From their perspective, unions usually just mean work stoppages, expensive benefit plans, and the inability to fire people at will. That’s what’s weird about the VW vote: The German company is campaigning for the UAW, not against it, in a kind of employer-union partnership America has seldome seen. What gives? Well, VW is kind…
Author: Lloyd Graff
Diana O’Connor, a high school music teacher in Suburban Chicago, had the best of days and the worst last February. She recounted it in an excellent column by Mary Schmich in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune. O’Connor received a letter in the mail a year ago saying she was a finalist for the prestigious Golden Apple Award, which is given to a few of the best teachers in Illinois every year. Tucked into the same batch of mail was a letter from her school stating that she had been fired from her job at Lakes Community High School in Lake Villa. The column…
The State Dept.’s Keystone XL report found that the pipeline is unlikely to significantly add to global carbon emissions. But foes say the project still may not be in the ‘national interest.’ The US State Department has concluded that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline – the 875-mile long oil link from Alberta to the US Midwest and ultimately to Gulf Coast refineries – is unlikely to add significantly to global carbon emissions. The much-anticipated finding in the final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the pipeline, released Friday, thrilled energy producers and dealt a blow to environmentalists. They have long argued that the pipeline would supercharge development…
As far as long-term investments go, the renewable energy sector has a bright future Around the world, investment in renewable energy companies has fallen. According to a studyby Bloomberg, $254 billion was invested in renewable energy worldwide last year, a drop of 12 percent from 2012, which itself was a nine percent fall from a 2011 high of $318 billion. This is a rather strange development. As a group, solar companies were one of the best-performing investments of 2013. The renewable energy sector as a whole is booming, and solar capacity is growing at an immense rate. So why is investment falling? There seem to…
In Manhattan, the upscale clothing retailer Barneys will replace the bankrupt discounter Loehmann’s, whose Chelsea store closes in a few weeks. Across the country, Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants are struggling, while fine-dining chains like Capital Grille are thriving. And at General Electric, the increase in demand for high-end dishwashers and refrigerators dwarfs sales growth of mass-market models. As politicians and pundits in Washington continue to spar over whether economic inequality is in fact deepening, in corporate America there really is no debate at all. The post-recession reality is that the customer base for businesses that appeal to the…
This map, printed by the Merchants’ Association of New York in 1922, shows industrial activity in the city, as reported to the 1919 Census of Manufactures. The map was meant as a promotional tool—beige areas represent areas “available for industrial development”—and to boost the city’s profile in the larger business community. In the upper right-hand corner of the map, a box lists the “lines” (or types of manufactured goods) in which New York’s factories competed. In 1919, this list shows, New York produced more than 50 percent of total national output in 12 lines of manufacture, and was competitive in…
The over-under line on the length of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl by opera star turned pop singer, Renee Fleming, is 2 minutes 25 seconds. It’s the Super Bowl. Everything is a hustle. Denver by two. Earlier in the week, Pete Seeger, the wonderful American folk singer, died at 94. Could you ever imagine Pete (“If I Had a Hammer,” “Where Have All the Flowers Gone”) singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at The Meadowlands? Funny thing. I love the Super Bowl, with its $4 million a pop ads, and I love the old lefty guitar picker, Seeger. They are both my America,…
In the runup to this year’s State of the Union address, President Obama has been busy trying to fulfill pledges from last year’s. He went to Raleigh, N.C., to announce it would become a high-tech manufacturing hub to ensure that the U.S. attracts “the good, high-tech manufacturing jobs that a growing middle class requires.” The president is one of many politicians of both parties as well as pundits who think manufacturing deserves special treatment. But this factory obsession is based on flawed economics. As the Brookings Institute economist Justin Wolfers asked recently, “What’s with the political fetish for manufacturing? Are…
I’ve driven in a Tesla. It’s for real. If you are making parts for internal combustion engines, I am warning you – things are changing. Tesla means it when they tell us they are coming out with their BMW 3 Series competitor in 2017. They plan to price it between $30,000 and $35,000. They think they can sell as many as they can make. The Fremont, California, plant (San Francisco) may be able to ramp up to 500,000 units per year. Some people sneer when they see Tesla Motors stock valued higher than Nissan. Scoffers always doubt the real movers…
Imagine being able to lease a 3D printer to build your entire house. The technology, called Contour Crafting, is already here and can build a 2,500-square-foot home in 20 hours. The massive robot printer was invented by University of Southern California professor Behrokh Khoshnevis, who says that the technology is so versatile that it can be used to build homes in slums or human habitats on Mars. The technology is ideal for the world’s slums and areas destroyed by natural disasters, claims Khoshnevis, because the robot’s construction is cheaper, stronger, faster, safer and more eco-friendly than manual construction. Khoshnevis also says NASA is supportive…