Free Republic

There’s a ton of stories about the ships waiting off shore to unload their cargo and ho this is causing a ‘supply chain crisis’ We don’t have a supply chain crisis... we have a manufacturing crisis. The problem isn’t that we aren’t able to unload the ships fast enough. The real problem is that we don’t make anything here and we have to import almost everything. ... Our policies should be geared toward energy independence, homegrown supply chain resiliency (make it here), and sound fiscal policy with an eye towards restraint instead of buying votes and bankrupting our coiuntry.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday struck back at US President Donald Trump’s repeated complaints over the US trade deficit. Merkel pointed out the United States actually runs a significant account surplus with Europe if one factors services into the equation. She went on to say that the current accounting systems for global trade needed to be updated to also take services into account. “Trade surpluses are calculated in a relatively old-fashioned way nowadays,” she told an audience of businessmen at the Christian Democratic Union’s Economic Council Conference in Berlin. “If services are included in the trade balance, then the...

Between 20% and 25% of the nation’s shopping malls will close in the next five years, according to a new report from Credit Suisse that predicts e-commerce will continue to pull shoppers away from bricks-and-mortar retailers. For many, the Wall Street firm’s finding may come as no surprise. Long-standing retailers are dying off as shoppers’ habits shift online. Credit Suisse expects apparel sales to represent 35% of all e-commerce by 2030, up from 17% today. Traditional mall anchors, such as Macy’s, J.C. Penney and Sears, have announced numerous store closings in recent months. Clothiers including American Apparel, Bebe and BCBG...

The United States lost 29,000 manufacturing jobs in March while gaining jobs in retail trade, food services and drinking establishments, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. During the month, jobs in the retail industry in the United States outnumbered jobs in manufacturing by 3,651,100. In February, according to seasonally adjusted data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in the manufacturing sector was 12,320,000. In March, that dropped to 12,291,000. …

Get ready for the next era in retail—one that will be characterized by far fewer shops and smaller stores. On Tuesday, Sears said that it will shutter its flagship store in downtown Chicago in April. It's the latest of about 300 store closures in the U.S. that Sears has made since 2010. The news follows announcements earlier this month of multiple store closings from major department stores J.C. Penney and Macy's. Further signs of cuts in the industry came Wednesday, when Target said that it will eliminate 475 jobs worldwide, including some at its Minnesota headquarters, and not fill 700...

Copper Telling You China Much Worse Off Than You Think? Published: Wednesday, 28 Sep 2011 By: Lee Brodie In a volatile market like this one, you can’t afford not to examine every development. And this one isn’t good. In fact, if you’re bullish it’s kind of a one – two punch to the gut. On Wednesday, materials [XLB 30.451 -1.409 (-4.42%) ] led the market lower as investors worried the crisis in Europe could catapult the world into global recession. Considering materials propelled the market to bull market highs earlier in the year, the poor action in this sector is...

It's not the output. It's the people. Our output could be the sky's the limit; but if large segments of the population are idle or do not feel as if they are contributing, it will change the nature of our population, the way we think and how we engage the world.I would worry less about not having enough steel than I would about not having enough steel-workers, if you get my drift. I rather like people who can do things, being as my family includes railroad car-greaser, steelworkers, canal boater, stone masons, bricklayer, blacksmith, cooks, master printers, and the like....

Charlotte, N.C. - One thing the financial crisis shows is that the United States is in trouble because Americans have stopped making stuff. It used to be that we made a lot of stuff: televisions, clothes, washing machines, radios, typewriters, shoes, telephones, and furniture. And we also used to make the stuff out of which stuff was made: steel, aluminum, plastic, rubber, glass, and electrical components. Today that's largely made overseas. They send us their stuff and we send them our money. It also used to be that Americans liked to make stuff. Think of all the things Thomas Edison...

An old boss of mine was fond of saying, "There are few things in life more tragic than to see your beautiful theories murdered by a gang of brutal facts," usually when I approached him with a hare brained idea about turning one of our manufacturing systems inside out. It seems to me that if the national and global thinkers would take their grand economic theories about service economies and knowledge economies and the global marketplace out into the communities where Americans actually live and work, the carnage they would see from having their grandiose theories slaughtered left and right...

'Offshoring' picks up steam By MARILYN GEEWAX The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 05/17/04 ORLANDO — The "offshoring" of U.S. service jobs to low-wage countries is growing faster than previously thought, a leading research firm reported Monday. Forrester Research Inc., a technology trend analysis firm, estimates that 830,000 U.S. service jobs will be lost by 2005, a 40 percent increase from a projection of 588,000 jobs it made in November 2002. "It's happening more quickly than we anticipated" because employers are finding they can significantly reduce labor costs by sending jobs to low-wage countries, particularly India, Forrester Vice President Stephanie Moore...