Free Republic

CELINA, Ohio — There were hard feelings, to be sure. And lessons. When Huffy Corp.’s bicycle plant left Celina in 1998 and went the route of so many other American manufacturers — first to nonunion labor, then overseas — the good-natured officials in this farm town turned unusually blunt. “I resent them,” then-Mayor Craig Klopfleisch told reporters after Huffy rebuffed the government’s $14 million incentive package to stay. “They have said they are done with us, so maybe it’s time to say we are done with them.” Huffy’s departure nearly tripled Mercer County’s unemployment rate — from 3.5 percent to...

Laid-off factory worker Ruth Schumacher rises before the sun most days and earns $7 per hour tending the breakfast bar at a Holiday Inn in Celina, Ohio. She would like to set out a tip jar for the occasional dollar, but management forbids it. After work, she occasionally goes next door to shop at Wal-Mart or at Kmart one town away. “They’ve got real good bargains,” she said of Wal-Mart, echoing a generation of thrifty shoppers. Never mind that Wal-Mart is a major reason Schumacher no longer has a $12-per-hour job at Huffy Corp.’s bicycle plant. Five years ago, Wal-Mart...

Steel price increases and healthy corporate revenues during the first two quarters of 2004 are slowly translating into jobs. The steel industry turned out in force last week for the annual Steel Success Strategies conference in New York City. The number of participants jumped to more than 1,000 from 600 in 2003, when the industry appeared to be stagnating. Although it continued to founder for the first several months following the June event in 2003, the steel business picked up steam as it neared the end of 2003 and roared into the new year. As higher consumption brought increased orders...

It was a good year for the stock market, but it was a very, very good year for the executives of Wall Street financial houses. Combined pay for 10 top executives at New York City's brokerage and financial firms was up a striking 68.3 percent in 2003 over the previous year as the leading men -- yes, they are all men -- took home more than $231 million, a review of corporate filings shows. Citigroup Inc.'s new chief executive, Charles Prince, could argue that he deserved a bump up after being promoted last year. But even excluding Prince's package, pay...

FBI files documenting Sen. John Kerry's anti-war activities that were reported stolen over the weekend could have damaged the likely Democratic nominee's presidential bid, the San Francisco author who obtained the records said Monday. Asked about the missing files, Vietnam War historian Gerald Nicosia told CNN: "This stuff is very explosive. It's an enormous amount of information." "The police say it was a neat and professional burglary," he explained, noting that 3,000 to 4,000 pages were missing out of a total of 20,000 pages. Burglars ignored other valuables in the house, raising questions about whether the break-in had anything to...

Portions of a collection of FBI files that included records documenting Sen. John Kerry's attendance at a 1971 anti-war meeting where a plot to assassinate U.S. senators was discussed have been stolen, with the files' owner reporting the theft to police on Friday. Nicosia, author of the book "Home to War," which details the activities of the Kerry-led group Vietnam Veterans Against the War, produced the files last week to counter claims from the Kerry campaign that he wasn't present for a VVAW meeting where the assassination plot was voted on.

Do these eggheads/bureaucrats really know which end is up? This is just a link to a short abstract of the article --- these folks must not care for having many actual readers of their articles, it is a subscriber site, and you can get a one-day pass for $25 (just shows that they don't know reality), but here is the abstract anyway: AeA Blames Economy, Not 'Outsourcing,' For Job Losses Job loss in the United States is more attributable to a weak economy and productivity increases than the "outsourcing" of jobs to other countries, according to a report from the...

On the way out Outsourcing of U.S. jobs strikes chord with Board of Economists. BY SUSAN ERLER Times Business Writer When 20 high-tech workers were pink-slipped last month at Ispat Inland Inc., Tom Hargrove was struck by the irony. President of Local 1010 of the USWA, Hargrove had seen U.S. manufacturing jobs decline at astronomical rates, many of them lost to lower-paid workers in other countries. The Ispat/Inland information technology workers were told their jobs had been contracted to a firm in India, and they'd have to help train their replacements. Outsourcing abroad had hit home

In reality, the corporate office is the only group that sees offshore outsourcing as a clear benefit—it has measurably positive bottom-line impact. At the worker level, though, the subject is far more likely to make some people jittery, as IT employees equate jobs moving overseas with their job going away for good. Also, the practice of outsourcing to countries such as India, the Philippines, and others is certainly a fat target for labor groups, whose primary mission is guarding the jobs of American workers. Increasingly, offshore outsourcing is also becoming an issue at the governmental level. Even as the federal...

The House yesterday passed a bill that seeks to limit fraudulent use of consular I.D. cards, such as the ones Mexico issues, which the FBI has said are unreliable and a threat to U.S. security.

Indiana on Tuesday became one of the few states to accept a controversial Mexican identification card, one seen by some as helpful to immigrants but criticized by others as a tool for fraud. Gov. Frank O'Bannon said state agencies will recognize the matricula consular as valid identification for Mexican nationals living in the state. The government IDs enable Mexican immigrants to perform such tasks as opening bank accounts, getting driver's licenses, enrolling children in schools and turning on utilities in many parts of the country. The state's recognition of the card, which can be issued to Mexicans regardless of their...