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  • Coming attractions

    A certain “dark” movie is lighting up movie screens this weekend, reportedly earning $67 million in its first day of showings. Our expectations are bit less than that, and also a bit brighter, we hope. We’ve introduced a new venture we believe regular...
    07-19-2008, 9:48 PM by REB to REB Blog
  • Show me another

    There is a journalistic truism that one incident is not necessarily news, and two may be a coincidence, but three similar developments indicate a trend. If a liquor store gets robbed on Friday, no news. If another one gets hit on Saturday, that’s not...
    07-13-2008, 9:44 PM by REB to REB Blog
  • Workers of the world unite

    Keeping political issues out of my published opinions is a constant objective for me, and yet sometimes a subject emerges and the politics of it are just too glaring to overlook. “The United Steelworkers, North America's largest private sector union,...
    07-03-2008, 11:58 AM by REB to REB Blog
  • Crisis mentality

    What puzzles me about the ongoing energy “crisis” is that anyone should be surprised by it – or that there should be any doubt about how to resolve it. To begin, calling it a “crisis” is questionable, because there is no apparent shortage of energy: there...
    06-25-2008, 8:29 PM by REB to REB Blog
  • Another piece of the puzzle

    Someday, the auto industry will be thriving again – designing and building exciting products, and selling lots of them. Until then, we get to watch them grope and stumble their way through reengineering, reorganization, and re-identifying themselves....
    06-18-2008, 3:28 PM by REB to REB Blog
  • Why the long face?

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is crowing this week about a settlement it “reached” with a gray iron foundry, involving a comparatively small fine (easy for me to say; I don’t have to pay it) but a notable development in regulatory policy for...
    06-13-2008, 1:02 PM by REB to REB Blog
  • Is this any way to run a supply chain?

    The demise of Lunt Manufacturing isn’t news — it was announced earlier this year ; in fact, in April the magnesium diecaster was swept up by a private-equity outfit that plans to consolidate it into its Contech group of light-metal automotive diecasters....
    06-06-2008, 9:45 AM by REB to REB Blog
  • Inconvenient truths

    A few weeks ago I described a presentation by well-respected environmental specialist at work in the domestic metalcasting industry. He outlined the ongoing agendas of the current Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency, and the gloom this portends...
    05-30-2008, 12:25 PM by REB to REB Blog
  • Coal hard truth

    There was a lot of excitement and enthusiasm at CastExpo ’08 in Atlanta last week. No surprise there: metalcasters enjoy each others’ company, and the agenda is always filled with award ceremonies and other celebrations. But, now that the show is over...
    05-23-2008, 9:12 AM by REB to REB Blog
  • None of our business?

    About 15 years ago a major engineering firm developed an alternative ironmaking technology that was supposed to help steelmakers overcome the inherent costs and liabilities of their front-end processes. It would have allowed electric furnace operators...
    05-15-2008, 10:12 AM by REB to REB Blog
  • Just tell us what you want

    Last year General Electric made a big deal about its “green” efforts, with a week’s worth of stunts like turning out the lights on its NFL pregame show. BP’s commercials might have you thinking the oil company is actually out “cleaning” the environment....
    05-09-2008, 11:41 AM by REB to REB Blog
  • Worlds apart

    Just because I took some criticism earlier this year for predicting there would be no recession in the U.S. economy, I want to point out that the latest economic data proves I’m still correct, and everyone panicking about a recession is still wrong. Of...
    05-01-2008, 3:59 PM by REB to REB Blog
  • The "Honor" roll-out; plus, more research

    Candidates for high office typically emphasize their career achievements, and that counts for a lot. But it’s almost always the character of candidates that separates a winner from a runner-up. There’s probably some extra-human logic to that, like the...
    04-27-2008, 9:34 PM by REB to REB Blog
  • Good news, bad trends

    Last week the American Foundry Society made an announcement that seemed to settle the whole declining-currency-rising-manufacturing-revenues conundrum. The question, to be brief, is this: can U.S. manufacturers succeed when the U.S. dollar falls in value?...
    04-23-2008, 9:36 PM by REB to REB Blog
  • The start of something small

    Exactly why I have always been skeptical about the industrial potential of nanotechnology, I cannot say. I heard the first serious discussions about it a decade or so ago – and at that time the emphasis seemed to be on “nanomanufacturing,” i.e., the idea...
    04-17-2008, 8:19 AM by REB to REB Blog
  • Five-Ring Circus

    After all I’ve written about China and its human and civil rights violations, why shouldn’t I offer an opinion about the sudden Olympics controversy? To recap, this week’s Olympic torch relays across Europe and North and South America have been disrupted...
    04-13-2008, 10:28 AM by REB to REB Blog
  • Going where the customers are

    The Society of Automotive Engineers will be meeting in Detroit this week and I won’t be there, so perhaps I shouldn’t be too quick to make the following criticism. But here goes: I got an announcement from Intermet Corp. , detailing the products they’ll...
    04-10-2008, 4:26 PM by REB to REB Blog
  • No tolerance for failure

    Whether or not the Federal Reserve has done the right thing in fostering the sale of Bear Stearns is becoming a great debate of our times, a sort of template in which to measure one’s economic sensibilities. My opinion is that the Fed did the wrong thing,...
    04-04-2008, 6:11 AM by REB to REB Blog
  • We are not alone, and other observations

    Last year when our website designers began to pitch me the idea of starting a “blog” I was skeptical, and uneasy. I doubted many people cared what I was thinking about in the weeks between issues of FM&T , or what I was reading, or what I thought...
    03-31-2008, 10:07 AM by REB to REB Blog
  • China cracks down

    One of the frequent, and frequently accurate, criticisms of China’s brand of capitalism is that its governing and regulating bodies are hypocritical: ministries pledge to enforce export quotas, or labor standards, or pollution control measures, and yet...
    03-27-2008, 3:40 PM by REB to REB Blog
  • Giving up without a fight

    An expert on air-quality issues for the metalcasting industry, and manufacturing in general, made a presentation earlier this week about the state of play in the arena of environmental regulations. Jim Schifo of Keramida Environmental Inc. spoke to the...
    03-20-2008, 10:21 PM by REB to REB Blog
  • Get me research!

    A number of research studies have been sent to me in recent weeks, and each one of them may have some value for various readers; I think they offer a more interesting outlook of the coming years when considered together. So: • Aluminum castings and magnesium...
    03-16-2008, 10:49 PM by REB to REB Blog
  • The experiment is over

    Chrysler Corp. is planning a two-week shutdown in July, to create "efficiency across organizational lines and boost productivity." The automaker has been in restructuring mode for more than a year, so that explanation is a bit unsatisfying. The fact that...
    03-13-2008, 11:26 PM by REB to REB Blog
  • Striking it big

    When the United Autoworkers union initiated a strike at five American Axle & Manufacturing plants February 26, there was little indication of the impact 3,650 workers might have on the automotive industry — and General Motors in particular. One early...
    03-06-2008, 2:16 PM by REB to REB Blog
  • Smoking out offenders, and other observatons

    Pacific Cast Technologies, an investment caster in Albany, OR, has banned tobacco use on its premises. It’s not the first company to do this, and it won’t be the last. “We no longer allow tobacco use of any kind in our facility, neither in the plant,...
    03-02-2008, 10:12 PM by REB to REB Blog
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