March 2010 - Posts

• China chatter

  There’s been a lot of chatter in the past week about the value of the Chinese currency. Correct that: there’s been a lot of chatter in the past decade about the value of Chinese currency, and specifically it is charged that the rulers of that country Read More... Posted Tuesday, March 30, 2010 10:02 AM by REB | 0 Comments

• Drawing a line

  Numerous metalcasters will be sympathetic, if not entirely familiar, with the problem faced by Acra Cast Investment Castings in Bay City, MI: … In 2006, one the company’s neighbors – who had filed 23 previous lawsuits in the county – sued Acra Cast, … Read More... Posted Monday, March 22, 2010 8:47 PM by REB | 0 Comments

• The trend that’s your friend

  It would be easy to get ahead of last week’s announcement from Caterpillar , that it is studying plans to build new domestic production capacity for its hydraulic excavators, and call it a trend . Several reports have hailed this as an example of “re-shoring,” Read More... Posted Tuesday, March 16, 2010 9:13 AM by REB | 0 Comments

• Taking another whack at productivity

  “For a quarter-century,” write Alan Tonelson and Kevin L. Kearns in an op-ed published over the weekend in the New York Times , “American economic policy has assumed that the keys to durable national prosperity are deregulation, free trade and a swift Read More... Posted Tuesday, March 09, 2010 9:07 AM by REB | 0 Comments

• Out in public

  Today's Wall Street Journal report on private-equity investment in metalcasting companies treats the subject as though it were a new development, a trend. I don't know about that. It seems to me that I've written about private equity several times in Read More... Posted Thursday, March 04, 2010 9:44 AM by REB | 0 Comments

• Forced labor

  About two weeks ago the word came from General Motors that an investment program will begin soon to prepare three plants to produce the newest version of the Ecotec engines. It’s a $494-million project, and among the plants to be favored with that investment Read More... Posted Tuesday, March 02, 2010 10:41 AM by REB | 0 Comments