[Updated March 20; see below] Is Boeing’s bulging backlog a figurative block of Swiss cheese, full of holes? It isn’t if Boeing’s own figures are reliable. The excess of orders over deliveries at the end of February 2012 reached more than 4,000 (data and chart updated March 18). Simple math [continue reading . . . ]
I think a lot about China these days. For nearly a year, a copy of the USA weekly edition of the China Daily, the official newspaper of China’s communist party, has landed on my doorstep every Friday, unbidden. It is a sample, probably related to my Wall Street Journal subscription. [continue reading . . . ]
The Tea Party? Not for me, thanks. But I am outraged as the next person by abuse of public trust. How about a $300,000 luxury party boat purchased by the good folks at NOAA. Or a Snohomish County executive who traveled widely with his mistress on the public dime (see [continue reading . . . ]
[updated Feb. 25, see below] Is the U.S. economy finally out of the woods? Stock investors seem to think so. The time-honored (but relatively narrow) Dow Jones average of 30 industrial stocks is up by more than 14% since Nov. 25. The much broader Standard and Poor’s 500, covering America’s [continue reading . . . ]
“My idea of a good conversation is to find someone who will listen to me.” I’m not sure of the provenance. I’ve seen it attributed to George Bernard Shaw, but it also sounds like Mark Twain. If you know, help me out. The quote gives me an excuse to say that [continue reading . . . ]
Apple employs about 41,000 people in the United States. But virtually all of the parts for iPhones, iPads, iPods and other products are manufactured offshore — mainly in Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Germany. And assembly is almost entirely in China, in regimented compounds operated by Apple’s suppliers. Thousands of workers, [continue reading . . . ]
Press reports (see this one in the Seattle Times) say Democratic legislators in Olympia are promoting the formation of a taxpayer-owned bank. Makes me wonder if the effort to legalize pot has burrowed its way a little too deeply into hallowed halls in Olympia. Hasn’t Olympia got enough on its [continue reading . . . ]
As I mentioned on KUOW’s Weekday program today, I was delighted to read in today’s Financial Times* that manufacturing employment has grown faster in the U.S. during this recovery than in any other advanced country. From January 2010, employment in U.S. factories has risen by 2.9% to nearly 11.8 million [continue reading . . . ]
What do demonstrators in the streets of American cities have in common with Molotov-cocktail-hurling anti-austerity demonstrators in the streets of Athens? They are both reflections of the fact that things have changed permanently since the rich-world financial melt-down that began in the spring of 2007 with the failure of two [continue reading . . . ]
Gas at $4.00 a gallon? Gold at nearly $1,800? One of the reasons is that the value of the U.S. dollar has fallen by 38% in a decade, measured against the currencies of major trading partners. The collapse of the dollar to 97-lb. weakling status has been a drag if [continue reading . . . ]
Is Social Security a Ponzi scheme, as Texas Gov. and GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry labeled it during the GOP candidates’ debate Sept. 7? The answer is “No.” Charles Ponzi gave money collected from early suckers attracted by phony promises of high returns to new suckers after taking a cut. [continue reading . . . ]
The Swiss National Bank’s surprise decision Tuesday to try to prevent the Swiss franc from rising beyond SF1.20 to the Euro may well turn out to be a key miles-marker on the road to a global depression. The Swiss franc had become one of two leading refuges for investors seeking [continue reading . . . ]