Review of New Car and Luxury Car Picture

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

MN Has A Shortage of Skilled Manufacturing Workers. Maybe That's a Good Problem To Have

ST. PAUL, MN - "Nearly half of Minnesota manufacturers responding to a survey say they haven't filled positions because they lack qualified job candidates, according to a new study by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).

"State manufacturers have openings, but Minnesotans who are looking for work often don't have the right skills to fill them," said DEED Commissioner Mark Phillips. "As we observe Minnesota Manufacturers Week, it's a good time to stress the importance of aligning manufacturers' needs with workforce training."

The biggest shortages were found in skilled production (58 percent of those responding), followed by jobs for scientists and engineers (40 percent of respondents). Shortages were not as severe for jobs in low-skilled production, management and administration, and customer service."

MP: With more and more manufacturing production returning to the U.S. through "reshoring," it's possible we'll see more of these shortages of skilled manufacturing workers, and maybe that's a good problem to have. It will certainly create lots of opportunities for community colleges and other programs to provide the necessary worker training, and lots of opportunities for Americans to pursue careers in manufacturing during the pending "renaissance of U.S. manufacturing."

Markets in Everything: Boomtown Strippers Make $2k/Night in ND, "We Make More Than Doctors"

WILLISTON, N.D. (CNNMoney) -- "Forget Vegas. Strippers are discovering they can make ten times as much dancing in the oil boomtown of Williston, N.D.

Kit, a 36-year old stripper who has been dancing for 10 years in places like Las Vegas, Texas and California, first started coming to Williston a few years ago in between higher-paying jobs, because she had friends who danced in the town who were able to hook her up with gigs.

At first, the nightly tips were nothing special, but over the past year -- thanks to the thousands of men who have flocked here and landed high-paying jobs -- she has been making $2,000 to $3,000 a night, about the same amount she would have earned in an entire week in Vegas."We make more than doctors," she said. "Back in the day, it was hard to make $200 a night. It was like pulling teeth. Now you can pull in $2,000 a night."

Even when it's slow, they still take home about $1,500."

Really Scary Facts of the Day

1. "The GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) and FHA bought or guaranteed 95% of all new mortgages in fiscal year 2011! Mind blowing numbers compared to when 40% market share was seen as high in the early 2000s."

2. "Here are the current GSE bailout numbers:

Fannie Mae: $103.8 billion received from the Treasury
Freddie Mac: $65.2 billion received from the Treasury
Total: $169 billion in taxpayer money to bailout mortgage investors via the GSEs

And those numbers should be going up again next month. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that we are likely to see $51 billion more losses for the GSEs over the next 10 years."

~Reason Foundation

Beware of Media Selection Bias, Sensationalism

From an article by the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) at George Mason University titled "The Media's Gas Problem":

"What people often don’t realize is that the media framing of scientific studies incorporates the journalist’s own perspective, whether the journalist realizes it or not. A dramatic example is the recent appearance of two scientific studies on fracking that provide a natural experiment on media sensationalism.

Study One was critical of natural gas development; Study Two was supportive. How much coverage did each get in the mainstream media? The score:

Study One by Cornell University researchers: 24 big-city newspaper articles and an NPR appearance.

Study Two by Carnegie-Mellon researchers: Two newspaper articles, one of them in a story primarily about Study One.

The immediate takeaway from this story of dueling studies is that readers should be alert to the possibility that the media is emitting its own gas into this debate. The broader point is that the media’s treatment of scientific studies should be treated as a kind of rolling health scare, a structural imbalance based on a selection bias that is unlikely to change anytime soon."

Monday, October 24, 2011

Reshoring: Manufacturing is Coming Back to U.S.

Three examples:

1. "Globalization has come full circle at Otis Elevator. The U.S. manufacturer, whose elevators zip up and down structures as diverse as the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower, is moving production from Nogales, Mexico, to a new plant in South Carolina. More startling: Otis says the move will save it money."

2. "After having their products manufactured in China the past seven years, The Outdoor GreatRoom Company is bringing production back home to Minnesota."

3. "Not long ago, overseas plants produced half of Idaho-based Buck Knives’ output. Today they produce 25 percent. Buck Knives wants to keep moving production from China to Post Falls, Idaho over the next few years, company chairman Chuck Buck said. “I want to get out of China as quickly as I can,” he said.

Buck Knives is not the only Idaho company “reshoring” — the opposite of offshoring, and the buzz term for bringing jobs from abroad back to America. Ende Machinery and Foundry, owned by Ed Endebrock and his daughter Sue Edwards,has just started to make castings for a plant Endebrock owns in Lewiston that makes hydraulic pumps for trucks and other uses. He had been outsourcing that work to China."

Bakken Boom Spreads to Montana, South Dakota

1. "The North Dakota oil boom is spreading into Montana, bringing development opportunities for businesses stretching across both states, said Tom Rolfstad, executive director of economic development in Williston, N.D."

2. "South Dakota auctioned off some 67,000 acresof public land in Harding and Butte counties earlier this month — one of the largest oil based public land sales in the state's recent history. One hundred and eighty six of the 189 lots were scooped up by Bedrock Oil and Gas of Boerne, Texas. Could this mean the state is on the edge of a North Dakota-like oil boom?

At this point the most responsible answer is “maybe.” Bedrock Oil and Gas have chosen to keep their intentions to themselves at this point. But they certainly didn't buy all that land for a hunting ranch."