Free Republic

Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook toured Southeast Asia last week, visiting Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore, as part of a multiday trip geared toward reducing Apple’s reliance on China as its central manufacturing hub. And while Apple isn’t looking to abandon China — Cook spent a number of days in the country just last month — the company is hedging against the potential for future manufacturing roadblocks in the region. At the same time, the company is slowly setting its sights on India as its next major growth opportunity now that China has become a more mature smartphone market. “Apple is...

he sight of Bill Boeing was a familiar one on the factory floor. His office was in the building next to the converted boatyard where workers lathed the wood, sewed the fabric wings, and fixed the control wires of the Boeing Model C airplane. there is no authority except facts. facts are obtained by accurate observation read a plaque affixed outside the door. And what could need closer observation than the process of his aircraft being built? One day in 1916, Boeing spotted an imperfectly cut wing rib, dropped it to the floor, and slowly stomped it to bits. “I,...

CLAYSBURG, Pa. (KDKA) -- A massive fire broke out at a lumber yard in Blair County on Monday night. The fire started at U.S. Lumber, a lumber yard and distribution center in Claysburg, around 20 miles south of Altoona. We're told that everyone got out safely. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Log onto Facebook. Before you know it, you’ll see ads from Temu or Wish, pitching cheap products. Or open your old email account, the one that you’ve had for years, so it gets the most spam. Every other message is an offer from some unknown store, selling the sort of thing in which a person like you just might be interested. Or log onto Amazon and look for something, anything at all. Twenty percent of the hits, maybe more, will be “sponsored” items, often from a brand you’ve never heard of. Of course, you can shut down the internet, close...

WEIRTON, West Virginia -- Most people in this town will tell you they'd rather have taken a physical punch to the gut than get the news they received yesterday when Cleveland-Cliffs Steel announced it was idling its tinplate production plant, a move that directly cost 900 people their jobs. .. It isn't just those workers who face catastrophic uncertainty; this closure also jeopardizes the jobs of thousands more people whose businesses supported the plant: the barber shops, gas stations, mom-and-pop grocery stores, the machine shops that make the widgets for the steel industry. And there's also the demise of the...

resident Biden's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently finalized an air quality rule that the manufacturing industry is warning could wipe out one million jobs and undermine efforts to build new manufacturing facilities in America. Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), is set to sound the alarm about the regulation in his annual state of manufacturing address on Thursday in Roseville, Michigan, according to an advance copy of his remarks provided to FOX Business. "In his State of the Union Address next month, President Biden will probably take credit for what manufacturers have achieved. That's...

Ford CEO Jim Farley suggested the company may have to rethink its “manufacturing footprint” in the United States after last year’s conflict with a worker’s union. Speaking at the Wolfe Research Global Auto Conference in New York on Thursday, Mr. Farley said that Ford always took pride in its relationship with United Auto Workers (UAW), according to the Associated Press. Since the 1970s, the company has not experienced any strikes involving the union. However, this relationship changed last year when Ford’s Louisville factory in Kentucky was shut down by the UAW. As the company seeks to transition to electric vehicles...

In an election year, candidates from both sides will generally declare that we need more domestic manufacturing, and they promise to make it happen. Different sides will propose different ways to accomplish it. Republicans will call for lower tax rates and lighter regulations; Democrats will call for open borders and higher punitive tariffs. Each side hates the other’s methods; nothing gets done. Does this really matter? There are economists, investment advisors, even politicians out there, who will say it doesn’t matter. They will say we need business, of course; but as long as there are transactions happening, that’s economic growth....

In an election year, candidates from both sides will generally declare that we need more domestic manufacturing, and they promise to make it happen. Different sides will propose different ways to accomplish it. Republicans will call for lower tax rates and lighter regulations; Democrats will call for open borders and higher punitive tariffs. Each side hates the other’s methods; nothing gets done. Does this really matter? There are economists, investment advisors, even politicians out there, who will say it doesn’t matter. They will say we need business, of course; but as long as there are transactions happening, that’s economic growth....

United States Chamber of Commerce CEO Suzanne Clark made a veiled attack against former President Donald Trump’s economic nationalist agenda, declaring that tariffs and reshoring America’s manufacturing base threaten the global economy.During Clark’s annual speech to big business late last week, the Chamber executive said Americans must embrace globalization and free trade rather than seek to reshore American jobs that have been lost to China and other foreign countries over the last three decades.Alone, the U.S. trade deficit with China since 2001 has eliminated nearly four million American jobs. Almost three million of these lost jobs, or about 75 percent,...

WILMERDING, Pennsylvania — By July of this year, the last man on the job here at the Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation will, in all likelihood, turn around as he reaches the threshold of the same front door hundreds of thousands of workers have passed through since the 1890s. For the last time, he will look out over the 300,000-square-foot plant that has provided this country with so much technology and innovation for nearly 140 years, and he will think about the men and women who went before, and then turn out the lights for the last time. This is...

An explosion at a chemical plant in Texas on Wednesday has prompted nearby communities to shelter in place as officials work to determine whether any chemicals were released into the air. The blast happened at Sound Resource Solutions along U.S. Highway 59 in Shepherd. The city in located in San Jacinto County about 60 miles northeast of Houston. One person suffered first-degree burns to the face and second-degree and third-degree burns to the arms, FOX26 Houston reported, citing a source. The individual was being treated at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center.

China’s economy seemed to perk up a bit in September. The country’s manufacturing index inched above 50, the dividing line between expansion and contraction. And that made the disappointing October numbers a surprise to many economists.An official gauge of China’s manufacturing activity unexpectedly fell into contraction after rising to expansion territory for one month in September, signaling renewed weakness in the sector.China’s official manufacturing purchasing managers index fell to 49.5 in October from 50.2 in September, the National Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday.This was seen as a sign that the recovery may take a while.“The unexpected decline of the manufacturing...

A Hornady plant in Nebraska had an explosion that resulted in one woman’s death and two others’ injuries. Hornady is a leading ammo cartridges, components, and handloading equipment manufacturer. 150,000 Square Foot Warehouse that produces BULLETS blew up in Nebraska, you’d think this would make the HEADLINES 🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐 https://t.co/PvhWW5Ql2N — The_Bayou_Boy (@_The_Bayou_Boy) October 15, 2023 The Grand Island Independent shares more on the explosion: A woman died and two men were injured in an explosion Friday morning at the Hornady Manufacturing plant west of Grand Island, according to Hall County Attorney Marty Klein. The explosion occurred in the chemical compound...

The Empire Strikes Out! Or “The March of Klaus Schwab and The World Economic Forum” According to the New York Federal Reserve, business activity edged lower in New York State, according to firms responding to the October 2023 Empire State Manufacturing Survey. The headline general business conditions index fell seven points to -4.6. New orders fell slightly, while shipments were little changed. Unfilled orders declined, and delivery times shortened. Inventories held steady. Labor market indicators pointed to a slight increase in both employment and the average workweek. The pace of input price increases was similar to last month, while selling...

DETROIT (AP) — A 46% pay raise. A 32-hour week with 40 hours of pay. A restoration of traditional pensions.The demands that a more combative United Auto Workers union has pressed on General Motors, Stellantis and Ford — demands that even the UAW’s own president calls “audacious” — are edging it closer to a strike when its contract ends Sept. 14.

The human rights organization Freedom House revealed in the latest update to its China Dissent Monitor on Wednesday that labor protests had more than doubled throughout China from the number documented in June 2022 to the same month in 2023. Guangdong province, a factory hub in the nation’s south, documented a notable surge in acts of anti-regime dissent compared to the rest of the country. Freedom House is a human rights research and advocacy group that documents political repression around the world. Its China Dissent Monitor, launched last year, documents incidents of dissent – protests, public expressions of opposition to...

One of the obvious lessons from the tide of the war in Ukraine is that globalist economics has defeated globalist interventionism.It is hard to be the arsenal of democracy if you can’t make anything anymore. The war in Ukraine has deranged many people — Michael Rubin, a lunatic and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wants to give Ukraine nukes — but it may also teach us some hard but necessary lessons. For instance, as the tides of war turn against Ukraine, it seems that globalist economics is defeating globalist foreign policy interventionism.Ukraine’s much-hyped summer offensive has been disappointing....

Bud Light's sales woes cause bottling plants to close. (Credit: WRAL News)The hits keep coming for Bud Light and its parent company Anheuser-Busch after their disastrous marketing partnership with transgender TikTok personality Dylan Mulvaney. Sales of the beer fell off a cliff, A-B has lost billions in market value, and Modelo has taken over as the number one brew in ‘Merica.There’s a human cost as well, as glass bottling company The Ardagh Group was forced to cut production and lay off nearly 650 employees due to lack of demand. The company didn’t directly tie the controversy to its decisions, but...

Dallas after (economic) midnight! Particularly after 5 consecutive months of negative readings. For the fifth straight month, the Dallas Fed’s Texas Manufacturing Outlook survey disappointed expectations, printing -23.2 vs -21.8 exp) and is negative for a fifth straight month. Source: Bloomberg Texas factory activity declined in June, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey. The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, fell three points to -4.2, a reading indicative of a slight contraction in output. Labor market measures suggest weaker employment growth and declining work hours. Price pressures evaporated, while wage pressures remained...