The Washington Post’s “America’s New Manufacturing: A Special Report” O
n April 23, Washington Post Live convened top elected officials, executives and innovators to discuss the new era of manufacturing in America. You can read excerpts – HERE
Some companies are bring their manufacturing plants back to the U.S. – so does this mean manufacturing in the U.S. is on the rise? Read More...
MANUFACTURERS’ GROWTH AGENDA A PATH TO FUTURE SUCCESS
The NAM has released A Growth Agenda: Four Goals for a Manufacturing Resurgence in America, which sets a roadmap for economic growth and enhanced competitiveness for manufacturers. This plan is a benchmark for policymakers and a proven, achievable list of goals that will get the U.S. economy moving again.
Matthew Lavoie
NAM President Says Manufacturing and U.S. Economy Are at a Precipice Read More...
From the outbox of Meyer’s inbox:
What would you do with an extra 2.9 billion dollars in your savings account? That’s the question facing our government as the Treasury Department reports on a budget surplus that came in for the month of January. This means we collected more money than we spent and that’s a good thing. Despite what you might hear, the overall deficit has actually been reduced by $60 billion dollars from the same period as last year. Now, don’t confuse the deficit with the debt (which I always do). We still owe trillions in debt. That’s the money we borrowed to pay for things going back twelve years but at least it looks like we’ve got spending on track. Of course, we can do better but it’s sure nice to have a couple of billion in the bank.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT REPORTS $3 BILLION BUDGET SURPLUS IN JANUARY, SHRINKING DEFICIT
By Martin Crutsinger reporting for the AP
WASHINGTON — The federal government reported a rare surplus for January and is on track to run its smallest annual budget deficit since President Barack Obama took office. The Treasury Department said Tuesday that the government took in a surplus of $2.9 billion in January. That’s the first monthly surplus since April, a month that benefited from income tax payments. Read More...
Universities like Yale are going after students who default on their loans. Not only are the millions of dollars lost a hardship for the school but the nonpayment means less financial resources for low income students.
Yale Suing Former Students Shows Crisis in Loans to Poor
By Janet Lorin
Bloomberg.com
February 4, 2013
Needy U.S. borrowers are defaulting on almost $1 billion in federal student loans earmarked for the poor, leaving schools such as Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania with little choice except to sue their graduates. Read More...
From the outbox of Meyer’s inbox:
Although there was some earlier mentions, it was the 16th Amendment of the Constitution that was ratified on February 3rd, 1913. The official language went a little bit like this: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.” Thirty words that have caused such anguish for a hundred years. Believe it or not the first tax form was only four pages. Now it’s up to like a gazillion. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just scrap everything and go back to the original four pages? Perhaps we can send that form to our reps in Congress and ask “What’s wrong with this?”
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MODERN TAX SYSTEM: 100 TOASTS AND ROASTS
By: Dana Macario and Allison Linn
The modern income tax system has been called a lot of things, and now it also can officially be called a centenarian. The current tax system was formalized 100 years ago this month, when the 16th Amendment was ratified. Before income taxes, the government was mainly getting its money from tariffs and sin taxes on things like alcohol and tobacco, said Joseph Thorndike, director of the Tax History Project at Tax Analysts. Read More...
CareerBuilder.com offers some good economy news with their list of industries and locations reporting increases in hiring and a list of jobs making a comeback.
By Susan Ricker
CareerBuilder
MSN Careers
If the economic meltdown of 2008 and the following years of rebuilding the economy were made into a movie, it’d be tediously slow, and you’d just skip it and ask a friend how it ends. Spoiler alert: It’s starting to become clear how this movie ends, and you’ll definitely want to hear about it. Read More...
From the outbox of Meyer’s inbox:
Welcome to living history. Years from now we’ll be able to bore anyone who listens to our stories of the Great Recession. Those stories will be light years away from the Great Depression stories told by our grandparents. After all, even in this Great Recession we still have a lot of cool stuff, the internet and cable TV. As it happens the Great Recession isn’t all that great and the recovery is even worse. There’s plenty of finger pointing and blame to go around for why things are so anemic but it can be summed up in three words: jobs, jobs, jobs. Unless somebody starts hiring and soon we’re going be to stuck in neutral for a long time. And that’s not a story anyone really wants to tell.
U.S. ECONOMIC RECOVERY IS WEAKEST SINCE WORLD WAR II
By PAUL WISEMAN
WASHINGTON — The recession that ended three years ago this summer has been followed by the feeblest economic recovery since the Great Depression.Since World War II, 10 U.S. recessions have been followed by a recovery that lasted at least three years. An Associated Press analysis shows that by just about any measure, the one that began in June 2009 is the weakest. Read More...
