Wednesday, August 31, 2005
China orders coal mines closed
I've written before , 2, 3, 4, 5, about China's poor worker safety record. Probably the worst place is the coal mining industry, which feeds heating and steel-making consumption, although the steel industry itself is no shining example of safety.
CNN.com
BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- China has ordered nearly a third of its thousands of coal mines to halt production and improve safety in the world's deadliest mining industry, state media said on Wednesday.
The latest in a series of crackdowns, which have had little if any effect so far, comes days after rescuers called off the search for scores of miners trapped for weeks in a flooded pit in southern China where the death toll stands at 123.
Chinese mines, many unlicensed, often ignore safety regulations to meet an insatiable demand for coal, which the country relies on for 70 percent of its huge energy consumption.
Coal supplies are unlikely to be hit hard by the shut-down because most of the pits involved are small.
CNN.com
BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- China has ordered nearly a third of its thousands of coal mines to halt production and improve safety in the world's deadliest mining industry, state media said on Wednesday.
The latest in a series of crackdowns, which have had little if any effect so far, comes days after rescuers called off the search for scores of miners trapped for weeks in a flooded pit in southern China where the death toll stands at 123.
Chinese mines, many unlicensed, often ignore safety regulations to meet an insatiable demand for coal, which the country relies on for 70 percent of its huge energy consumption.
Coal supplies are unlikely to be hit hard by the shut-down because most of the pits involved are small.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Bernard J. Wallis - Livernois Engineering Executive was leader in metal stamping
Detroit News
When it came to his family and his business, Bernard J. Wallis was 'old school' all the way.
'My dad was a driven man who worked 12-hour days six days a week,' said his son, Richard Wallis.
'He and my mom were old school, too, when it came to marriage. They were married for 67 years and lived in the same Dearborn house for 55 years. My dad ran the business and the family and my mother went along with it. It worked out well.'
Mr. Wallis died from pneumonia on Friday, Aug. 26, 2005, at the Oakwood Commons Nursing Home, in Dearborn. He was 94.
Mr. Wallis was a prominent business man with a worldwide reputation for his developments in the metal stamping industry. He held more than 50 patents, including inventions for portable transfer die technology and heat exchange tooling. He was a graduate of the Henry Ford Trade School, the University of Detroit and the Detroit Institute of Technology.
Mr. Wallis started his business at age 37 when he quit his job and started a tool design business in the basement of his home with just a couple of drawing boards. By the time he retired, Livernois Engineering had more than $75 million in sales and employed more than 1,000 people.
When it came to his family and his business, Bernard J. Wallis was 'old school' all the way.
'My dad was a driven man who worked 12-hour days six days a week,' said his son, Richard Wallis.
'He and my mom were old school, too, when it came to marriage. They were married for 67 years and lived in the same Dearborn house for 55 years. My dad ran the business and the family and my mother went along with it. It worked out well.'
Mr. Wallis died from pneumonia on Friday, Aug. 26, 2005, at the Oakwood Commons Nursing Home, in Dearborn. He was 94.
Mr. Wallis was a prominent business man with a worldwide reputation for his developments in the metal stamping industry. He held more than 50 patents, including inventions for portable transfer die technology and heat exchange tooling. He was a graduate of the Henry Ford Trade School, the University of Detroit and the Detroit Institute of Technology.
Mr. Wallis started his business at age 37 when he quit his job and started a tool design business in the basement of his home with just a couple of drawing boards. By the time he retired, Livernois Engineering had more than $75 million in sales and employed more than 1,000 people.
Friday, August 26, 2005
Outsourcing, Insourcing, Onshoring, Offshoring
Well, the person who asked to hear more of my opinions is sure getting them today :-)
I did some more thinking about this. You have to understand *we* are an outsourcing company. But there are outsourcing companies and there are outsourcing companies.
Our company manufactures small metal parts using a special process called slideforming and a special type of machine called fourslides (actually, we don't have many "real" fourslides any more, we mostly have vertislides, but the idea is the same at this level).
We exist in an economic niche. We are very specialized in doing exactly this, slideform work on thin metal parts. Even other metal stampers come to us, because they recognize that our specialization in small and thin metal parts makes us more able to do a good job than their own people. Toolmaking for thin material is totally different than toolmaking for thick material. Different skills, different tools, different training. Machine setup for thin, small parts is different than press setup for big parts. Smaller dies, smaller die lifting and moving equipment, smaller measuring instruments, different accuracy requirements, etc.
So our advantages are quality and cost - organic cost - that come from using the right process for the part.
A cost advantage that comes from using the right tool for the job (in this case, slideforming and people trained specifically in slideforming) is fundamentally different than a cost advantage that comes solely from moving a process to a place where labour cost is low.
Using the right tool (and the right outsource) for the job will pay off, year after year, in higher quality, lower cost, few customer complaints, etc.
Moving a process to an area with a lower labour cost is temporary at best. Macroeconomics says that the workers there will, in time, improve their standards of living and demand (and receive) more salary, removing the advantage. And that's assuming there are no quality issues and the parts are made just as well in the "other" location, that the supply line length doesn't hurt company responsiveness or cashflow, etc.
So basically there is outsourcing for good reasons and outsourcing for poor reasons, and they're as different as night and day. That's not to say that an overseas outsource might not be the right thing - we buy tools from Germany and Japan every month, because those specific tools are made best by that specific company over there. But sometimes the advantages of a low labour cost are outweighed by all the other stuff that comes along with long supply chains.
I did some more thinking about this. You have to understand *we* are an outsourcing company. But there are outsourcing companies and there are outsourcing companies.
Our company manufactures small metal parts using a special process called slideforming and a special type of machine called fourslides (actually, we don't have many "real" fourslides any more, we mostly have vertislides, but the idea is the same at this level).
We exist in an economic niche. We are very specialized in doing exactly this, slideform work on thin metal parts. Even other metal stampers come to us, because they recognize that our specialization in small and thin metal parts makes us more able to do a good job than their own people. Toolmaking for thin material is totally different than toolmaking for thick material. Different skills, different tools, different training. Machine setup for thin, small parts is different than press setup for big parts. Smaller dies, smaller die lifting and moving equipment, smaller measuring instruments, different accuracy requirements, etc.
So our advantages are quality and cost - organic cost - that come from using the right process for the part.
A cost advantage that comes from using the right tool for the job (in this case, slideforming and people trained specifically in slideforming) is fundamentally different than a cost advantage that comes solely from moving a process to a place where labour cost is low.
Using the right tool (and the right outsource) for the job will pay off, year after year, in higher quality, lower cost, few customer complaints, etc.
Moving a process to an area with a lower labour cost is temporary at best. Macroeconomics says that the workers there will, in time, improve their standards of living and demand (and receive) more salary, removing the advantage. And that's assuming there are no quality issues and the parts are made just as well in the "other" location, that the supply line length doesn't hurt company responsiveness or cashflow, etc.
So basically there is outsourcing for good reasons and outsourcing for poor reasons, and they're as different as night and day. That's not to say that an overseas outsource might not be the right thing - we buy tools from Germany and Japan every month, because those specific tools are made best by that specific company over there. But sometimes the advantages of a low labour cost are outweighed by all the other stuff that comes along with long supply chains.
Outsourcing Revisited - Truth and consequences of offshoring: Recent studies overstate the benefits and ignore the costs to American workers
From time to time we look at outsourcing issues (most recently in the comments on this blog entry )
An interesting paper, called Truth and consequences of offshoring
and subtitled Recent studies overstate the benefits and ignore the costs to American workers showed up recently.
I don't know how to evaluate their conclusions - I have no training and no knowledge in this area. I think the same author wrote something I quoted several months ago, because some of the verbiage and some of the examples are the same.
While blue-collar labor (particularly in manufacturing) has felt a squeeze from global competition for decades, both in terms of employment security and wage growth, white-collar jobs held by well-credentialed Americans have been largely safe from pressures stemming from the global labor market. Recent reports of companies sending work abroad, ranging from call-center operators to software programmers, have changed this feeling of security.
Such insecurity, especially coming from a group that many assumed would be a prime beneficiary of globalization—i.e., well-credentialed, white-collar workers—has generated a potent political anxiety about the implications of global economic integration for American workers.
In response to this anxiety and an incipient political backlash against offshoring, a number of studies have been released by various organizations touting large economic benefits that will accrue to the American economy through the offshoring of white-collar work. A closer examination of these studies, however, shows that the promised benefits of offshoring are far overstated, while the likely economic costs are not addressed at all. Further, even the potential benefits to the American economy from offshoring are likely to be concentrated in the incomes of a relatively select percentage of American households.
The same group also published this report: NAFTA's cautionary tale, which begins:
The rise in the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico through 2004 has caused the displacement of production that supported 1,015,291 U.S. jobs since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed in 1993. Jobs were displaced in every state and major industry in the United States. Two thirds of those lost jobs were in manufacturing industries.
The report is fairly US-centric. While it laments the jobs lost from the US to Mexico, and the lost environmental and worker protections on the continent as a whole by moving work from the US to Mexico, it ignores similar issues vis-a-vis Canada. Canada lost a *lot* of jobs to the US under NAFTA, manufacturing wages are lower, especially in the southern US (not sure why that is), most US environmental controls are less stringent than Canada's, and certainly universal health care, for all that we wish it were better in Canada, is infinitely worse in the US.
In an area where I have some practical experience, these people seem to have their own, somewhat unbalanced, agenda. Reader beware, I guess.
Back to Offshoring ... CNN Money asked:
Is India's outsourcing honeymoon over?
Surprise! India's reign as the world's "Outsourcing King" may be slipping, even with its rock-bottom call center costs.
A new report from market research firm Gartner, Inc. warns that a labor crunch and rising wages could erode as much as 45 percent of India's market share by 2007.
Indian industry watchers acknowledge that the country's outsourcing industry -- its golden goose of the moment -- is indeed facing a "serious" problem.
But a more cogent discussion comes from, interestingly enough, another Blog. Fog Creek Software has a Q&A Blog, and in it, someone asked:
Have you given any thought to offshoring any of your development?
The answer was:
We will not be "offshoring" our software development because you don't outsource your core competency. I'm not a software broker, I'm a software developer.
And he goes on to say
Indeed during the recent dotcom mania a bunch of quack business writers suggested that the company of the future would be totally virtual -- just a trendy couple sipping Chardonnay in their living room outsourcing everything. What these hyperventilating "visionaries" overlooked is that the market pays for value added. Two yuppies in a living room buying an e-commerce engine from company A and selling merchandise made by company B and warehoused and shipped by company C, with customer service from company D, isn't honestly adding much value. In fact, if you've ever had to outsource a critical business function, you realize that outsourcing is hell.
And he goes on to give a number of cogent examples in the software and e-commerce worlds.
Joel seems like an interesting guy - he wrote a defense of Not Invented Here syndrome, something that most people consider a management pathology (his words), but he argues that it has it's place, depending on how important to your core business the results are and therefore how tight control you need to keep over the results.
Interestingly, one of his rules is: If you have customers, never outsource customer service. (are you listening, Michael Dell?)
An interesting paper, called Truth and consequences of offshoring
and subtitled Recent studies overstate the benefits and ignore the costs to American workers showed up recently.
I don't know how to evaluate their conclusions - I have no training and no knowledge in this area. I think the same author wrote something I quoted several months ago, because some of the verbiage and some of the examples are the same.
While blue-collar labor (particularly in manufacturing) has felt a squeeze from global competition for decades, both in terms of employment security and wage growth, white-collar jobs held by well-credentialed Americans have been largely safe from pressures stemming from the global labor market. Recent reports of companies sending work abroad, ranging from call-center operators to software programmers, have changed this feeling of security.
Such insecurity, especially coming from a group that many assumed would be a prime beneficiary of globalization—i.e., well-credentialed, white-collar workers—has generated a potent political anxiety about the implications of global economic integration for American workers.
In response to this anxiety and an incipient political backlash against offshoring, a number of studies have been released by various organizations touting large economic benefits that will accrue to the American economy through the offshoring of white-collar work. A closer examination of these studies, however, shows that the promised benefits of offshoring are far overstated, while the likely economic costs are not addressed at all. Further, even the potential benefits to the American economy from offshoring are likely to be concentrated in the incomes of a relatively select percentage of American households.
The same group also published this report: NAFTA's cautionary tale, which begins:
The rise in the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico through 2004 has caused the displacement of production that supported 1,015,291 U.S. jobs since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed in 1993. Jobs were displaced in every state and major industry in the United States. Two thirds of those lost jobs were in manufacturing industries.
The report is fairly US-centric. While it laments the jobs lost from the US to Mexico, and the lost environmental and worker protections on the continent as a whole by moving work from the US to Mexico, it ignores similar issues vis-a-vis Canada. Canada lost a *lot* of jobs to the US under NAFTA, manufacturing wages are lower, especially in the southern US (not sure why that is), most US environmental controls are less stringent than Canada's, and certainly universal health care, for all that we wish it were better in Canada, is infinitely worse in the US.
In an area where I have some practical experience, these people seem to have their own, somewhat unbalanced, agenda. Reader beware, I guess.
Back to Offshoring ... CNN Money asked:
Is India's outsourcing honeymoon over?
Surprise! India's reign as the world's "Outsourcing King" may be slipping, even with its rock-bottom call center costs.
A new report from market research firm Gartner, Inc. warns that a labor crunch and rising wages could erode as much as 45 percent of India's market share by 2007.
Indian industry watchers acknowledge that the country's outsourcing industry -- its golden goose of the moment -- is indeed facing a "serious" problem.
But a more cogent discussion comes from, interestingly enough, another Blog. Fog Creek Software has a Q&A Blog, and in it, someone asked:
Have you given any thought to offshoring any of your development?
The answer was:
We will not be "offshoring" our software development because you don't outsource your core competency. I'm not a software broker, I'm a software developer.
And he goes on to say
Indeed during the recent dotcom mania a bunch of quack business writers suggested that the company of the future would be totally virtual -- just a trendy couple sipping Chardonnay in their living room outsourcing everything. What these hyperventilating "visionaries" overlooked is that the market pays for value added. Two yuppies in a living room buying an e-commerce engine from company A and selling merchandise made by company B and warehoused and shipped by company C, with customer service from company D, isn't honestly adding much value. In fact, if you've ever had to outsource a critical business function, you realize that outsourcing is hell.
And he goes on to give a number of cogent examples in the software and e-commerce worlds.
Joel seems like an interesting guy - he wrote a defense of Not Invented Here syndrome, something that most people consider a management pathology (his words), but he argues that it has it's place, depending on how important to your core business the results are and therefore how tight control you need to keep over the results.
Interestingly, one of his rules is: If you have customers, never outsource customer service. (are you listening, Michael Dell?)
Greenspan Worries About Economic Health
AP Via Yahoo Financial News
Creeping trade protectionism and bloated budget deficits pose a risk to the United States' long-term economic vitality, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned Friday.
"Developing protectionism regarding trade and our reluctance to place fiscal policy on a more sustainable path are threatening what may well be our most valued policy asset: the increased flexibility of our economy, which has fostered our extraordinary resilience to shocks," the Fed chief said in a speech to an economic conference here, sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
Maintaining economic flexibility is especially important, Greenspan said, to deal with what he called some of America's current economic imbalances: the swollen current account trade deficit, which surged to a record $668 billion last year, and the housing boom.
Greenspan also worried in his speech about what will occur with the ending of the recent sustained period of low interest rates and low risks for investors. "History has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums," he said in his prepared remarks.
But all Greenspan can do is talk. Congress has already not listened to him in the past, and he has, as I understand it, no powers to compel Congress to act in any way, on the Byrd Ammendment, or any one of a dozen other trade protection issues currently in play in the US.
Creeping trade protectionism and bloated budget deficits pose a risk to the United States' long-term economic vitality, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned Friday.
"Developing protectionism regarding trade and our reluctance to place fiscal policy on a more sustainable path are threatening what may well be our most valued policy asset: the increased flexibility of our economy, which has fostered our extraordinary resilience to shocks," the Fed chief said in a speech to an economic conference here, sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
Maintaining economic flexibility is especially important, Greenspan said, to deal with what he called some of America's current economic imbalances: the swollen current account trade deficit, which surged to a record $668 billion last year, and the housing boom.
Greenspan also worried in his speech about what will occur with the ending of the recent sustained period of low interest rates and low risks for investors. "History has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums," he said in his prepared remarks.
But all Greenspan can do is talk. Congress has already not listened to him in the past, and he has, as I understand it, no powers to compel Congress to act in any way, on the Byrd Ammendment, or any one of a dozen other trade protection issues currently in play in the US.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
CAN INDIA BE THE NEXT CHINA?
MEPS Steel News
India is currently the world’s 8th largest steel producing country – with nearly 33 million tonnes of crude steel output in 2004 – and is increasingly being talked of as the next China. With a 12 percent increase in supply in the first half of this year, Indian steel production is growing strongly. Now the government is working on plans for a massive expansion. But, unless Indian demand also rises quickly, excess capacity will develop and put pressure on world markets.
The Indian government’s new National Steel Policy has not yet been approved, but steel minister Ram Vilas Paswan recently revealed its broad outlines to parliament. The chief goal is to increase steel production to 110 million tonnes by the 2019/20 financial year. This would mean tripling the current rate.
Because the government no longer regulates the steel sector, as it did until the early 1990s, it does not actively plan or implement steelworks expansions – other than at the state-owned companies. It now sees its role as facilitating growth by removing impediments and bottlenecks, particularly on the supply side of the industry.
So the new policy will include a series of measures designed to improve the availability of raw materials such as iron ore and coal. It will also encourage the creation of infrastructure such as the roads, railways and ports that will be required to support the steel industry’s growth.
The article goes on to discuss the iron ore and coal situation in India, what impediments exist, what the Indian government could do to remove them, the likelyhood that domestic demand could rise at the same speed as production, and what would happen to the excess steel production. Pretty interesting stuff.
India is currently the world’s 8th largest steel producing country – with nearly 33 million tonnes of crude steel output in 2004 – and is increasingly being talked of as the next China. With a 12 percent increase in supply in the first half of this year, Indian steel production is growing strongly. Now the government is working on plans for a massive expansion. But, unless Indian demand also rises quickly, excess capacity will develop and put pressure on world markets.
The Indian government’s new National Steel Policy has not yet been approved, but steel minister Ram Vilas Paswan recently revealed its broad outlines to parliament. The chief goal is to increase steel production to 110 million tonnes by the 2019/20 financial year. This would mean tripling the current rate.
Because the government no longer regulates the steel sector, as it did until the early 1990s, it does not actively plan or implement steelworks expansions – other than at the state-owned companies. It now sees its role as facilitating growth by removing impediments and bottlenecks, particularly on the supply side of the industry.
So the new policy will include a series of measures designed to improve the availability of raw materials such as iron ore and coal. It will also encourage the creation of infrastructure such as the roads, railways and ports that will be required to support the steel industry’s growth.
The article goes on to discuss the iron ore and coal situation in India, what impediments exist, what the Indian government could do to remove them, the likelyhood that domestic demand could rise at the same speed as production, and what would happen to the excess steel production. Pretty interesting stuff.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Summer Time, and the Living is Easy
Thank you, Gershwin, for that song. My favorite version of it, by the way, is by Janis Joplin (wikipedia version), not who you would normally associate with Gershwin, but there you go. Gone too soon. Like Jim Morrison (the Doors) and Freddie Mercury (Queen). I was listening to a lot of Queen recently (it's in my car CD player so I've heard the whole album about 5 times now). I stumbled across the wikipedia entry for Mercury and learned a whole lot I never knew about him when I was listening to him the first time around.
It's been a slow time, partly because several of the steel bloggers have been on vacation (not just me - Steve was in Turkey) but also, it seems, because everything in steel is just SLOW these days.
I'll do a review in the next few days of what came into my inbox while I was away, but trust me, it wasn't much.
In the mean time, let me take some time to comment on some things I often don't comment on. Other bloggers and other blogs and in some cases some of the material they've been blogging about.
The first thing I've been meaning to address for some time is a criticism that I often post news without much in the way of commentary, and I often post a fair bit of the news item.
Let me say that it's not because I have no opinions. On the contrary - ask anyone who knows me personally. But I believe strongly in separating reporting from commentary. If I can't make it clear which part is my comment, I'd rather put it in a separate entry.
In the beginning, when I started this Blog, it was as much an education for myself as anything else - I was having a hard time making a living in the stamping industry in the face of wildly fluctuating input costs for steel and copper - I'm still having a hard time trying to figure out how to price my products in this environment. I've been in this business now for about 15 years (this is my second career) and we've never seen such wild fluctuations (and such wild political interference making things worse) as the present. So in the beginning I often had no comment ... I didn't know what to make of the news myself.
Now I do know more and can comment, at least semi-intelligently, on most items I report on. However, I still do cut and paste a fair bit of the article. I do this because my primary news source is, well, news items. Unlike much of the internet, these tend to vanish in a few weeks to a few months, depending on the source, leaving the part I quoted as the only extant copy of the reportage. Since my archives have been kept forever (and I have a bit of space to spare on my server) this seemed like a good thing.
You may disagree, either with the reasons or with the result, but that is why I do it the way I do.
=======
Over at the National Association of Manufacturers, their Blog has been giving Lou Dobbs a hard time. Poor guy. Personally, I never watch Lou. I like Larry King and I like Aron Brown, but Lou just doesn't do it for me. So I haven't a clue if NAMs objections to Lou are fair or not. But check them out for yourself if you watch Lou. They have a special section of their Blog called Dobbs Watch.
Oh, they really got a chuckle out of Lou's program being knocked off the air by the latest windows 2000 PnP worm. I'll comment on that later. Lou wasn't the only guy caught with his Plug'n'Play down. Shame on all of them. The warnings signs were there for a week or more.
I did notice, though, that NAM came out heavily in favour of the new judge appointee Judge John Roberts. And they did an interesting set of articles about how he's being put under more scrutiny than previous appointments.
Living in Canada, I don't follow US politics much. One wishes US politics would stay on their own side of the border, but as bill 201 and the Byrd Ammendment proved, sillyness "south of the border" tends to leak across the border into Canada (not to mention handguns and bounty hunters).
However, I have noticed a certain nastyness in American politics in the last 10 years or so, a kind of "dirty tricks", pull-no-punches, forget the fairness, we just have to win kinda thing. Look how hard they went after Clinton, for doing less in the oval office than, we are told, Kennedy or Roosevelt did. I don't know why politics in the US has descended to this level, but it has. It's really seems to gotten to the schoolyard level, the "my father's bigger than your father" and "your mother wears army boots".
It would be laughable if it wasn't so serious. Because it's about real issues, though, we have to put up with it, and describe the indescribable.
It's at times like this that you really realize that English is missing certain important words and concepts. In German, this manner of conducting oneself is called "Sweinerei" - piggishness or piggery. But the connotation is willfull conduct that is totally irresponsible, totally inexcusable and totally outside the boundaries of decent human conduct, even perhaps bordering on corrupt. In Hungarian, the word is the same, just translated - Disznosag (sorry, no accents on this keyboard). It's enough to give pigs a bad name. In English the closest you can come is "dirty tricks", but that's wayyy too tame. "Pork Barrel" is closer, but only applies to, well, pork barrelling. (Postscript - I went for my walk, and realized that there's a closer word in English - skullduggery. But that's still not really bang on. It's closer to the line from Hamlet "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark").
To us here in Canada, most of American politics seems to have devolved to this level now. Not just in appointments to the supreme court, or in silly impeachment proceedings against sitting presidents for whom they were sleeping with, but in everything. The WTO throws out the 14,000th appeal by the US, they re-appeal. Isn't there a point when common decency says the world trade court has said a thousand ways we can't conduct ourselves this way, let's just take our lumps and move on?
Someone needs a Miss Manners for the American political system.
If they were to put as much energy into stopping the flow of guns into Canada as they have put into persuing Clinton over Monica (or whitewater), probably half of the shooting deaths in Toronto this year wouldn't have happened. Now that's a real issue, for the people who live here and the families and relatives of the slain. 25 lives. Where are the priorities?
=======
Now, about that there computer worm.
According to WindowsITPRO, companies effected include companies such as ABC, Caterpillar Company, CNN, Daimler Chrysler, The Financial Times, Kraft Foods, The New York Times, The San Francisco International Airport, SBC Communications, United Parcel Service (UPS), and Walt Disney
Were all their IT departments asleep at the switch? The warnings had been there for at least a week!
Maybe they should do what I do. I subscribe to Yahoo News. Years ago they initiated a clipping service called Yahoo Alerts. One of the first phrases I gave it to check on was "Windows 2000". Every day it sends me news about windows 2000. Mostly it's boring, but I get notice of every new worm that's out there as soon as any IT rag that Yahoo scans mentions it. Gives me generally several days to patch my systems. And I'm just a little guy.
=======
Well, that's enough rambling for today. The weather is nice out and I'm going for a walk. Queen sang
but I can't because the door to my bicycle locker is jammed and the supers haven't fixed it yet, so I'm walking instead.
Time to go. See ya!
It's been a slow time, partly because several of the steel bloggers have been on vacation (not just me - Steve was in Turkey) but also, it seems, because everything in steel is just SLOW these days.
I'll do a review in the next few days of what came into my inbox while I was away, but trust me, it wasn't much.
In the mean time, let me take some time to comment on some things I often don't comment on. Other bloggers and other blogs and in some cases some of the material they've been blogging about.
The first thing I've been meaning to address for some time is a criticism that I often post news without much in the way of commentary, and I often post a fair bit of the news item.
Let me say that it's not because I have no opinions. On the contrary - ask anyone who knows me personally. But I believe strongly in separating reporting from commentary. If I can't make it clear which part is my comment, I'd rather put it in a separate entry.
In the beginning, when I started this Blog, it was as much an education for myself as anything else - I was having a hard time making a living in the stamping industry in the face of wildly fluctuating input costs for steel and copper - I'm still having a hard time trying to figure out how to price my products in this environment. I've been in this business now for about 15 years (this is my second career) and we've never seen such wild fluctuations (and such wild political interference making things worse) as the present. So in the beginning I often had no comment ... I didn't know what to make of the news myself.
Now I do know more and can comment, at least semi-intelligently, on most items I report on. However, I still do cut and paste a fair bit of the article. I do this because my primary news source is, well, news items. Unlike much of the internet, these tend to vanish in a few weeks to a few months, depending on the source, leaving the part I quoted as the only extant copy of the reportage. Since my archives have been kept forever (and I have a bit of space to spare on my server) this seemed like a good thing.
You may disagree, either with the reasons or with the result, but that is why I do it the way I do.
=======
Over at the National Association of Manufacturers, their Blog has been giving Lou Dobbs a hard time. Poor guy. Personally, I never watch Lou. I like Larry King and I like Aron Brown, but Lou just doesn't do it for me. So I haven't a clue if NAMs objections to Lou are fair or not. But check them out for yourself if you watch Lou. They have a special section of their Blog called Dobbs Watch.
Oh, they really got a chuckle out of Lou's program being knocked off the air by the latest windows 2000 PnP worm. I'll comment on that later. Lou wasn't the only guy caught with his Plug'n'Play down. Shame on all of them. The warnings signs were there for a week or more.
I did notice, though, that NAM came out heavily in favour of the new judge appointee Judge John Roberts. And they did an interesting set of articles about how he's being put under more scrutiny than previous appointments.
Living in Canada, I don't follow US politics much. One wishes US politics would stay on their own side of the border, but as bill 201 and the Byrd Ammendment proved, sillyness "south of the border" tends to leak across the border into Canada (not to mention handguns and bounty hunters).
However, I have noticed a certain nastyness in American politics in the last 10 years or so, a kind of "dirty tricks", pull-no-punches, forget the fairness, we just have to win kinda thing. Look how hard they went after Clinton, for doing less in the oval office than, we are told, Kennedy or Roosevelt did. I don't know why politics in the US has descended to this level, but it has. It's really seems to gotten to the schoolyard level, the "my father's bigger than your father" and "your mother wears army boots".
It would be laughable if it wasn't so serious. Because it's about real issues, though, we have to put up with it, and describe the indescribable.
It's at times like this that you really realize that English is missing certain important words and concepts. In German, this manner of conducting oneself is called "Sweinerei" - piggishness or piggery. But the connotation is willfull conduct that is totally irresponsible, totally inexcusable and totally outside the boundaries of decent human conduct, even perhaps bordering on corrupt. In Hungarian, the word is the same, just translated - Disznosag (sorry, no accents on this keyboard). It's enough to give pigs a bad name. In English the closest you can come is "dirty tricks", but that's wayyy too tame. "Pork Barrel" is closer, but only applies to, well, pork barrelling. (Postscript - I went for my walk, and realized that there's a closer word in English - skullduggery. But that's still not really bang on. It's closer to the line from Hamlet "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark").
To us here in Canada, most of American politics seems to have devolved to this level now. Not just in appointments to the supreme court, or in silly impeachment proceedings against sitting presidents for whom they were sleeping with, but in everything. The WTO throws out the 14,000th appeal by the US, they re-appeal. Isn't there a point when common decency says the world trade court has said a thousand ways we can't conduct ourselves this way, let's just take our lumps and move on?
Someone needs a Miss Manners for the American political system.
If they were to put as much energy into stopping the flow of guns into Canada as they have put into persuing Clinton over Monica (or whitewater), probably half of the shooting deaths in Toronto this year wouldn't have happened. Now that's a real issue, for the people who live here and the families and relatives of the slain. 25 lives. Where are the priorities?
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Now, about that there computer worm.
Among those hit were offices on Capitol Hill, which is in the midst of August recess, and media organizations, including CNN, ABC and The New York Times. Caterpillar Inc., in Peoria, Illinois, reportedly also had problems.
According to WindowsITPRO, companies effected include companies such as ABC, Caterpillar Company, CNN, Daimler Chrysler, The Financial Times, Kraft Foods, The New York Times, The San Francisco International Airport, SBC Communications, United Parcel Service (UPS), and Walt Disney
Were all their IT departments asleep at the switch? The warnings had been there for at least a week!
Maybe they should do what I do. I subscribe to Yahoo News. Years ago they initiated a clipping service called Yahoo Alerts. One of the first phrases I gave it to check on was "Windows 2000". Every day it sends me news about windows 2000. Mostly it's boring, but I get notice of every new worm that's out there as soon as any IT rag that Yahoo scans mentions it. Gives me generally several days to patch my systems. And I'm just a little guy.
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Well, that's enough rambling for today. The weather is nice out and I'm going for a walk. Queen sang
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like
but I can't because the door to my bicycle locker is jammed and the supers haven't fixed it yet, so I'm walking instead.
Time to go. See ya!
Labels: Copper
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Softwood Lumber - Protectionism first, last and always
TheStar.com
The response from the office of the United States Trade Representative upon learning the Americans had lost another round in the softwood lumber dispute was short, to the point, and not at all unexpected.
"We are, of course, disappointed with the ... decision, but it will have no impact on the anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders given the ITC's November 2004 injury determination," said USTR spokesperson Neena Moorjani.
That is to say, when it comes to the politically charged issue of protecting the inefficient U.S. lumber industry, nothing — not international law, not trade agreements or treaties, not common sense, not the rule of the marketplace, and not even U.S. consumers — will stand in the way of protectionism.
Softwood lumber is another issue, like steel, where the US has shown they are mostly free traders when it suits them. Otherwise, they'll litigate, stonewall, and everything else to get and keep their way.
It's hard to know if NAFTA (and now CAFTA is coming) is good for Canada or not, especially when the trading partners don't trade by the rules.
The response from the office of the United States Trade Representative upon learning the Americans had lost another round in the softwood lumber dispute was short, to the point, and not at all unexpected.
"We are, of course, disappointed with the ... decision, but it will have no impact on the anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders given the ITC's November 2004 injury determination," said USTR spokesperson Neena Moorjani.
That is to say, when it comes to the politically charged issue of protecting the inefficient U.S. lumber industry, nothing — not international law, not trade agreements or treaties, not common sense, not the rule of the marketplace, and not even U.S. consumers — will stand in the way of protectionism.
Softwood lumber is another issue, like steel, where the US has shown they are mostly free traders when it suits them. Otherwise, they'll litigate, stonewall, and everything else to get and keep their way.
It's hard to know if NAFTA (and now CAFTA is coming) is good for Canada or not, especially when the trading partners don't trade by the rules.
Friday, August 12, 2005
Japan's Cabinet OKs retaliatory levies on U.S. steel products
Kyodo via Yahoo! Asia
The Cabinet on Friday approved the government's plan to invoke countervailing import tariffs on U.S. ball bearing and steel products from Sept. 1, government officials said Friday.
The planned 15 percent levy on 15 product items is designed in response to a U.S. antidumping law which the World Trade Organization has decided violates global rules. It is the first such measure Japan has ever taken against any trading partner.
This is another formal step towards the tarifs, due to start in September, talked about August 1st in previous articles
The Cabinet on Friday approved the government's plan to invoke countervailing import tariffs on U.S. ball bearing and steel products from Sept. 1, government officials said Friday.
The planned 15 percent levy on 15 product items is designed in response to a U.S. antidumping law which the World Trade Organization has decided violates global rules. It is the first such measure Japan has ever taken against any trading partner.
This is another formal step towards the tarifs, due to start in September, talked about August 1st in previous articles
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Australian scientists use plastic to make steel
Reuters via Yahoo! News
Australian scientists have developed a technique to use waste plastic in steel making, a process that could have implications for recycling scrap metal that accounts for 40 percent of steel production.
Professor Veena Sahajwalla of the University of New South Wales has won a prestigious Australian science award for what she calls 'the hottest research in town,' which she hopes will turn an environmental headache into a valuable resource.
Under the process, waste plastics are fed into electric steel-making furnaces as an alternative source of carbon and heated to super-hot temperatures of 1,600 degrees Celsius (2,912 Fahrenheit).
Sahajwalla said many waste plastics, from shopping bags to dishwashing liquid containers and drink bottles, contain high enough levels of carbon to be useful in steelmaking.
PVC plastics, however, are not suitable, because of toxic gas release.
Australian scientists have developed a technique to use waste plastic in steel making, a process that could have implications for recycling scrap metal that accounts for 40 percent of steel production.
Professor Veena Sahajwalla of the University of New South Wales has won a prestigious Australian science award for what she calls 'the hottest research in town,' which she hopes will turn an environmental headache into a valuable resource.
Under the process, waste plastics are fed into electric steel-making furnaces as an alternative source of carbon and heated to super-hot temperatures of 1,600 degrees Celsius (2,912 Fahrenheit).
Sahajwalla said many waste plastics, from shopping bags to dishwashing liquid containers and drink bottles, contain high enough levels of carbon to be useful in steelmaking.
PVC plastics, however, are not suitable, because of toxic gas release.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Bush signs Central American trade pact (CAFTA)
Reuters via Yahoo!
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush on Tuesday signed a free-trade agreement with Central America, one of his top legislative priorities, after a bitter fight with Congress over the direction of American trade policy.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush on Tuesday signed a free-trade agreement with Central America, one of his top legislative priorities, after a bitter fight with Congress over the direction of American trade policy.
Monday, August 01, 2005
The Byrd comes home to roost - Japan Imposes 15 Pct. Levies on U.S. Steel
We've dealt with the Byrd Amendment once or twice before 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 - it's been ruled illegal by the world trade organization upteen times, even Bush, the sometimes-free-trader, wants it repealed, but congress just won't get behind it.
Well, today you've really done it, Ollie!
Japan will slap 15 percent levies on U.S. steel starting Sept. 1 in retaliation for American duties imposed on Japanese products, a trade ministry official said Monday. The tariffs could run to a maximum of 5.7 billion yen, or $51 million, said trade ministry official Etsuo Sato.
Japan has demanded the repeal of duties imposed by the United States on Japanese steel products under the so-called Byrd amendment, an antidumping law ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization.
By the way, I had to laugh... If you stick Byrd into Google, one of the first sites to come up is the publicity site for the senator, which says, amusingly,
Official site for the "West Virginian of the 20th Century," featuring news, contact details, and constitutent services, plus information about the Senator
Maybe he doesn't know it's the 21st century yet.
I love this too ... (from http://www.ebearing.com/legislation/2000act.htm)
On October 28, 2000, President Clinton signed the agriculture spending bill, containing the Byrd amendment, into law. Mr. Clinton indicated that he wanted Congress to override the Byrd amendment, saying, "I call on the Congress to override this provision, or amend it to be acceptable, before they adjourn." But Congress did not take action.
Here is the actual quote (it's near the end).
Here's how CAGW (Citizens Against Government Waste) summarized the situation:
The Byrd provision penalizes steel-using industries, such as automobile manufacturers, that depend on more competitively priced steel imports and employ many more workers than the steel industry. Further, thanks to higher costs, consumers will pay more for cars, airplane tickets, and household appliances. This double whammy seems particularly unfair in light of the fact that subsidies for the big steel industry are already costing U.S. taxpayers and consumers more than $3 billion annually.
Well, today you've really done it, Ollie!
Japan will slap 15 percent levies on U.S. steel starting Sept. 1 in retaliation for American duties imposed on Japanese products, a trade ministry official said Monday. The tariffs could run to a maximum of 5.7 billion yen, or $51 million, said trade ministry official Etsuo Sato.
Japan has demanded the repeal of duties imposed by the United States on Japanese steel products under the so-called Byrd amendment, an antidumping law ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization.
By the way, I had to laugh... If you stick Byrd into Google, one of the first sites to come up is the publicity site for the senator, which says, amusingly,
Official site for the "West Virginian of the 20th Century," featuring news, contact details, and constitutent services, plus information about the Senator
Maybe he doesn't know it's the 21st century yet.
I love this too ... (from http://www.ebearing.com/legislation/2000act.htm)
On October 28, 2000, President Clinton signed the agriculture spending bill, containing the Byrd amendment, into law. Mr. Clinton indicated that he wanted Congress to override the Byrd amendment, saying, "I call on the Congress to override this provision, or amend it to be acceptable, before they adjourn." But Congress did not take action.
Here is the actual quote (it's near the end).
Here's how CAGW (Citizens Against Government Waste) summarized the situation:
The Byrd provision penalizes steel-using industries, such as automobile manufacturers, that depend on more competitively priced steel imports and employ many more workers than the steel industry. Further, thanks to higher costs, consumers will pay more for cars, airplane tickets, and household appliances. This double whammy seems particularly unfair in light of the fact that subsidies for the big steel industry are already costing U.S. taxpayers and consumers more than $3 billion annually.
