"Made in the U.S.A." makes comeback

In a recent article, Chris Bartel, head of Fidelty's Global Equity Research, interviewed members of Fidelity’s Equity Research Department and came away with good news for anyone who likes to see "Made in the U.S.A."

American manufacturing is moving to the forefront again for three reasons: an increase in our energy supply, an increase in wages overseas, and a weak U.S. dollar. Our energy supply has increased mainly because of hydraulic fracturing in North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Because of the lower price for domestic energy, new foreign investment to build chemical manufacturing plants is flowing into the U.S. Chemicals are the building blocks of things people like (such as anything with plastic in it). 

But this also has begun to create jobs in engineering and construction firms, trucking, railroads, machinery and equipment manufacturing, fertilizer manufacturing, and agriculture (especially corn). And there is the multiplier effect. For every new hire in manufacturing there are three more new hires across the supply chain. Economists also note the "Boomtown Effect" taking place in Pennsylvania and North Dakota where fast food restaurants are now paying their people $25 an hour to start. Will that last forever? No. What does? But if I were single and looking for work, maybe even just out of college, I would check it out.

As the wage gap closes more foreign companies will find the United States more attractive because of the rule of law, transparency, and our investment environment compared to the rest of the world. The U.S.A. is still a fine place to do business.

What should we do now to keep it going? For one thing, let's make the tax credit for research and development permanent. For another thing, let's bring home U.S.-based corporation money currently trapped overseas due to our double-taxation on it. Give these companies an incentive to spend it on U.S. manufacturing.

Read the full article: https://www.fidelity.com/viewpoints/manufacturing-revival?ccsource=Twitter&vsheadline=Ways_to_play_made_in_the_USA&vssource=Fidelity_Viewpoints

Thank You?

Is it too much to expect the money changers employed by the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to look you in the eye and say, "Thank you," when they take your money? Just wondering...

Sweetsy

What can I say about the love of my life? I unabashedly love her so. I really cannot do justice to the love I feel for Terese in one entry so I know there will be more from time to glorious time. The first song I think of when I think of her is, well, there's about 1,001 songs but let's start with "Some Enchanted Evening." Sweetsy, as always, this one's for you.

Some enchanted evening
You may see a stranger,
you may see a stranger
Across a crowded room
And somehow you know,
You know even then
That somewhere you'll see her
Again and again.

Some enchanted evening
Someone may be laughin',
You may hear her laughin'
Across a crowded room
And night after night,
As strange as it seems
The sound of her laughter
Will sing in your dreams.

Who can explain it?
Who can tell you why?
Fools give you reasons,
Wise men never try.

Some enchanted evening
When you find your true love,
When you feel her call you
Across a crowded room,
Then fly to her side,
And make her your own
Or all through your life you
May dream all alone.

Once you have found her,
Never let her go.
Once you have found her,
Never let her go!

Chucky

For no particular reason I'd like to say a little bit about our nephew, Chucky. For one thing, the kid's a powerhouse. From dawn to midnight, every day of the week, I've never met anyone who could match this kid in energy. And he's a sweet kid, at that. Sometimes I think that if we could just harness the energy beaming out of one of his smiles our country could solve our energy crisis in the blink of an eye. The kid's also got a hell of a lot of intestinal fortitude. Some call it commitment. I call it the human spirit which comes to us from on high. As a toddler he started loving the gridiron greats from the Emerald City--the Seattle Seahawks. He stood firm for them growing up in a family of SF49'er Fanatics. Pretty gutsy if you ask me. He loves my wife, Terese, his "Auntie T" and our toddler, Sonny, as if he's known them all his life, which I guess he has, in a way, because his magnificent heart has always come from a place of love. He'll never know how much it means to me. So here's to you, Chucky. I hear you're entering cyberspace soon and the net will be so much better for it. What do you say?

The Angora Fire

When Governor Schwarzenegger visited South Lake Tahoe recently, he said we shouldn't point our fingers about the people responsible because the fire crews were still in the midst of bringing the fire under control, Well, the fire (Thank You, Lord!) is now under control, our preliminary investigation is complete and so it's time to take the gloves off.

Any property owner in Lake Tahoe will tell you how schizophrenic, divided, and dangerous the federal, state, and local governmental bureaucracies have become. Last month, we found out how truly dangerous their results can be. With the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency at first encouraging and now requiring the use of ground covers such as dry bark mulch and pine needles to prevent erosion and at the same time severely limiting defensible space around your dwelling to a scant ten yards, you can see how the government miserably failed to protect the people. You might remember the Tahoe local who refused to abide by T.R.P.A. regulations and cleared the defensible space to around 33 yards, more than three times the limit. His home still stands. He exemplifies the idea promoted by Governor Schwarzenegger who said a homeowner should be able to protect his private property as he sees fit. If this unsound, unsafe, and unwise regulation was the only danger facing Tahoe, we'd be well on our way to solving it on our own. Friends, neighbors, and acquaintances tell me they are already creating more defensible space around their homes--the T.R.P.A. be damned.

And let's not forget the Minden, Nevada air tanker that remained idle as Tahoe burned that day. At a mere 15 minutes away it would have saved countless homes and dollars. Instead, a full 50 minutes after the 9-1-1 call came in, the Sierra Front Inter-Agency Dispatch Center (in Minden, Nevada!) called up two air tankers from Reno, Nevada, more than 30 minutes away. Incredibly, the agency says their actions stem from Congress' close scrutiny of money and spending! I don't know about you, but I haven't found any evidence, EVER, of this close scrutiny.

The Tahoe region has also suffered from another turf battle over thinning out the forest canopy. Again, rather than working to protect and serve the people, agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, and the T.R.P.A., work tirelessly to feather their own nests and protect and serve their own bureaucratic turf. This produces tragedy. While the T.R.P.A. tells homeowners to clear away pine needles, brush, and small trees to create the vital "defensible space," the U.S. Forest Service controls immense areas of thickly-wooded sections where crowds of small trees and underbrush create fuel ladders for fires to race to the tops of the big trees and jump hundreds of feet. On Lookout Point Circle, where all the homes burned to the ground, the adjoining forest was "grossly overstocked," according to fire inspectors. A spokesperson for the Lake Valley Fire Protection District says property owners who had cleared a defensible space around their homes lost them anyway because their neighbors didn't bother adding, "You're only as safe as your neighbor." But what do you do when your dangerous neighbor next door is the federal government?

Finally, we have the government's fuels reduction project that was left unfinished a few years back. Hundreds of slash piles 6' tall, 8'-10' in diameter and less than 40' apart had been drying out for at least three years. When the fire reached the slash piles upwind of the Mule Deer area, they exploded into flames igniting and then taking out the entire neighborhood. It is a crime for the government to have let these hundreds of piles of tinderbox kindling accumulate in residential areas for years.

Where does this leave us? Well, citizens have to become more vigilant to the dangers of all of our government's bureaucracies. Unwise, vague, and slow-acting bureaucrats neither protect nor serve us. Until and unless we change the way we do things, all of us will live under a system that endangers us more and more every day. As President Reagan said, "Government is not the solution. Government is the problem."

Glimpses of My Father on the Silver Screen

My mom often talked about how my dad looked a lot like Humphrey Bogart. I could never see it, but then, I didn't really know much about "Bogie" back in the day. There were, in fact, quite a few physical similarities between the two. Brown eyes, slender build, slightly receding hairline, determined jaw, and an often-pensive facial expression--all of these could easily describe either man. But this was before video rentals, classic film tributes, and cable T.V. When Mom would tell us how much Dad looked like "Bogie" we had no true reference point. Back then, the only time they ran a classic movie (except for "The Wizard of Oz") on television was on The Late Show--long past bedtime.

But lately, I've been seeing Dad in some of these classic films, if you know what I mean. I think of Mom watching these same movies and after all this time I think I understand her. "Bogie" was a movie star long before my folks met, so she had an idea of what "Bogie" was about when she met my dad and recognized these qualities in him. However, I don't find my father in "High Sierra," "Angels With Dirty Faces," "The Petrified Forest," or "The Desperate Hours." Bogart's fine creation of such menacing villains in these films obliterates any sort of semblance between him and my father. No, to see glimpses and glints of my dad on the silver screen you have to watch and listen to the devoted family/working man in "They Drive By Night," the quiet, war veteran turned hero in "Key Largo," or the hard-driving, stoically passionate riverboat captain in "The African Queen." The "Bogie" character Mom found to be the most like my dad had to be Rick, the reluctant warrior in America's most-beloved film, "Casablanca." Like the rest of the Greatest Generation and much of the Heartland in general, Rick is reluctant to battle and when is finally forced into it he fights for liberation--never for conquest. "Still Waters Run Deep" sings the song and that was my father as it still is for much of America. When there is even so much as talk of attacking America we reluctant warriors gear up. Remember these lines from "Casablanca"?

Major Strasser (of Hitler's SS): Can you imagine us in London?
Rick: When you get there, ask me.
Major Strasser: How about New York?
Rick: Well, there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade.

My dad didn't live to see September 11, 2001. But I know how he would have responded because the day after Pearl Harbor he enlisted in the army at the age of 17. Later on, his work at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory helped win the Cold War.

Devoted. Patriotic. Passionate. Hard-working. War Veteran. Quiet. As the years roll on, my pride in him grows. I see in him what my mother saw, but I would have to add that he also closely resembled a resident of one of those "...certain sections of New York." Happy Father's Day, Dad.

D-Day, Reagan, and The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc

I can't think of a better way to commemorate today, D-Day, than to watch the Gipper's speech from this day in 1984. What remains relevant to today is our purpose and motive for fighting evil:

"The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt."

Today I'll be thinking not just of all the people from my parents' generation who fought in WWII, but of all the people who have served in the U.S. military.