There’s been a lot of talk in the news these days about the U.S. auto sector, specifically, how it can remain competitive. The whole matter is kinda complicated which is why we were excited to learn that Martin Baily, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (now with the McKinsey Global Institute) will present the results of his new study, “Increased Global Competition and Productivity Growth in the U.S. Auto Industry.” A group of top-notch economists (many of whom have come from the Federal Reserve), Macroeconomic Advisers, is sponsoring Martin’s speech as part of a day long event where they will also release a U.S. macro-forecast for 2006. Click here for a complete agenda.

The event is in Washington, DC on December 14th and if you’d like to attend, contact Debbie Cason who can give you a great NAM member rate.

The honors for this week’s response to the President’s radio address for the Democrats fell to Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire. In her remarks, according to this CNN story, she said that the federal government needs to create a national energy policy to address rising costs. (She might’ve been so busy with her recount that she missed word of the energy bill that passed a few months back which did exactly that.) She cited her work and that of other Democrat Governors who are, she said, “controlling rising prices and reducing our use of foreign oil by embracing alternative energy sources.” Guess it’s fair to ask, “How’s that going….?”

Here’s what irks us about Gov. Gregoire’s call to action: the refinery bill passed the House a month or so ago without a single Democrat voting in favor. We’ve not built a refinery in this country since right after the Ice Age. Next up — expanding the supply equation for domestic energy by opening up a 10 mile x 10 mile area in Alaska (which Alaskans support) to unleash a million barrels of oil a day. While we’re at it, how about tapping the 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Outer Continental Shelf – 85% of which is now under a federal moratorium — while we pay the highest natural gas prices in the world. And remember, natural gas prices are set on a local, not world, market. Tapping that enormous reserve will immediately have an impact on prices. But opposition to opening up ANWR and OCS has been led in the Congress by the Democrats. Our coal reserves exceed in BTU’s all the world’s oil reserves. And, we’ve not begun construction on a nuclear plant since the 70′s, while both France and China have been building them at a frenetic pace. The environmental movement has worked almost exclusively with Democrats to thwart coal and nuclear technology.

We’re all for new sources, all for conservation. But this is not a zero sum game. That only gets us so far. In the meantime, we need to be doing everything in our power to tap into the enormous supply of energy that we have in this country. We remain the only country in the world that limits access to its own natural resources and now the poor and those on fixed incomes are quite literally going to pay the price for it. Anybody cover supply & demand in Economics 101…?

So that’s why it chaps us a bit to hear Gov. Gregoire cry crocodile tears for the nation’s energy woes. Here’s an energy strategy laid out a few weeks go by NAM President John Engler. The Congress has the ability starting next week to begin to drive down domestic energy prices. Drop them a note and tell them to get to work. Spurred by Gov. Gregoire’s call to action, maybe even the Democrats will listen.

We wouldn’t bother you with this if it wasn’t really impoprant….

In other food news — and in keeping with our Thanksgiving theme — here’s a really important story from the AP, reporting on a study finding that cranberries, in addition to other known medicinal effects, is also helpful in fighting plaque.

Says the article:

“Dr. Michel Koo, an oral biologist and food scientist at the [University of Rochester] medical center, said it is very likely that the same chemical traits that for years have made cranberry juice a formidable weapon against urinary tract infections also render it a credible tool in the war against dental plaque.”

Yet another agricultural product with a healing effect that is brought to you by America’s manufacturers . Hope you had seconds on the big day, and had plenty of the stuff when you had leftovers. By the way, anybody wanna guess what the third largest cranberry producing state is….? We’ll give you a hint.

OK, continuing yet again with our Thanksgiving theme all this week, we thought we’d show you another video about food being made. You’ll recall that in the past, we’ve shown you how chocolate is made, and also Campbell’s Soup. At this point, most of you probably can’t even think about food, having stuffed yourself at the table on Thursday, but what the hey, we didn’t have a video showing antacids being made.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, you may have had a little pork, maybe some bacon. And if you did, chances are it was from Smithfield Foods. Based in Smithfield, Virginia, Smithfield Foods is the world’s largest pork processor and hog producer. The company processes 27 million hogs and raises 14 million annually. Our collection of well-known brands includes Smithfield, Smithfield Lean Generation, John Morrell, Gwaltney, Patrick Cudahy, Krakus, and Stefano’s, to name just a few.

This short video shows how they process 6 million pounds of pork a day and — at their Wilson pant — 130 million pounds of bacon a year. Imagine how many BLT’s that could make!

Don’t worry — the video tour is rated “G”. Click here to watch it and feel the manufacturing vibe.

Some times there is no comfort in being able to say, “We told you so.” This is one of those times. As you know, the Washington Post’s Justin Blum has been doing a pretty good job of covering the woes of the Alcoa plant in Frederick County, Maryland, especially its soaring energy prices and the potential job-killing impact they might have. That theme has been echoed in so many of the comments we’ve recounted below (click here , here and here) from NAM members responding to our energy survey last week.

Indeed, yesterday Blum ran a piece entitled, “Md. Alcoa Plant to Start Layoffs in December.” This plant expects to lay off 500 of its 600 workers in December due to high energy prices. This is no far-off bogeyman. It’s here.

We have 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas right off our coast that can be recovered in an environmentally sound way. We have a reserve of oil in Alaska that can give us a million barrels of oil a day. What on earth is Congress waiting for? We’re the only country that limits access to its own natural resources. It’s a pure function of supply and demand and prices are soaring while Congress maintains the federal moratorium on the recovery of 85% of the natural gas from the Outer Continental Shelf.

The high prices of energy is hitting and it’s costing jobs. Tell your Member of Congress to move now to unleash domestic supplies of energy.

Spain has Pamplona and the running of the bulls every July 6. Here in America we have Wal-Mart on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

The first thing you see in the frigid pre-dawn darkness is the flashing lights. Not the “come buy this stuff” lights but the lights of a dozen police cars and assorted emergency vehicles lined up in front of Wal-Mart for the annual running of the shoppers on the Friday morning after Thanksgiving.

Entry was no problem — we followed the EMT with the stretcher. Folks were begrudgingly giving him a wide swath. When he broke left to a woman sitting dazed in a chair apparently nursing the effects of a dust-up, we broke right, headed with the horde to the electronics section. Took out a little old lady George Costanza-style on the way. Too bad — gotta go, gotta shop.

But we never made it. We only got about this far, from which vantage point we could see four or five Fairfax County Police perched atop the merchandise, shooing away the pressing horde. We stared in wonder at the mob, made our way around a bit, breathed it all in. Americana — bereft of fixin’s or filter.

On our way out we saw this guy, a Wal-Mart employee who also headed for higher ground. If we could have found higher ground, we would have. Angry shoppers frustrated by too little supply of laptops and other electronics to meet their demand, headed to the Customer Service desk. We got a shot of that, too, on the way out. If you look closely, you can see the “Customer Service” sign on the other side of the mob.

Hemingway found Pamplona because, as he said, he went searching for something that would awaken his senses to both life and death. Emerging from Wal-Mart this morning, seeing even more police cars, the parking lot now closed off completely, the woman being loaded on the stretcher into the ambulance, we felt a special bond with Hemingway. Life and death indeed.

There are things every American should do just once in their lives, a civic duty, if you will: You must see Mount Rushmore, stand on the rim of the Grand Canyon in all its breathtaking vastness, gaze at the Statue of Liberty like so many immigrants before us and once — just once — be at Wal-Mart at 5 a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving.

And we escaped without a scratch.

In keeping with our Thanksgiving theme this week, here’s a little post-Holiday respite, a cool turkey channeling Gloria Gaynor, another member of the rich musical tradition of New Jersey. As you ponder the angst and memories from the family gathering, here is a nice animation from the good folks at American Greetings. It is a disco-themed message with some very funny words to the tune of the 70′s disco classic, “I Will Survive”

Click on this link to see it. Hope you’re still enjoying the Thanksgiving buzz.

As it turns out, according to an AP story in today’s Washington Post, “When Americans sit down to Thanksgiving dinner today, health-conscious eaters won’t be the only ones checking how much they eat. The government will be watching, too.”

Seems the Census Bureau keeps track of all kinds of info on all kinds of holidays, including Thanksgiving. For example, says the story, the average American eats 13.7 pounds of turkey and 4.7 pounds of sweet potatoes each year. (Let’s hope that’s not all at one sitting….) On St. Patrick’s Day — another holiday for which stats are kept — the Census folks tell us that the average American drinks 22 gallons of beer a year. For some, on St. Patrick’s Day , it is all at one sitting, of that we’re sure.

In any event, you’ve seen the stories here on the blog this week from the Blogger’s Apprentice about the role manufacturers play in Thanksgiving. We have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving: the best, most productive manufacturers in the world. Manufacturing’s share of the US economy would make us the 8th largest economy in the world. We export as much in a month as all of agriculture exports in a year. We consume two-thirds of all the research and development, are responsible for the majority of patents and generate good, solid incomes (and benefits) for some 14 million people — not including the millions more who depend on them.

This Thanksgiving, as you bow your heads ’round the table, give thanks for all you have, but remember to give thanks for the many bountiful gifts from America’s manufacturers. Without them, we’d have precious little to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Fellow Blogger Ron Franscell from Under the News wrote in about our entry on giving thanks for the roof over our heads (manufacturers make the roofs and houses, remember). With this cute anecdote:

It has been a tradition in my family — maybe in many families — to go around the Thanksgiving table and ask everybody: What are you thankful for?

One Thanksgiving when my children were very young, we began with me. I was thankful for my family, for being together, for the time we had, and other patriarchal oratory. My wife was thankful for similar things. My daughter, maybe 8 at the time, added her lengthy list of friends and possessions..

Then we came to Matt, only 4. He was still thinking, but soon it dawned on him, this thing he was most thankful for in his so-far short life..

“Handles,” he said.

I gotta hand it to him: It never occurred to me to be thankful for handles, even though I am regularly thankful for handles. And knobs, rails, hinges, shelves, screw caps, cup-holders, envelopes, sandwich bags, can openers, lids, screwdrivers, soap dishes, buttons, rubber bands, remote controls, cardboard boxes, paper clips … all kinds of stuff I typically don’t take time to appreciate. But I guarantee there’s usually a string of choice words when they’re missing!.

So … don’t forget to be thankful for the little things.

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Did we mention we have members who make the handles and doorknobs?

Happy Thanksgiving.

We would be remiss if we did not include NAM members who are responsible for putting food on the table.  Salisbury, Md.-based Perdue Farms and Austin, Minn.-based Hormel play an important role in making sure everyone is “festively plump.”

Perdue was founded in 1920 by Arthur W. Perdue, as a table-egg poultry farm. Today, it employs more than 20,000 people with 700 working in the Salisbury, Md., plant and annual sales of more than $2 billion.  It is the largest poultry producer in the United States.  As the company has grown, it has not forgotten its roots.  Its history spans eight decades and three generations, with grandson Jim Perdue now chairman of the company that Forbes lists in its 100 largest family-owned businesses.

Food products manufactured by Hormel are also found on many Thanksgiving dining tables.  Founded in 1891 by George A. Hormel, the son of German immigrants, one of the first products the company sold was fresh pork.  By 1917, approximately one-third of its sales volume came from exports. In 1986, it purchased Jennie-O Foods, which is the nation’s number one producer of whole-and-processed turkey products sold.  The company has continued to grow throughout the years and today has more than 15,600 employees.

Hormel is perhaps best known as the producer of SPAM Luncheon Meat, which it began selling in 1937.

And for those who enjoy SPAM, you will be pleased to know that in 2001, Hormel opened the SPAM Museum.  Located at 1937 SPAM Boulevard, Austin, Minn., admission is free, but sorry folks, it is closed on Thanksgiving.

The Manufacturers Blog wishes all a safe, enjoyable and restful Thanksgiving holiday this year.