Interesting piece by Bob Samuelson in today’s WaPo on l’affaire France. They have near double-digit unemployment, work fewer hours than most of their competitors, and have tremendously restrictive employment laws. They’re now enduring riots and a general strike because of efforts to un-do a small piece of those employment laws.

In any event, a good read. Let us peer into the abyss and pray we never go there…..

Good editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal on immigration — the high-skilled end you don’t often hear about in this heated debate. Says the Journal:

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense in today’s global marketplace to educate the best and brightest and send them away to England or India or China to start businesses and develop new technologies for U.S. competitors. But that’s exactly what current U.S. policy encourages by limiting the employment prospects of foreign students who would rather stay here.”

We’ve posted this chart many times, showing that an increasing number of advanced degrees in math, science and engineering are going to foreign-born students. U.S. policy ought to reflect this reality and make sure they stay here and become part of the great American story of innovation.

We’ve written on this topic before, back when it was hot and when it appeared that draconian (and stupid) action was imminent. While the pace has slowed, Congress seems hell-bent on doing something on it, will likely show more motion than progress.

At our Public Affairs meeting last week in Phoenix (see the various “Reports from America“, below), we were treated to a panel on the last day that included Sean Noble, Chief of Staff to Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) and Matt Salmon, a former member of Congress from Arizona who narrowly lost the Arizona governor’s race two years ago. They were both every insightful on the topic of grass roots lobbying and had some insights and tips for the public affairs professionals assembled there. However, their more interesting comments came on the topic of lobbying reform. While Noble was sharp and articulate it was Salmon –a former public affairs professional himself — who wowed the crowd.

Leaving Congress, Salmon quipped, he learned that “not all golf balls have logos on them.” But, he added, “At least I get to keep my gifts.” He characterized the current flap over the so-called lobbying scandals as “much ado about nothing”, pointing out that both Jack Abramoff and Rep. Cunningham broke existing laws. In his view, there is no need for new laws, only more transparency. Said Sean Noble in calling for more disclosure, “Sunshine is the best disinfectant.” Salmon’s biggest applause line — unintended as such, but delivered with such apparent conviction — was, “You can’t legislate decency and you can’t legislate integrity….Eigher you have it or you don’t.” Our sentiments exactly.

Salmon went on to note that Congress has so many issues to cover that it wold be impossible for them to be knowledgeable about them all. He said that lobbyists serve a useful function in educating Members of Congress and their staffs. Somebody commented that Congress does two things well: overreact and nothing. In this case, it looks like they’re poised to do the former.

Salmon closed by talking about the value of the various trips that he and his staff took while in Congress. As regular blog readers know, the NAM sponsors several Congressional staff trips a year (approved in advance by the relevant ethics committees) to manufacturing towns, to let them tour the facilities and talk to owners and workers and to learn a little bit about the folks who make the economy go. In almost every instance, it’s the first time they’re ever been in a manufacturing facility.

Said Salmon about the NAM, recalling his days in Congress, “You have a great story to tell.” We intend to keep telling it, and hope that Congress doesn’t decide punish some blatant transgressions of a few by making it harder for good law-abiding citizens to talk to their representatives.

OK, gang — time for another shameless plug. Seems it was a slow news week over at Congressional Quarterly Weekly (“CQ” to the cognoscenti) a week or so ago. They did a story on Internet advocacy and needed a little filler so they talked to us about our humble little blog and ace reporter and writer John Cochran ended up making us sound a whole lot better than we are. For that we are eternally grateful. We’re glad we sent that case of whiskey, in retrospect.

So here’s a link to the article, complete with a sexy photo of the blogger-in-chief sitting in front of one of our vintage posters. Thanks again to John Cochran for a good piece (even the part that wasn’t about us) and proving that indeed CQ is indeed the finest damned publication on the planet.

Who would disagree….?

Sure enough, the blogosphere has worked its magic once again. One (or the other) of our sharp-eyed blog readers posted a comment on our piece below on John Stossel and outsourcing. In fact, they did find the video on the ABC News site and sent us this link.

What’s great about it is you get to see Lou Dobbs on somebody else’s turf, namely Stossel’s. You realize why he doesn’t do much of this, because he really does come off looking — as one of our other readers commented last week — “like a raving idiot.” Our reader’s words, not ours. But we’d agree. At one point Dobbs says that “outsourcing is stupid and being stupid is un-American.” Hard to argue with that, we guess. Not really.

So thanks to both our faithful readers for coming through once again. The video really does bring to life the bland and sanitized transcript as the reader who sent us the transcript said it did.

This episode proves once again that we have the smartest damned blog readers on the plant. Enjoy the 5-minute video.

This week, we speak with a former CIA operative turned author and consultant for businesses looking to protect their proprietary secrets from corporate espionage. Then, a workplace PhD talks to us about how “visual information systems” can make factories safer and more efficient. Later, our own Hank Cox on his fabulous book about Lincoln and the Sioux Uprising of 1862. All this, along with music from James Bond, I Can See Clearly Now, the Three Stooges Theme and When Johnny Comes Marching Home.

Click here to listen to the show.

If Barbara Mandrell was country when country wasn’t cool, then Alvis Edgar “Buck” Owens was country when country was barely on the map. He died at his home in his beloved Bakersfield, California yesterday at age 76.

We know this is a blog about manufacturing, more or less, but allow us to indulge our occasional passions. Buck was an innovator (as are all manufacturers) and played a fine manufactured instrument, either his Fender Telecaster or his famous red, white and blue Harmony American acoustic. He became known to most for his corny turn as a host (with blazing guitarist Roy Clark) of Hee-Haw, but he had made his musical bones well before then.

From such classic country tunes as “Rollin’ in My Sweet Baby’s Arms” on one of this first albums, to pairing with contemporary country star Dwight Yoakum on “Streets of Bakersfield” — or any of songs on the 100 or so albums in between — Buck Owens was as right as rain, as true as the arrow flies. The nasally cry in the voice, the heartache that came through every note, he was a giant not only in country music but in music writ large.

Now that country music has become a multi-billion dollar industry, it’s easy to forget that its roots began way before Johnny Cash waked the line. Every country star who has come after Buck Owens owes him a debt of gratitude. He was a groundbreaker and a journeyman all at once. His songs have been covered by many artists and will continue to be as they are timeless.

And so we take a moment to remember a great man, a great musician and a great career. Buck Owens will be imitated, never replaced.

What’s innovation? How does it come about? We had a good look at innovation up front this week when the Wall Street Journal profiled LoggerHead Tool’s new Bionic Wrench. This product, from a small Illinois company, is a leap ahead of other wrenches because it doesn’t slip on fasteners that are worn around the edges. If you have ever tried to remove nuts and bolts that won’t budge, you can instantly see the value of this invention. What’s more, this tool is easy on the hands and also fits around 16 different sizes of nuts and bolts.

The design is so cool that the Bionic Wrench received a 2006 International Forum Design award (in Germany) and another from Popular Mechanics for its editors choice award. The creator, Dan Brown, said that part of his inspiration for the wrench was the shutter in a single lens reflex camera which opens and closes in a unique, concentrenic way. Mr. Brown’s wrench has US patent number 6,889,579 and is made domestically, unlike most hand tools which are now imported. The US remains the innovation capital of the world because of the Dan Brown’s of this country and because we have the manufacturing capacity to turn these great ideas into solutions for consumers and industry.

Yesterday the blogger-in-chief was in Kiawah Island, South Carolina at The Sanctuary — a pretty stinkin’ nice place, by the way — to meet with the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance (SCMA). This is a good group of mostly NAM-member companies (and a few who aren’t, but should be — you know who you are…), who are very bullish on manufacturing in a place that has become a major manufacturing state.

There is no doubt that the textile industry has been hard-hit in South Carolina, but the state really is a microcosm for manufacturing in America writ large. What has happened is that the lost textile jobs have been supplanted by jobs in other sectors. In the room were such mammoth manufacturers as Michelin and BMW. Together they are employing thousands of workers in well-paid jobs in South Carolina. According to the Organization for International Investment, some 123,000 South Carolinians are employers by “foreign-owned” firms,a number that increased almost 10% in the past five years alone.

So thanks to the SCMA for the incite and their hospitality. I was followed by Sen. Jim DeMint, an ally of manufacturing. Also, Gov. Sanford was on the program alter in the weekend. He’s worked hard to create a climate there that allows manufacturing to prosper. (Wonder where your state rates in competitiveness and business climate? Get a Competitiveness Redbook). The other Senator from South Carolina is in China trying to get the Chinese to revalue their currency. More on that later.

Looks like globalization has hit South Carolina like it’s hit Indiana and Georgia and so many other states. At the end of the day– like the country as a whole — they’re better off for it.

Here’s another one for the archives, from “Industry on Parade”, the weekly show the NAM hosted in the 50′s. These are just so retro, they’re hysterical. The narrator, the music, the whole bit.

This one shows hearing aids being made at the Solitone (sp?) Company in Elmsburg, New York. You see what passes for high-tech and miniaturization back then. Listen carefully and you’ll hear the narrator refer to the “girls” who are dong the assembly. He also notes that the diverse pieces of the assembly process are “brought together by intelligent management.” This was clearly the pre-Dilbert era.

It ends with a tug on the patriotic heartstrings –as if “Hearing for the Deaf” isn’t enough to tug on the heartstrings — showing a battleship and planes flying overhead. All a part of the times.

So click here to watch hearing aids being made way back when and feel the manufacturing vibe.