This will bring out the anti-union zombies, but I'm posting it anyways.

President Obama has done what many in the domestic manufacturing community had hoped he would do since the day he entered office: appoint a top-notch person to his White House staff to promote the interests of American manufacturing. Ron Bloom, Obama's new senior counselor for manufacturing policy, is not shy when it comes to expressing his views on the need for the U.S. government to foster a healthy industrial sector. In reading his speeches and talking to those who know him well (including his most recent former boss), it is apparent that President Obama has put a tough cookie on an economic team dominated by economists known to embrace outsourcing.

"Every other nation in the world has a specific and targeted strategy to preserve or expand its manufacturing base," Bloom wrote in 2006. "We, on the other hand, seem to think that empty platitudes will suffice."

Bloom, a graduate of Harvard Business School, worked for more than a decade as a special assistant to the president of the United Steelworkers, first for the recently deceased George Becker and then for current USW president Leo Gerard. Prior to that, he worked for Lazard Freres and then started his own investment firm specializing in restructuring North American manufacturing companies. He made money in the private sector, and then took a staff job with the Steelworkers union in Pittsburgh.

The full article is at: http://www.manufacturingnews.com/new...917/Bloom.html

This post should get interesting. I'll make some popcorn, grab a Dr. Pepper, sit back and wait it out!

Bring on the fireworks!
Craig Donges

*****



*****

All I need to know about the man right there.

Harvard Business School has turned out an entire generation of "businessmen" committed to sucking American businesses dry to the benefit of the shareholders and upper management.

He's a leach until proven otherwise.

(I voted Obama)

Let me get the popcorn on...

Seems to be one of a very few who were not corrupted by the Harvard B-School. I recommend reading the full article.

Stan,

I read it and I'm still not convinced.

He looks promising, I'll admit. This country is in desperate need of a manufacturing policy and, more importantly, the guts to carry it out. However, consider it my personal bias that anyone from that "institution" is a wolf in sheep's clothing. It's like trying to walk though a sewer. No matter how hard you try, you're going to get shit in your boots.

However, I'm willing to watch at wait. I hope he's good, but I fear he's another leach with a different agenda.

Whiz? I thought they were called (rightfully) CZARS!

Ray

Pmech,

I too am very leery of anyone from a B school, especially Harvard. IMO a MBA is one of the most worthless degrees ever devised.

Ray,

You may want to remember the term Czar was first utilized by the Reagan Administration as in “Drug Czar”. It is also noteworthy that it never appears in a job title or description.

Stan

I'm more concerned about that part. I do agree we need a national policy to strengthen manufacturing, but lets just hope this is done correctly through reducing burdens on our manufacturers, so they are competitive outside our borders as well.

Neither does the word "whiz" appear in any titles, although after giving it some thought, it may be a job discription...

Dennis

Dr. Stan --

I believe you owe Richard McCormack, the author of the Manufacturing & Technology News article you cite, a proper citation.

John

Does his name, at the top of the piece linked to,
as author, count for such a citation?
Jim

Jim,

Thanks

John,

Does this site use MLA, APA, or Chicago?

\


Now thats funny!!! You got a chuckle out of me

What's a manufacturing base?

We haven't had one of them since Maggie Thatcher learned about Monetarism and thought we could survive with a service based economy

I think it best we don't do a damned thing about saving manufacturing 'at this juncture'.
Don't you people realize how much thought and effort went into breeding and graduating an entire generation of greedy bastiges who think of nothing but themselves and immediate profits?
Haven't you also learned that the 'redistribution of wealth' term so many mind-numbed robots echo does NOT mean the income of the Average Joe that has been redistributed to those who need it least?
Manufacturing is a losing proposition unless you are prepared to share a bit of the earnings to build a base of consumers who can afford the products you build.
We screwed the pooch by allowing them to convince so many followers that manufacturing is a dirty word and we will all be saved with a grand 'service' economy!
What they fail to tell you is that when we were known as a manufacturing nation we also had a strong service economy! When this service economy crap was presented to us in school, I stood up and stated that we already were a service economy as well as a manufacturing economy and then asked why are we giving ANY facet of our riches away. The answer I got was pure babble as I'm sure this question wasn't covered when they indoctrinated instructors into pushing this agenda.

Now that the tax base those evil manufacturing jobs contributed his gone, the whining and crying will begin when the few left with an income will have to make up for that lost tax base.
One would think those business schools would have looked at the long term ramifications of the tripe they poured into those students and future business 'leaders' heads.

Peddler,

There are more people in the "service economy" today than in the manufacturing economy. So, the conventional wisdom is that you get a few bucks each from all them minimum wage workers, and it SHOULD equal what a Nation of people with well paying manufacturing jobs USED to pay.

Classical wisdom is that you should NEVER tax the RICH too much, they will take their money away and set up shop elsewhere.

Hey, they do that NOW. MONEY knows no patriotism. All it knows is that it wants to make more.

Most of our First World trading partners are fully Unionized. Most of them, when a Union has a problem, the entire country goes out on a "sympathy strike" which we have not seen here in decades.

I don't know if EFCA will be voted in. I hope it is, but we got LOTS of Blue Dog Dems. Trumka, tonight, on Matthews, says that 30 thou people are fired per year for trying to Unionize. That sucks and some of you should realize that.

Some of you think that millions for the management is better than a few cents per hour for the working force. Few here can POSSIBLY be OF that millions for them fraternity.

Why do you defend paying a "Temp" which is all that a CEO or Pres of a modern company MILLIONS for a short stint in charge of a company that tanks? They lose a 100 million and take 25 million in remuneration! YOU defend them as though you will be in their boots next week.

DID you, would you go take ANOTHER job as CEO to screw the world AGAIN? They don't go home and enjoy their ill gotten gains. They use it to get ANOTHER corporate sinecure where they can do it all over again. "Chainsaw Al Dunlap" comes to mind.

Cheers,

George

Just what we need. another useless oman employee suckin the life out of the country

Trying to decipher this statement hurts my head.

Dennis-
Thanks for turning my frown to a smirk this morning:

QUOTE]Neither does the word "whiz" appear in any titles, although after giving it some thought, it may be a job discription... [/QUOTE]

Too funny - now someone pass the popcorn !