a/symmetric: Don’t forget the low-tech manufacturing
August 3, 2024High-tech dreams stand on low-tech beams. Or, industrial foundations matter.
Deglobalization Round-Up: September 9
September 9, 2023China is set to launch a new state-backed semiconductor investment fund. Beijing bans central government officials from using iPhones at work, causing Apple shares to plummet. Corporate America still can’t quit China. And the return of just-in-time manufacturing?
How Canada Can Take Back Manufacturing
July 11, 2023Canada's manufacturing trade deficit has ballooned in the past four decades. It has an ailing resource sector and a hollowed-out manufacturing base. This essay, adapted from Nigel Southway's new book, "Take Back Manufacturing," proposes a road map for rebuilding Canada's manufacturing sector.
The Week That’s Done: The Smartphone Space Race
March 5, 2023The satellite space race is heating up—and China sees it as the next battlefield in the mobile communications contest. Plus: markets overreact to Tesla’s ex-rare earths announcement, Beijing's lithium crackdown, and Britain’s salad crisis. And banger factory activity in China contrasts with contraction in the US.
A Four-Step Plan for Re-Industrialization
January 11, 2023The US needs to create the conditions in which companies see the advantage of investing in the United States. This piece outlines four steps to do so; a four-step, feasible, and immediate path toward American re-industrialization.
Warning Signs for Global Manufacturing
January 7, 2023The Producer Manufacturing Index is flashing red, globally, showing contraction across the US, China, Japan, Singapore, France, and Germany.
The Week That’s Done: December 4
December 4, 2022Dampening inflation spurs enthusiasm, but where is the attention to contraction in the US manufacturing index? Plus: A roller coaster week for the growing US-EU trade spat, relaxation in China's COVID Zero restrictions, and a nascent EV industry shift to sodium-ion batteries.
US Manufacturing Is at a Tipping Point: It’s Time To Realize Making Matters
September 23, 2022Before US manufacturing crosses the Rubicon, the country needs a broad-based consensus that manufacturing matters; with it the foundation for a national manufacturing strategy that both government and the private sector buy into.
The Week That’s Done: August 7
August 7, 2022Across wheat, gas, steel, the shortage crisis has calmed - but (largely) because of dropping demand, not rising supply. With manufacturing slumping, future food production threatened, buffer eroded, what happens next? Plus: Storm clouds gather in the UK and China throws a temper tantrum.
The Week That’s Done: July 3
July 3, 2022The good news: It's a long weekend. The bad: California can't figure out supply and demand, US manufacturing is slowing, and the G7's price cap scheme doesn't mean much. Plus: Things look even worse in Europe, copper's drop might just be a blip, will the chemical industry move to China?
