by Walter Gray—Leveling the US-China Playing Field:

China’s wage advantage is shrinking because workers there are demanding and getting a bigger share of the manufacturing pie. Good for them? Yes, but even better for Americans. China’s government is looking to relocate its industrial base into the country’s interior, far from the major cities, but that effort won’t blunt the new-found muscle being flexed by all Chinese laborers. Experts here say China is suffering from distance from the U.S. market, communications difficulties and weak intellectual property protection. Early signs for the U.S. are good, reports Bloomberg Businessweek. Blue chips such as Caterpillar, Ford and NCR have all announced they are returning some manufacturing from abroad

Going Out on Your Own

The Boston Globe recently published a “Top 10” list for risk takers who want to start their own businesses.
1. Save money before you quit
2. Expand your network
3. Lower your cost of living
4. Be willing to do it all
5. Consider generating supplemental income
6. Recruit mentors, advisers, and experienced employees
7. Let others help spread the word
8. Don’t burn bridges
9. Skimp where it won’t be noticed
10. Project confidence

Want to be Healthy? Stay Home

A new study confirms what many corporate road warriors already know: Frequent business travel takes a toll on one’s health. The New York Times reports adults who spent 20 or more nights away from home each month were 2.5 times as likely to rate their health as poor or fair, compared with travelers away from home just one to six nights a month The most frequent travelers were also twice as likely to be as obese as those as those who went out of town infrequently. Researchers suggested airlines provide frequent travelers with on-board exercise equipment and more healthy meals.

Starting All Over

Everybody’s talking about privatizing segments of government. Me? I say privatize it all, except maybe for the President. Organize the new system by allowing a select list of non-profits to submit bids covering an eight-year period. Then re-bid it. What parts of our government would be privatized? Easy. Start with Congress and all the federal agencies. Then go down to the states to include governors, judges, legislatures, town and city mayors and councils and all the local units. For sure, there’s a problem with the Constitution. I’d turn that hot potato over to the Tea Party and suggest they pop a Viagra and re-write our Constitution. Their proposal was go to a national vote. Figuring the average age of a Tea Party member, their assignment would be completed somewhere around 2030. The interim privatization plan (see above) would take effect this coming January 1. Comments?

Happy Motoring Starts Where?

Maybe if we changed the name of the Division of Motor Vehicles in RI to something more exotic like The Travel Shoppe or maybe The Driving Station or maybe Your Extended Finger Kickoff Terminal we could begin to bridge between a disaster and a public service office. Face it, you can pour all the money you want into new computers, change of name or location or even provide workers with long white jackets and stethoscopes around their necks, you’ll still be guilty of showing up and bothering them. No, the answer is to get rid of all the surly, undereducated, politically-connected simpletons behind those counters. Study the problem all you want for another hundred years and you’ll come to the same conclusion.

La Difference, Mon Amie, is Cultural

There’s this guy in a hotel room near Times Square and he’s trying to get it on with the housemaid. Sure enough, she reports him, he’s arrested, cuffed and perp-walked to jail. Turns out he’s famous and wants to become president of France. His wife’s a looker (and filthy rich) and she says he couldn’t have done it. He’s good with the kids and the dog. Anyway, the French press starts arriving in droves to New York City, all of them wondering what the big deal is and why the culprit isn’t being shown more deference by the media of the USA (which doesn’t even show deference to old people and prostitutes). It’s a cultural thing. In French circles (roundabouts?) what you do on your own time is your business. The French media concurs, historically. The media people from France are better looking than their American counterparts, according to a column in The New York Times. And they kiss each other with a smooch on each cheek. Very European.

Retailers Stumbling With Mobile Devices

The average brick-and-mortar retailer will spend $343,000 this year on mobile initiatives, up from $50,000 in 2010, but the spending falls within a broad band, a recent study by Forester Research has found, according to The Wall Street Journal. While most retailers said the goal for mobile devices is to drive sales on their websites, investment levels may not be adequate, with modest sales at best resulting, Forester said. Reasons for poor returns include not having made websites compatible enough with smart phones, leaving screens hard to view and access difficult. In a number of cases, the article said, retailers haven’t provided functions that customers really want, such as information about in-store product availability, checkout capabilities, store maps, two-dimensional bar codes, coupons and navigation capabilities.

Coming Soon – Less Airport Security Hassle

The Transportation Security Administration is making plans to speed-up airline passenger traffic by adopting a more hands-off approach to travelers – frequent flyers, that is. On the table for discussion are:
• You don’t have to remove your shoes
• Laptops can remain in their cases
• A bar code printed on boarding passes puts you in a fast lane
• No more passing through a full-body scanner
• But no guarantee of being expedited every time
• Flight crews will test the new exemptions this summer

When Feelings Don’t Matter All That Much

The major collegiate business schools across America are introducing a new emphasis this year, designed to make them, well, nicer. The schools are teaching “soft skills” such as accepting feedback with grace and speaking respectfully to subordinates. However, according to a Wall Street Journal article, with classes often resembling a group therapy session, it’s hard to quantify what students actually learn in the soft classes. A recent study by DePaul University researchers found that managing workers and decision-making – two subjects that require softer skill sets as being sensitive when delivering feedback – were most important to acting managers. However, those subjects were covered in only 13% and 10% of required classes, respectively, in a study of 373 business schools. Conclusion? Softer skills are just not respected as much as, say, accounting, finance “hard” subjects.

Silliest Signs on Picket Lines

School teachers are professionals, teachers assert. But when they parade or protest, they can sound like miners, firemen or street car workers. A teacher in Wisconsin was photographed holding a sign claiming “We’re Here for the Students” but told NEAtoday “we’re really protesting….the attack on workers rights.”