Amazingly, in the past several months I've been called a racist 3 times, more than anytime in my life!  The first time was when the Jeremiah Wright thing broke out and I defended the guy, I was called bigoted against whites.  Then, just the other I was called first "pro-Black" then "racist against whites" because I favored Barack Obama over that walking museum piece from Arizona.  Now, today, the conservative economic blog site, Carpe Diem, is labeling people like me racist for demanding things be made in this country!

Yesterday I had hit on the situation going on with the automakers.  Originally, I had intended to include some other stories, but the first piece was large enough (perhaps too large?) that I realized that I had to push the other pieces. Well, as promised, we got some interesting stuff. First on the auto front a cool piece on zero emission cars.  Next we got fallout from biofuels and water preservation.  Third, it seems the Chinese aren't so thirsty for the black stuff right now. Lastly could the current woes Australia's mining sector tell us something?

Greetings folks, the start of new week and thus we kick off another episode of Manufacturing Monday!  Never a dull moment when it comes to covering stuff that either goes into the products you buy, or the impact that that consumption leads to. Now originally, I had these other items on bio-fuels, hydrogen cars, China and oil, and a few other things.  But I see now that my section on the bailout of the US automakers is so big, that the whole thing is too long.  So, if it is OK with you, I will post those items tomorrow.

The contrarian in me is screaming that Reuters' recent piece on food prices is the food inflation equivalent to Businessweek's famous "Stocks are dead" headline from a 1982 issue.  Yet another piece is whispering in my hear "baby, it ain't over yet!"  

The Wall Street Journal is just reporting on their site, that negotiators for the Iraqi government and the US have come to a draft agreement on troop withdrawals.

For anyone whose read my pieces in the past, knows that I hold a certain disdain towards former Reagan White House OMB Associate Director/conservative-libertarian Ayn Rand acolyte Larry Kudlow.  It's nothing personal against the guy, it's his ideas and economic policy objectives that I find fault with.  For the past couple of months, he's been going on about this is the "Goldilocks economy."  Essentially, that we're worrying about nothing because one bad economic indicator is being offset by a good one (mind you, he's often just used productivity as that one).  Well today, despite his claims that all is almost well, we got some news that just proves Larry Kudlow wrong!

Greetings ladies and gentlemen to the latest episode of Manufacturing Monday. Couple of interesting things to discus today, and some interesting numbers to watch this week.  First we have what appears to be a new take on price fixing by manufacturers.  Next we explore the recent collapse in the price of grains. Our last piece is a story from the Financial Times where companies and groups are hiring the very element that help drive up their costs, speculators, to well...sorta fight speculators.  Kinda reminds me of those old westerns where they hire a gunfighter to take on the baddie.  Finally, as mentioned, there are numbers we're watching, the Producer Price Index being released tomorrow, Jobless claims and the Philadelphia Fed Survey on Thursday.

To most on this site, this isn't exactly news, as many have been claiming that the price of goods and such have been rising.  But now the dead tree press is, in a sense, making it official.