Another great post on Jon Taplin’s Blog that’s well worth the read. In it he points out some of the current administrations delusions of joblessness (look at the chart!), and other political stagnations that are affecting our current state of economic affairs.

One of the major points of his post is how our economy has shifted to a service base, which is largely non-exportable (at least to smaller, more locally oriented businesses). This also means we’re not manufacturing as much as we used to, and therefore don’t have the export power we’ve had in the past. In other words, as the dollar has fallen against the Euro and other currencies, we’ve not seen an increase in exported manufactured goods as you’d expect.

This is an extremely important point to take in. If the current administration can’t see that the single most important thing we need to do in order to help the economy is to save/rejuvenate manufacturing jobs (read as: jobs that create exportable products and services) in the US, then we’re really sunk.

I tend to think, however, that the market will correct for this. We’ve already heard of some manufacturers moving operations to the US from the EU as a means to cut manufacturing costs. This is a trend that will probably continue, but only if businesses wake up to the fact that the current downturn in the economy isn’t a short term anomaly. Rather, it’s a long term (think several years) condition.

Link

You will go to Jon Taplin’s blog.

You will read his every word.

You will learn!

I’ve been reading Mr. Taplin’s blog now for a few weeks. Everything I’ve read on his blog has been incredibly well thought through, logical and currently relevant. He is in the know, and amongst those who are in the know. I’ve not seen any of the stupidity and short sightedness found in the position of pundits of either wing nut variety (right or left) in his writings, and that more than anything else is a tremendous tell.

In short if you don’t read his blog, well, you’re missing out…

The Navy’s latest Class of Destroyer, the Zumwalt Class, once on shaky ground, has finally had its contract awarded. There will be two ships of this class built simultaneously, one in Maine by General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works the other by Northrup Grumman’s Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi. What makes this class of ship so unique, aside from it’s Animesque name, is all the high-tech goodness that will be pumped into it. From it’s stealth hull which, purportedly, reduces radar signature more than 50x over current hull designs, to its Advanced Gun Systems, to its automated cargo handling system, to its use of the LynxOS RTOS as a systems OS this ship has many seemingly incredible advances.

Maybe too incredible, many concerns over the design (especially the hull which is said to be unstable during high seas) have made this class of Naval vessel controversial to say the least. With the USS Iowa (BB-61) being stricken from the Naval Register in 2006, no more battle ships exist in the US fleet, which means there are no ships with the capacity for truly frightening naval surface fire support. That’s one of the roles the Zumwalt class should address, but even that is role is in doubt.

Still, have a look at the specs, pretty impressive…

Images courtesy of Wikipedia, the US Navy and the Public Domain (link, link)