Wednesday, September 23, 2015

BloggeRhythms

Much of today's news concerns Pope Francis’ visit to the U.S., which eliminates any need for additional comment. Other items lend very little that’s new or of major interest, providing opportunity to revisit another ongoing topic often presented here.
 
Kelvin Chan, AP Business Writer @abcnews.go.com headed his column today: “Robot Revolution Sweeps China's Factory Floors”
 
Noting that: “In China's factories, the robots are rising,” Mr. Chan relates that: “For decades, manufacturers employed waves of young migrant workers from China's countryside to work at countless factories in coastal provinces, churning out cheap toys, clothing and electronics that helped power the country's economic ascent.
 
“Now, factories are rapidly replacing those workers with automation, a pivot that's encouraged by rising wages and new official directives aimed at helping the country move away from low-cost manufacturing as the supply of young, pliant workers shrinks.
 
The key factor raised by Mr. Chan is that: “With costs rising and profits shrinking, Chinese manufacturers "will all need to face the fact that only by successfully transitioning from the current labor-oriented mode to more automated manufacturing will they be able to survive in the next few years," said Jan Zhang, an automation expert at IHS Technology in Shanghai.”
 
An example of the many in the article encapsulates the labor situation in a company named Rapoo, as follows: “The company began its push into automation five years ago. Rapoo installed 80 robots made by Sweden's ABB Ltd. to assemble mice, keyboards and their sub-components. The robots allowed the company to save $1.6 million each year and trim its workforce to less than 1,000 from a peak of more than 3,000 in 2010.”
 
Two readers succinctly summed up what can be expected here in the U.S. in the very, very near future, particularly in response to the current minimum wage push by Democrat politicians. 
 
Doctor Evil wrote: “Coming soon to America where labor is priced higher and higher every year.”
 
Occam's Stubble added: “How's that $15 minimum wage workin' out for ya?”
 
Which brings us to today’s update on Bill Clinton’s wife.
 
According to foxnews.com, “Federal investigators reportedly have recovered work-related and personal emails from Hillary Clinton's time as secretary of state that the Democratic presidential front-runner claimed had been deleted from her personal server.
 
“The recovery of the emails was first reported by Bloomberg News late Tuesday. The initial report, which cited a source familiar with the FBI investigation into Clinton's private email server, was corroborated by The New York Times, which cited two government officials.
 
“It was not immediately clear whether all 30,000 messages Clinton said she had deleted from the server had been recovered, but one official told the Times that it had not been difficult to recover the emails that had been found so far.”
 
Regardless of how hard campaign representatives try to downplay the steadily growing email controversy, or the attempts at avoidance of the subject by the candidate herself, there’s littlie doubt the situation's doing major harm to her favorability.  
 
Margaret Talev and Arit John report that, “The findings of a national Bloomberg Politics poll released Wednesday represent a notable achievement for an as-yet undeclared candidate, suggest concerns about Hillary Clinton's candidacy, and raise the prospect of a competitive three-way race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
 
“Clinton, once the prohibitive front-runner, is now the top choice of 33 percent of registered Democrats and those who lean Democrat, the poll shows. Biden places second with 25 percent and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is at 24 percent. The other three Democratic candidates combined are the top choice for less than 4 percent of that base.”
 
Adding to the good news for the vice president: “His favorability ratings are on the rise. Since the last Bloomberg poll in April, Clinton's favorability ratings have dropped 10 points, from 48 percent to 38 percent. Biden's 49 percent favorable score represents a 3-point uptick. He was the only one of a dozen national political figures and entities whose approval rating improved over the summer.”
 
National Journal’s Ron Fournier wrote an excellent recap of Bill’s wife situation to date. Here’s a link: FOURNIER- Come Clean or Get Out
 
Which leads to the ongoing question once again: Joe Biden, Mayor Bloomberg, and Starbuck’s chairman and CEO, Howard Schultz, are you reading this? 
 
That's it for today folks.
 
Adios

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