A business-based rallying cry to reclaim the US economy There is a nagging feeling that the U.S. is slipping as a nation and our people are powerless to do anything to fix it. Issues such as jobs, product quality and safety, wages, the economy, and our status as the world's leading superpower are all tied together with our massive trade deficit. Re-Made in the USA addresses these issues using the author's firsthand observations and analysis, and offers a practical plan for how we can get our economy and global status back. A practical action plan to get the nation back on track If you're worried about America when you start reading this book, you'll finish feeling empowered Todd Lipscomb has a distinguished record in international business America's future does not have to be on the decline. In inspiring terms, Re-Made in the USA lays out the choice Americans have between doing nothing, and doing what we do best-rolling up our sleeves and working hard to fix the problem.
An indispensable, sharply drawn account of America's pivotal-and still controversial-intervention in World War I, enlivened by fresh insights into the key issues, events, and personalities of the period, from the New York Times bestselling author of A World Undone
An argument that America's economy needs a strong and innovative manufacturing sector and the jobs it creates. “There's no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil.” —Bill Gates In Made in the USA, Vaclav Smil powerfully rebuts the notion that manufacturing is a relic of predigital history and that the loss of American manufacturing is a desirable evolutionary step toward a pure service economy. Smil argues that no advanced economy can prosper without a strong, innovative manufacturing sector and the jobs it creates. Smil explains how manufacturing became a fundamental force behind America's economic, strategic, and social dominance. He describes American manufacturing's rapid rise at the end of the nineteenth century, its consolidation and modernization between the two world wars, its role as an enabler of mass consumption after 1945, and its recent decline. Some economists argue that shipping low-value jobs overseas matters little because the high-value work remains in the United States. But, asks Smil, do we want a society that consists of a small population of workers doing high-value-added work and masses of unemployed? Smil assesses various suggestions for solving America's manufacturing crisis, including lowering corporate tax rates, promoting research and development, and improving public education. Will America act to preserve and reinvigorate its manufacturing? It is crucial to our social and economic well-being; but, Smil warns, the odds are no better than even.
Over the last two decades, Japanese firms have challenged U.S. dominance in many manufacturing industries. This challenge has increasingly come in the form of transplant operations, and recognition has spread that their success owes a great deal to superior manufacturing management. Despite the ups and downs of the business cycle in Japan, there remains a core of world-class Japanese companies that have developed manufacturing management systems that companies throughout the world strive to emulate. In this edited volume, a team of eminent scholars uses case studies and large-scale surveys to explain in depth the process of transferring and transforming the best Japanese Management Systems (JMS) by both Japanese- and U.S.-owned firms. While the most successful of the Japanese manufacturing transplants rely, to varying degrees, on home country management techniques, they have had to adapt them to fit U.S. conditions. Similarly, the growing number of U.S. firms that are adopting these techniques to strengthen their own positions face a considerable challenge in transforming them to fit local conditions. A new environment necessarily compels the transformation of JMS. But despite the hurdles firms face, the evidence presented here and elsewhere strongly indicates that key aspects of JMS are remarkably transferable and successful in the United States. Combining scientific data with clear and engaging prose,Remade in America is a rich analytical resource for manufacturing professionals, as well as scholars and students of management and business.
In a stunning rebuke to a large group of naysayers, Jim Rohwer convincingly argues that the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998 was not a turn for the worse; rather it was short-lived and helped rid Asian markets of many of the problems that were holding it back. Now, while most analysts go wild over the American economy, Rohwer provides the key insights into why America is due for a slowdown while Asia is poised for tremendous growth and opportunity. Jim Rohwer has long experience in Asia as both a journalist and a business executive. The highly informed account in Remade in America comes from his own on-the-ground observation and analysis, as well as knowing all the major players in business, government, and the media in both America and Asia. Telling, in-depth interviews with people ranging from Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore, and Jack Welch, the CEO of General Electric, result in deep insights into Asia's great potential. The future of Asia is as much about the United States as it is about Asia, for the forces that revolutionized the American economy in the last twenty years provide the clues for what is to come in Asia. The key to Asian growth is understanding how Asian companies have learned from the strengths of both American and Asian business models. Remade in America clearly charts how Asian industries have started managing themselves based on American standards of corporate, technological, and economic performance that began to be adopted in the late 1990s, while incorporating their own strengths of cooperative corporate and social organization. Asia is ideally suited to take advantage of the Internet revolution, and we are only now starting to see its enormous potential in this area. Rohwer's insightful analysis of Japan, China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia shows how, as these countries start to combine the ruthlessly efficient market democracy and accountability that America pioneered with the Asian domination of dispersed manufacturing and assembly of components, there will be major opportunities both for American corporations and for investors. In addition, technology will not only enable Asian economies to improve on their traditional strengths, it will also help Asia greatly improve its traditional poor performance in services and distribution. Remade in America is a provocative and useful book, not only for those with direct business interests in Asia but also for readers who want an informed look at this dynamic and important part of the world. There will be a new Asia, Inc., one in which such matters as finance and technology will be handled in an American way while people will be managed along Asian lines in their interactions -- a powerful combination that we ignore at our peril.
A bold new history of modern conservatism that finds its origins in the populist right-wing politics of the 1990s Ronald Reagan has long been lionized for building a conservative coalition sustained by an optimistic vision of American exceptionalism, small government, and free markets. But as historian Nicole Hemmer reveals, the Reagan coalition was short-lived; it fell apart as soon as its charismatic leader left office. In the 1990s — a decade that has yet to be recognized as the breeding ground for today’s polarizing politics — changing demographics and the emergence of a new political-entertainment media fueled the rise of combative far-right politicians and pundits. These partisans, from Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich to Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham, forged a new American right that emphasized anti-globalism, appeals to white resentment, and skepticism about democracy itself. Partisans is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the crisis of American politics today.
Colonel Sanders, Elvis, Mickey Mouse, and Jack Daniels have been enthusiastically embraced by Japanese consumers in recent decades. But rather than simply imitate or borrow from the West, the Japanese reinterpret and transform Western products and practices to suit their culture. This entertaining and enlightening book shows how in the process of domesticating foreign goods and customs, the Japanese have created a culture in which once-exotic practices (such as ballroom dancing) have become familiar, and once- familiar practices (such as public bathing) have become exotic. Written by scholars from anthropology, sociology, and the humanities, the book ranges from analyses of Tokyo Disneyland and the Japanese passion for the Argentinean tango to discussions of Japanese haute couture and the search for an authentic nouvelle cuisine japonaise. These topics are approached from a variety of perspectives, with explorations of the interrelations of culture, ideology, and national identity and analyses of the roles that gender, class, generational, and regional differences play in the patterning of Japanese consumption. The result is a fascinating look at a dynamic society that is at once like and unlike our own.
WE'RE MADE OF MOMENTS (A COLE CREEK NOVEL) is the first book in a brand new, small town romance series by Molly McLain. This series is full of Molly's guaranteed feel-good vibes, amped up emotion, and page-sizzling heat. If you liked the River Bend and Velocity series, you will LOVE Cole Creek! We were made of moments.A handful of nights.Two weeks of passion.Four years of denial. JesseShe was never mine to keep, still I took every second that girl was willing to give me.I always knew she'd go back to him.But I never expected she'd take a piece of me with her. HaydenHe changed my life forever, and it happened long before our two weeks together.I didn't mean to fall for him.But how could I not when he gave me the most precious gift of all?
