EDITOR'S CHOICE -- SCOTT SUTTELL
Dr. Fujita offers a prescription for manufacturing health
Blog entry: February 3, 2012, 1:33 pm | Author: SCOTT SUTTELL
Hiroyuki Fujita, owner of Quality Electrodynamics and eQED in Northeast Ohio, is the voice of moderation in this CNNMoney.com story about a new Obama administration push to strengthen U.S. manufacturing. The proposals “include initiatives that would prevent firms from deducting moving expenses when shifting production overseas, and a 20% moving expenses tax credit for companies returning from abroad,” the website reports. CNNMoney says — without any real evidence that I can find in the piece — that the administration “has the support of smaller firms,” but adds, “it might not be enough to stir many into action.” Dr. Fujita is generally supportive of the president's proposals, though CNNMoney.com adds, “that's because his firms are already based in the United States.” (He also was a guest at last month's State of the Union.)
Quality Electrodynamics makes detectors placed inside magnetic resonance imaging devices of Siemens Healthcare and Toshiba Medical Systems. The website notes that when he launched the company in 2006, he refused to take his operations offshore.
"I wanted to start not only a research and development but also a manufacturing company in the United States, because I believe the ability to be able to manufacture a high-tech product from scratch is the true strength of a company," Dr. Fujita tells CNNMoney.com.
The company “represents the kind of advanced manufacturing championed by the Obama administration, which seeks to double tax deductions they can take for creating jobs,” the website reports.
The administration is also suggesting $5 billion in temporary tax credits for companies such as Dr. Fujita's second firm, eQED, a maker of devices that convert electricity in solar panels from direct current to alternating current.
Dr. Fujita says the tax credits would help, “but the issue at hand quickly shifts from the jobs he's already created to the matter of keeping them,” according to CNNMoney.com. He notes companies such as his often fall prey to the short-term demands of investors, and that tax credits might not be enough.
"Government can help by providing subsidies for the companies that can manufacture these clean energy electronics,” he says. “That way, we can take one step at a time and grow the business without worrying about return investment."
This and that
The mile high club: This week's Bloomberg Businessweek cover story is a comprehensive look at the United/Continental merger, which should be of interest to Clevelanders because of the importance of that airline at Hopkins Airport.
But you might be distracted from the story if the first thing you notice is the cover illustration of what is, essentially, two airplanes copulating above the words, “Let's get it on.”
The work of combining two huge airlines, not surprisingly, is highly detailed.
Continental employees and their new United colleagues have spent months “debating questions such as whether to board flights back to front, as most airlines do, or window, middle, then aisle, as legacy United did; whether miniature ponies will be allowed, as they were on Continental, to travel in the cabin as service animals (they will); whether Jet Skis are allowed as baggage (no); what information to print on the boarding pass; what direction dog crates should face when loaded into the cargo hold (backwards, as at legacy United, so spooked dogs don't recoil and tip the crate off the conveyor belt); (and) whether to require baggage handlers to wear steel-toed shoes (no official decision yet),” the magazine reports.
(And for what it's worth, that already very long paragraph actually went on for another half-dozen examples.
He was Tea Party before it was cool: A 1921 Cleveland Press interview with the writer G.K. Chesterton (“The Man Who Was Thursday” is a gem) offers “a perfect meditation for our election season,” according to this post from the conservative blog Powerline.
Via the Chesterton page on Facebook, Powerline pulls this comment from the interview more than 90 years ago that would sound entirely natural to a conservative of today:
“The men whom the people ought to choose to represent them are too busy to take the jobs. But the politician is waiting for it. He's the pestilence of modern times. What we should try to do is make politics as local as possible. Keep the politicians near enough to kick them. The villagers who met under the village tree could also hang their politicians to the tree. It's terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hung today.
That was unexpected: This is not the impression I get about the corporate tax environment when I listen to Mitt Romney (or most any other Republican) speak.
“U.S. companies are booking higher profits than ever. But the number crunchers in Washington are puzzling over a phenomenon that has just come into view: Corporate tax receipts as a share of profits are at their lowest level in at least 40 years,” The Wall Street Journal reports.
Total corporate federal taxes paid “fell to 12.1% of profits earned from activities within the U.S. in fiscal 2011, which ended Sept. 30, according to the Congressional Budget Office,” the newspaper notes. “That's the lowest level since at least 1972. And well below the 25.6% companies paid on average from 1987 to 2008.”
Hitting the sauce: Those of you who like it hot and spicy when it comes to your food will find a kindred spirit in Martin Schulz, director of international equities at PNC Capital Advisors in Cleveland.
He's quoted in this Bloomberg story about UK company Reckitt Benckiser Group plc, maker of Frank's RedHot Sauce. The sauce recently toppled longtime champ Tabasco, made by McIlhenny of Louisiana, for the title of best-selling hot sauce in America.
PNC Capital Advisors manages $35 billion, including Reckitt Benckiser shares.
Mr. Schulz is a true believer in Frank's RedHot Sauce.
“I have a bottle here at my desk,” he tells Bloomberg. “The hot sauce category has grown faster than other categories, and there's a lot of competition out there.”
Hoarders: There really is a collector for everything.
The Antiques column of The New York Times has a short profile of Cleveland author Marty Gitlin and his friend, Topher Ellis, who have written “The Great American Cereal Book: How Breakfast Got Its Crunch.”
The authors “did research at corporate archives and the homes of obsessed memorabilia collectors,” The Times says.
Mr. Gitlin toured rooms packed with thousands of vintage boxes, ads and giveaway trinkets. “I almost fainted when I walked into these places,” he tells The Times.
“Rarities in the field fetch hundreds of dollars apiece through specialty dealers and online auctions,” The Times notes. “Among the sought-after are 1970s boxes of Alpha-Bits with ‘Jackson 5 groovie buttons' and Cheerios with discount coupons for ‘Star Wars' tumblers.”
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