On Thursday, October 31, Congressional Representatives Richard Hanna (a Republican from New York), Tom Rice (a Republican from South Carolina) and Mike Michaud (a Democrat from Maine) introduced the TRUE Safety Act, which would halt the new Hours of Service (HOS) regulations imposed on truckers beginning on July 1st of this year. According to the…
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is cracking down on lax medical examiners’ regulations in hopes of getting unsafe truck drivers and bus drivers off the road. Currently, almost any medical professional, including general practitioners, nurse practitioners, chiropractors, and others, can issue a medical certificate to truck drivers. The drivers only have to get…
A survey just conducted by BCG, the Boston Consulting Group, of 200 U.S. executives revealed that 54 percent of companies are either already in the process of moving their manufacturing operations back to U.S. soil or are seriously considering doing so within the next few years. This is up from the 37 percent of companies which…
Bangladesh, a major manufacturing hub of the garment industry supplying much of Europe, Asia, and North America with clothing, has been hit by a nationwide dock workers strike. Apparently, the workers were promised wage increases, but the money never came. The worst of the strike is centralized at Chittagong Port. Workers are also complaining about…
Amazon is already taking a substantial bite out of the retail world, commanding as much as 11 percent of total retail sales in some markets, according to Forbes. In fact, Amazon’s sales now total more than the next 12 internet retailers’ sales combined. Apparently, even adding e-commerce transactions to a retail website doesn’t help retailers…
During the recent government shutdown, many of the numbers industries and investors use to gauge the economy were not released due to worker furloughs. Now that operations have resumed, some of the data from September and early October have been released, and it’s clear that the shutdown did, in fact, have a negative effect on…
The new year didn’t ring in so merrily for Aldi and Lidl stores in Tesco Ireland, as the Food Safety Authority of Ireland discovers through DNA testing that beef burgers sold in some of these stores was, in fact, as much as 30 percent horse meat. Investigators have spent the rest of the year trying to…
Economists had expected the unemployment rate to drop to 335,000 last week, but instead the number of unemployed workers dropped to just 358,000, a reduction of 15,000. However, the statistics werent’ very clear, since the analysts had to adjust the figure for government workers applying for unemployment due to the government shutdown. Furthermore, a computer…
Following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, automakers faced challenges getting enough parts to fulfill their vehicle orders. The technology industry also took a big hit, as so many of our electronics and electronics parts depend on Japanese manufacturers and suppliers. More recently, a South Korean company that manufacturers most of the world’s DRAM…
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), out of the United States’ 600,000 bridges, one in nine is not in sufficient condition to handle current logistics routes. Recent bridge collapses in Washington state, Wisconsin, and Minnesota have shut down major trade thoroughfares, and the downgrading of some bridges in the state of Pennsylvania has…