In an editorial on GM and Ford's huge pension costs, the Economist (May 14, 05) points out the approach taken by other manufacturers in the not-so-distant past:

In the early and mid-1990s, mid-western heavy truck and plant makers Navistar and Caterpillar took on the UAW (United Auto Workers) and emerged as leaner, globally competitive groups, but only after bitter conflicts. GM and Ford can set a new example by talking to the UAW. But, like those other companies, they should make plain their determination to resolve the issue rather than fudge it. It is hard to imagine a better, or tougher, test for labor and capital, but its in both sides' interest to get Detroit back on the straight and narrow.

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Mike Mandel of BusinessWeek (May 16, 05) looks at the economic data to show that tech spending's share of economy in 2005 is almost identical to 1997. But he looks at the historic data to predict that tech spending may be poised for a boom:

It's worth looking back to see how previous stagnant periods of tech spending ended. From 1970 to 1977, spending on info tech barely kept pace with the overall economy, even though IBM was introducing model after model of mainframes. The drought ended when Corporate America finally figured out what do to with all that computing power. The late '70s and early '80s saw the creation of large-scale corporate databases, the rollout of automated teller machines, and the invention and spread of the personal computer. Oracle, Microsoft, and Apple were founded and became major powers. At home, Americans started tuning in to cable television (ESPN was launched in 1979, MTV in 1981), and color TV sets became essential in almost every household.

The next stagnant period ran from 1985 to 1992. This was the era of the "productivity paradox" -- a widespread disappointment with the impact of computers in the workplace. No matter how much money businesses devoted to info tech, companies didn't get the expected gains in productivity and profit. Not surprisingly, there was a reluctance to boost spending: Business investment in information technology, which was 3.1% of the economy in the first quarter of 1985, was still 3.1% in 1992. And computer industry jobs fell as a share of total employment, as IBM alone pared 100,000 workers.

What pumped life into the info tech sector was the spread of corporate networking -- linking individual desktops and minicomputers into something more powerful. A 1992 BusinessWeek cover story on the future of the computer industry barely alluded to networks and didn't even mention Cisco Systems Inc. That changed as local-area networking and the Internet took center stage.

And since 1997? While clearly a boom-and-bust period for business tech spending, the past eight years have seen mostly stagnation on the consumer side. After a big runup in the first part of the 1990s, consumer info tech spending as a share of domestic demand has been effectively flat since 1997.

The catalyst for new spending may not be any single product or service but rather a variety -- everything from music-enabled cell phones to greater demand for broadband to an increased willingness to pay for downloading music and video online. As the technology evolves, each generation gets more powerful and easier to use.

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BusinessWeek's May 2, 2005 issue has review of a recent book on 'Personal Fabrication Systems'. Few excerpts:

Personal fabrication systems are small, inexpensive clusters of tools and software that function as complete job shops. Typically, they have easy-to-use controls that enable almost anyone, including people in remote African villages, to manufacture an amazing variety of things. A typical system includes a milling machine for making precision parts, a cutter for producing simple printed circuit boards, and software for programming cheap chips called microcontrollers. Today, one of these "fab labs" costs about $20,000. But Gershenfeld [author] predicts that fab lab prices will follow the path of PCs. With volume production, these advanced do-it-yourself systems could plunge to $10,000 and then perhaps to $1,000.

For the next generation of fab labs, Gershenfeld hopes to include a piece of equipment known as a rapid prototyping machine -- a device that is already becoming common in industry. Some are basically ink-jet printers that create three-dimensional "images" from computer models, laying down layer upon layer of plastic, powdered metal, or other materials. Overnight they can create the shell of a cellular phone. Eventually, by combining plastics and metal circuitry, they're expected to deliver a working cell phone -- or pretty much any other gadget.

The concept isn't limited to small consumer products, though. The author reports that efforts are under way to develop large, mobile printers that squirt concrete for "printing" a building or bridge. Larry Sass, an MIT professor of architecture, is developing a fab-lab system for constructing simple but customized houses from a truckload of plywood panels costing roughly $2,000.

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