Making It in America

Adam Davison wrote a great article in the January Atlantic, Making It in America. "In the past decade, the flow of goods emerging from U.S. factories has risen by about a third. Factory employment has fallen by roughly the same fraction. The story of Standard Motor Products, a 92-year-old, family-run manufacturer based in Queens, sheds light on both phenomena. It’s a story of hustle, ingenuity, competitive success, and promise for America’s economy. It also illuminates why the jobs crisis will be so difficult to solve."

It's one of the best articles I've read in a long long time. It works on several levels, telling the story of individual workers and their skills, the way manufacturing floors work now, how management makes decisions about hiring and where to build items and how this works at the macroeconomic level. Really great stuff.