Reversing Trend

The trend of sending manufacturing to China is slowly reversing - at least in the U.S. I haven't found similar stories about Canada yet, but in economic trends we usually lag behind the U.S. by a few months to a year. Canadian manufacturers who export to the U.S., and have to compete with U.S. manufacturers, must be reaching the same conclusion: that off-shoring is a bust for smaller companies.

The important point is that the manufacturing process has to be much more automated in order to be competitive. This is good news for businesses (like mine) that provide automation services. Still, the problem that remains is convincing business owners of the advantages of a custom solution versus the off-the-shelf ones, which have become more capable over the years.

Of course, none of this is good news for the general employment situation, since manufacturing traditionally employs the least skilled, and automation eliminates those jobs. Some trends will not be reversed.

Too Much Bad News

It seems we are not going to get out of 2009 without even more bad news. There's still one day left. What more could possibly go wrong? Best not to think about it too much...

Snow Record

Toronto set a record! We made it into December without any snow for the first time in over 160 years. Then they tell you Toronto only gets 8% of its snow in October and November. Kind of puts the record in perspective, doesn't it?

Too Strange

OK, now this is just strange enough to be true. A woman's three year old daughter buys a full size digger from an online auction site while the mother takes a nap. Of course, my first thought was: who the heck leaves a three old unsupervised? The full story is here.