U.S. Competitiveness

I spent part of my afternoon today at the Center for National Policy, listening to a roundtable discussion on US infrastructure and its relation to national security. James Fallows, a correspondent at The Atlantic was among the speakers. He recently wrote an article on "rejuvenating" America, touching upon such things as infrastructure. Here's a summary of some of the key points that were discussed:

In a silly experiment, with help from Matt Zlatnik, I present the following seven haikus inspired by defense-related newsletters.  First person to correctly identify in comments that six newsletters, in order, wins a travel toiletries bag that was given away for free at the Association of the U.S. Army trade show earlier this year.  The top three runners up receive a signed Current Issue newsletter (DIIG staff not eligible.)

Private security
Cost six billion through ‘09
More in subcontracts

GM is planning on hiring more workers to boost output, but those jobs won't be created in the Rust Belt. Instead, GM will be hiring an additional 600 workers in Brazil to help boost output in a country that's seen tremendous auto market growth in recent years.

And just like that, a former search powerhouse has bowed out of the race altogether. Yahoo!, once a giant in the area of internet search, will be replacing its search features with Microsoft's Bing. Bing will now get access to the 1/5 of total web searches claimed currently by Yahoo!.

Monday morning I flew out of Boston's Logan International Airport on my way home to the District. The historic airfield, built on top of a giant landfill, is New England's main transportation hub. It has been for the last 80 years. And, as I witnessed yesterday, its age is certainly starting to show. Despite all of the airport’s modern improvements including new vehicular access and an enlarged international terminal, Logan remains a relic of the past.