Congress' new terrorism rules leave open questions (AP)

WASHINGTON ? After a bruising battle in Congress, the Obama administration retained the right to investigate and try suspected terrorists in civilian courts. But officials say newly enacted legislation raises a host of questions that will complicate and could harm the investigation of terrorism cases.

During a struggle that began last May and ended this past week in a compromise defense bill, the administration waged an uphill fight against a majority of Republicans and some Democrats trying to expand the role of the military while reducing the role of civilian courts in the fight against terrorism.

It was the latest effort by conservatives to keep open the U.S. military prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to place terrorism suspects in indefinite detention and to designate military commissions as the preferred alternative to civilian courts for meting out justice.

In the end, the administration came away with one major victory. Gone from the defense bill during House-Senate negotiations was a provision that would have eliminated executive branch authority to use civilian courts for trying terrorism cases against foreign nationals.

The new law would require military custody for any suspect who is a member of al-Qaida or "associated forces" and involved in planning or attempting to carry out an attack on the United States or its coalition partners. The military custody requirement does not apply to U.S. citizens or to lawful U.S. residents.

The president or a designated subordinate may waive the military custody requirement by certifying to Congress that such a move is in the interest of national security.

The new law "will ramp up the political costs" when the administration decides to hold a civilian criminal prosecution for a detainee, said University of Texas law professor Robert M. Chesney, who focused on detainee issues while serving at the Justice Department in 2009.

But, Chesney added, "this law does leave the president with flexibility" to have civilian trials "and therefore the law is neither quite as bad as its opponents say nor as useful as its supporters think."

Weighing in heavily in the debate was the FBI, the front-line investigative agency that now must operate in a reordered environment in which the U.S. military will suddenly play a bigger role that is sometimes side by side with law enforcement.

In a Nov. 28 letter to Congress, FBI Director Robert Mueller said the legislation will inhibit the bureau's ability to persuade suspected terrorists to cooperate immediately and provide critical intelligence.

Mueller tried to make a similar point at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this past week, but got little sympathy from Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

"What I am focused on is what happens at the time of arrest," the FBI director said.

"Well, then you need to work this out with the Department of Defense, don't you?" said Sessions, a former federal prosecutor and ex-Alabama attorney general.

Mueller also said it wasn't clear how agents should operate if they arrest someone covered by the military custody requirement but the nearest military facility is hundreds of miles away.

And last month, Lisa Monaco, assistant attorney general for national security, said that "agents and prosecutors should not have to spend their time worrying about citizenship status and whether and how to get a waiver . in order to thwart an al-Qaida plot against the homeland."

Law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, say that it won't be easy working under a new set of rules that must be written in the next 60 days before the law goes into effect.

Pressure from the administration produced one late compromise section that says nothing in the bill may be "construed to affect the existing criminal enforcement and national security authorities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or any other domestic law enforcement agency with regard to a covered person, regardless whether such covered person is held in military custody."

But that left open questions.

"I'm concerned with the lack of clarity about who is in charge of investigation and interrogation for detainees in military custody," Michael J. Nardotti, the judge advocate general of the Army from 1993 to 1997, said of the legislation.

"If the detainees are in military custody and the military is responsible for their disposition and control, what role does the FBI have in that process and is the FBI going to be directed in some respects by the military on the use of the bureau's investigative resources?" asked Nardotti.

"The second concern I have," said Nardotti, "is that the use of the words `associated forces' in the legislation can be read as expanding the definition of who can be held indefinitely in military custody in an open-ended conflict." That could become an important issue because the legislation will undoubtedly at some point ? or at many points ? undergo scrutiny by the courts.

Gary Solis, a retired judge advocate who served 26 years in the Marine Corps, called the latest political venture into how best to battle terrorism "a very bad idea."

"Making the military the warders of every suspected terrorist goes far beyond the military's legislatively assigned mission," he said.

"It appears to me to be an effort to assure that all suspected terrorists will be tried by military commission," said Solis. "Despite the fact that hundreds of terrorists have been tried in the federal courts, convicted and sentenced to long terms, for reasons that escape me Congress is unwilling to allow our courts to proceed with what they have demonstrably been so capable of doing."

Congress and the White House have been at odds over detention policy ever since President Barack Obama was sworn in.

Many lawmakers have resisted the administration's efforts to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay and have opposed trying terror suspects in federal courts in the United States rather than by military commission. This latest round featured some Democrats, including Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin of Michigan and Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, supporting the measure while some Republicans and libertarian-leaning Republicans, including Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah, opposed the legislation that the administration objected to.

___

Associated Press writer Donna Cassata contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111218/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_terrorism

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AT&T, T-Mobile asset sales talks go cold: report (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Talks over potential asset sales as part of AT&T Inc's efforts to get approval of its $39 billion purchase of T-Mobile USA have gone cold, according to The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.

Although AT&T could still try to fight the Department of Justice in court, alternatives to a full-blown merger are looking more likely, the WSJ said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Those options could include AT&T taking a stake in the smaller carrier or a joint venture to share network technology, the report said.

The Justice Department said on December 9 that it would seek to stay or dismiss its lawsuit to stop the deal, saying it was effectively dead without approval from telecommunications regulators.

AT&T and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile moved in November to withdraw their filing with the Federal Communications Commission to focus on the antitrust battle.

Both regulators have to given their blessing to the deal.

(Reporting by NY Equities Desk, Editing by Gary Crosse)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111219/bs_nm/us_att_t_mobile

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'Sanford & Son' actor Graham Brown dies at 87 (omg!)

ENGLEWOOD, New Jersey (AP) ? Graham Brown, who appeared on stage at London's Globe Theatre and on television in "Sanford & Son" has died in New Jersey. He was 87.

Barbara Montgomery often appeared with Brown on the stage and had power of attorney on his behalf. She says he died Tuesday of pulmonary failure at the Lillian Booth Actors' Fund Nursing Home in Englewood.

Montgomery says Brown was meticulous and was a gentleman.

Brown often appeared in stage productions of the New York-based Negro Ensemble Company and was a founding member of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

He played a school principal on the 1970s sitcom "Sanford & Son" and a judge on "Law & Order." He also had roles in movies including "Malcolm X," ''Clockers" and "The Muppets Take Manhattan."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_sanford_son_actor_graham_brown_dies87_231642655/43932147/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/sanford-son-actor-graham-brown-dies-87-231642655.html

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Stock market down 3 percent for the week

After an early rally, the Dow fell 2.42 points Friday to close at 11866 as worries resurfaced about a breakup of the Euro

An early rally faded on the stock market Friday, leaving indexes down about 3 percent for the week as worries resurfaced about a breakup of the euro. BlackBerry maker Research in Motion plunged after slashing its forecast for holiday sales.

Skip to next paragraph

The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 2.42 points Friday, less than 0.1 percent, at 11,866.93. It had been up as many as 99 points after the Italian government won a confidence vote on austerity measures. It turned mixed around midday as Fitch warned that it might downgrade the debt of Italy, Spain and four other countries that use the euro.

Materials and industrial companies rose, signaling that traders expect the economic recovery to remain on track. Utilities, health care and consumer staples companies lagged the market as traders sold stocks that are considered to be safer when the economy is weak.

The Dow Jones industrial average broke a three-day slump Thursday on news that claims for unemployment benefits plunged last week and measures of manufacturing in the Northeast improved dramatically. The Dow lost 360 points over the first three days of the week as investors questioned whether Europe's agreement to closer coordinate fiscal policy would be enough to save the euro from a catastrophic breakup.

Some analysts believe nervousness about Europe this fall and winter pushed stock prices lower than their fair value. Investment adviser Uri Landesman, president of Platinum Partners, expects stocks to rise into next year because of the growing likelihood that economic news and European headlines will remain positive.

"The odds are, the news is going to be better than the market is discounting," Landesman said. He said the market is near the low end of its recent trading range, and a dose of positive news could set off a mini-rally. Any market moves next week could be sharp as trading volume thins out before the Christmas holiday, Landesman said.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 3.89, or 0.3 percent, to 1,219.65. The Nasdaq composite index rose 14.32, or 0.6 percent, to 2,555..33 The Dow is down 2.6 percent for the week; the S&P 2.8 percent. The Nasdaq lost 3.5 percent.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note plunged to 1.85 percent from 1.93 percent earlier Friday after the government said consumer prices were unchanged last month, suggesting that inflation remains low. Low inflation makes bonds more attractive because it doesn't diminish the buying power of the fixed return a bond provides over time.

The gains were broad. Eight of the 10 industry groups in the S&P 500 index rose, led by materials and industrial companies. U.S. factories in some regions have seen shipments and orders rise this month, according to two surveys released Wednesday. Materials companies are benefiting from soaring commodity prices.

Research In Motion Ltd. plummeted 11 percent after the company said late Thursday that new phones seen as critical to its future will be delayed until late next year. RIM also is taking a big loss on unsold tablet computers and predicted that its BlackBerry sales will fall sharply during the holiday sales season.

Online game developer Zynga Inc. fell 5 percent in its first day of trading on the Nasdaq. The maker of Farmville's initial public offering was priced late Thursday at $10 per share, raising $1 billion. That means the San Francisco company can boast the biggest Internet IPO since Google Inc. first offered shares in 2004.

Among the other companies making big moves:

? New York-area cable TV provider Cablevision Systems Corp. plunged 9 percent following the sudden departure of its chief operating officer, Tom Rutledge.

? Adobe Systems Inc. jumped 6.6 percent after the software maker reported earnings and revenues that were far better than what analysts had expected. Analyst Walter Pritchard at Citigroup said the quarter was a "blow-out when most expected weakness."

___

AP Business Writer Joshua Freed contributed to this story.

Follow Daniel Wagner at www.twitter.com/wagnerreports.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/Z8UJ-8V1x7E/Stock-market-down-3-percent-for-the-week

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It's the cable guys! Antarctic ice wired

One of the most desolate spots on Earth recently got a visit from one of the most elusive characters on Earth ? the cable guy. Four very high-tech and capable cable guys, to be specific.

A small team of scientists recently installed a fiber-optic cable in the Ross Ice Shelf, a colossal plain of floating ice larger than the state of California that clings to the edge of Antarctica, straddling a massive bay between the eastern and western halves of the continent.

The cable, more than half a mile (1 kilometer) in length, is threaded straight down through 600 feet (200 meters) of solid ice and 2,000 feet (600 m) of water to dangle above the seafloor.

The fiber-optic cable is "like the kind that goes to your television or computer," said project leader David Holland, a professor at New York University, and was set in place so that the giant ice plain can, in essence, make phone calls to his office in Manhattan, and tell him what things are like in the ocean underneath it.

Holland and three colleagues ? an NYU graduate student and researchers from Ohio State University and the University of Nevada ? spent two weeks living out on the ice, sleeping in tiny tents to complete the pilot project, which is a year-long test run for the technology.

"You can measure the temperature on a fiber-optic cable at every meter," Holland told OurAmazingPlanet. "With this technology you can 'watch' the ice shelf," he said.

It took three days of drilling to bore a tiny hole just 2 inches (3 centimeters) across into the ice to complete the installation, which was sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

Loquacious ocean
A nifty suite of instruments sits atop the ice shelf, connected to the fiber-optic cable ? a data logger, a low-power laser and a modem ? powered by solar panels, wind turbines and batteries to get through the dark winter months, Holland said.

Every three hours, a modem on the roof of Holland's NYU building calls up the modem parked on the Antarctic ice to get a full rundown of temperatures throughout the ice shelf and, far more important, the ocean below.

So who wants to talk to a chatty ice shelf about its watery nether regions? Just about anyone who studies the mechanisms driving the significant changes observed in Antarctic ice. Research has revealed that warm ocean water gnawing away at ice shelves is a key player in unprecedented losses to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet over the last two decades.

"The temperature of the water underneath the ice shelves and the rate that water circulates in the ocean cavities underneath the ice shelves are the major determinants of the mass balance at the bottom of the ice shelves ? in other words, how fast they're melting at the bottom," said Stan Jacobs, an oceanographer at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Ice shelves act as door stops for glaciers ? which are, essentially, slow-moving rivers of ice ?? and slow glaciers' inexorable march into the sea. When ice shelves thin, or completely disappear, glaciers speed up.

"That moves more ice more rapidly into the ocean, and of course that has sea-level implications," Jacobs told OurAmazingPlanet.

Satellites have glimpsed changes in ice shelves, and even their disappearance ? the dramatic collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula made headlines in 2002 ? yet they can't see underneath them to capture the details concerning how warm ocean water is taking a toll.

Holland said the fiber-optic cable can operate for many years at a time, delivering a steady stream of data on temperature conditions in the ocean under the ice shelf.

Jacobs, who was not associated with the project, said that getting temperature data during the winter months, when the darkness and brutal conditions make field work impossible, would be valuable.

"You'd like to have year-round measurements, and once you have year-round measurements, you'd like to have them more than one year," Jacobs said. "We already know that properties and circulation (of the water) change from one year to the next."

Testing, testing
Holland said that so far, the data indicate things are pretty stable under the Ross Ice Shelf, which is precisely what he expected. Unlike its neighbors in western Antarctica, the ice shelf doesn't appear to be suffering any losses.?

"This was not necessarily the most important place to go," Holland said, "but it's a smart idea for testing the technology." The ice shelf is next door to McMurdo Station, the largest of the United States' three research stations in Antarctica.

"If it works for one year, it will be a proven technology ? and if it's good I would ask that it be installed elsewhere," Holland said.

Jacobs said that ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea, particularly the Pine Island Glacier Ice Shelf, are of most concern to scientists, because they appear to be melting rapidly.

The glaciers in this western region of Antarctica are responsible for about 7 percent of annual global sea level rise, and of those speedy glaciers, the Pine Island Glacier is moving the fastest, at a clip of about 2.5 miles (4 km) per year.

A team of scientists is currently camping out on the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf to get some of the first precise measurements of temperature beneath it, yet they will have to pack up and go home when Antarctic winter approaches.

Although drilling into a giant piece of ice clinging to a continent at the bottom of the world may appear frivolous to some, Holland said, the research is important.

"It's just one element in a puzzle," he said. The ultimate goal is to hand over enough puzzle pieces to climate modelers, Holland said, because it's clear that changes in the atmosphere are driving changes in Antarctic ice, and changes in Antarctic ice drive changes in global sea level.

"If you talk to one individual, they're working on some piece of the puzzle around the change," he said. "No one piece is more important than the other, but if one piece is ignored you can't figure out this story."

Reach Andrea Mustain at amustain@techmedianetwork.com. Follow her on Twitter @AndreaMustain.Follow OurAmazingPlanet for the latest in Earth science and exploration news on Twitter @OAPlanet and on Facebook.

? 2011 OurAmazingPlanet. All rights reserved. More from OurAmazingPlanet.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45690009/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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Senate leaders hope deal near on payroll tax cut (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Shifting from confrontation to cooperation, Senate leaders of both parties expressed optimism Thursday that agreement was near on extending this year's payroll tax cut, renewing unemployment benefits and averting a federal shutdown.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., opened the Senate's morning session by saying he and the chamber's top Republican have held talks to resolve remaining disputes. With lawmakers itching to return home before the holidays, Reid said he and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., hope they can reach a deal "that would get us out of here in a reasonable time, in the next few days."

Standing just across the aisle, McConnell agreed with Reid ? a sharp contrast to recent days, when the two have fired sharp partisan volleys at each other.

"We're confident, optimistic we'll be able to resolve both on a bipartisan basis," said McConnell, referring to one bill that would renew the payroll tax cut and jobless benefits, and a separate spending measure that would keep federal agencies open.

The turnabout in part reflected the calendar: 160 million Americans would get a sudden tax increase on Jan. 1 if the payroll tax cut was not renewed, and most government agencies would close this Saturday without agreement on spending legislation.

The drive to broker agreements also underscored a sense that weeks of partisan battling, in which each party accused the other of causing tax increases and a federal shutdown, had finally taken their course.

"We've done enough back and forth, the Republican leader and me, staking out our positions, and our positions are fairly clear to the American people," Reid said.

A clear sign of movement came late Wednesday, when aides said Democrats were abandoning their demand for a surtax on millionaires to help finance payroll tax cuts.

On a separate spending dispute, House Republicans had said Wednesday night that they would try pushing a massive $1 trillion spending bill through the House on Friday, relying only on GOP votes, to prevent a federal shutdown. Reid said Thursday that he believed remaining partisan disputes on that bill could be quickly settled.

Neither party wants to risk the wrath of voters by closing government agencies.

White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said Wednesday that President Barack Obama had problems with some social, environmental and other provisions in the spending legislation. Pfeiffer said Congress should approve a short-term bill to keep the government open while disputes are resolved.

The pre-Christmas wrangling caps a contentious year in a capital hindered by divided government, with Democrats controlling the White House and Senate while Republicans run the House. Lawmakers have engaged in down-to-the-wire drama even when performing the most mundane acts of governing, such as keeping agencies functioning and extending federal borrowing authority, tasks that are only becoming more politically delicate as the calendar nears the 2012 election year.

The GOP-run House approved its version of a payroll tax cut bill this week, but it drew solid opposition from Democrats and Obama in part because it would force work on the Keystone XL oil pipeline from western Canada to Texas Gulf Coast refineries, which Obama would rather delay. They are also unhappy that the bill is financed by cuts to civilian federal workers, Obama's health care overhaul bill and other programs that Democrats say would avoid meaningful contributions from the rich.

Senate aides said a new, Democratic version of that bill would exclude a 1.9 percent surtax on people earning more than $1 million a year, a levy Democrats relied on to pay for their previous payroll tax cut bills. Instead, they said, their new legislation's savings would include higher fees that government-run Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would charge to back mortgages and revenue from selling portions of the broadcast spectrum.

In one instance of cooperation, the Senate was expected to give final congressional approval Thursday to a $662 billion defense bill that would allow the administration to prosecute terrorism suspects in the civilian justice system.

The White House had initially issued a veto threat against the bill over language requiring the military to handle some terrorism suspects. An agreement was reached by including a provision ensuring that the role of domestic law enforcement agencies would be unchanged.

The bill, which the House approved Wednesday by 283-136, lays the groundwork for weapons purchases, U.S. military activity overseas and the Energy Department's national security programs. Reflecting a period of tight budgets and diminishing U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, the legislation envisions $27 billion less spending than Obama proposed ? money that will be supplied in separate legislation.

Also Wednesday, the Senate rejected rival Republican and Democratic proposals to amend the Constitution to require a balanced federal budget.

Democrats had worried that passage of the spending bill, by removing the threat of a federal shutdown, would take pressure off House Republicans to continue bargaining on the separate payroll tax legislation.

However, spotlighting the degree of disagreement between the two parties, they are even at odds over whether the $1 trillion measure is a bipartisan compromise or not.

Republicans and at least one Democrat said agreement had been reached earlier in the week. But the White House and Reid said disagreements remain, with Reid citing provisions relating to travel to Cuba and funding for the Commodities Future Trading Commission.

The spending bill would finance the Pentagon and nine other Cabinet-level departments, as well as scores of smaller agencies. It would trim the budgets of the Environmental Protection Agency, foreign aid and Congress itself while providing funds to combat AIDS in Africa, patrol the U.S.-Mexico border, operate national parks and boost veterans' health care.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111215/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_rdp

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Manufacturing can thrive but struggles for respect (Reuters)

BOSTON (Reuters) ? On a quiet stretch of the waterfront here, about a mile from Boston's main tourist sites, a Gillette factory hums along 24 hours a day making an unlikely commodity: top-of-the-line razors.

The factory, which employs about 700 people in manufacturing as well as another 800 in design, engineering and management, is an anomaly in modern America - a manufacturing site in one of most expensive cities in the country.

But to Gillette's parent company, Procter & Gamble, Boston is an ideal base not only for making Fusion and Mach 3 razors, but to produce machines that assemble Gillette products around the world: After a century of making razors at the site, the company has a critical mass of experienced workers.

"The guys in my world see the new products three to five years before anyone else," said Ronald Calder, who runs the machine shop at the South Boston facility, which develops the equipment that produces many thousands of razors per day.

Having his crew of machine makers a short walk from the people who manufacture the razors allows them to develop and fine-tune machines quickly and cheaply.

That plays to what P&G management regards as its strength.

"Oftentimes, the basis for our competitive advantage in a category is the process or manufacturing operation that allows us to make better quality than our competitors at a lower cost," said Bruce Brown, chief technology officer with the Cincinnati-based company.

America's debate over manufacturing has escalated in the face of stubbornly high unemployment and the realization that younger workers lack some of the basic skills necessary to hold down a job in an assembly plant or a fabrication shop.

Gillette is facing that issue in part by putting interested factory workers through a technical training program at a nearby state university.

One graduate of that program is Mike DiBella, 31, who started at the factory five years ago with a high school diploma and some vocational school experience. After the additional program, today he manages 14 machines that sharpen steel for blades.

DiBella said he is never bored, enjoys the challenges of the job, and sees opportunities for growth.

AGAINST THE GRAIN

P&G runs against the grain in corporate America in believing that the company's manufacturing skill is a large part of the reason shoppers are willing to pay about $3.50 for a single Fusion razor cartridge.

The company argues that manufacturing in-house and in Boston helps it to meet exacting standards for its razors, necessary since men would be less willing to pay premium prices if they cut themselves during their morning shaves.

It is not just basic items like clothing and furniture that have migrated to offshore production. More complicated, and higher-tech products such as Apple Inc's iPads and Nike Inc running shoes are largely made overseas, often in subcontracted factories not owned by the brands whose products they are making.

Cheaper labor costs have been the main drivers of such production in China and elsewhere but with Chinese wage costs rising sharply, the yuan currency gaining against the U.S. dollar, and transport costs increasing, the advantage against the U.S. has narrowed a bit in recent years.

Also the main downside of moving production to an outside contractor in a country like China is the danger of losing some control over quality and over intellectual property.

Still, American manufacturing is now considered to be primarily the domain of makers of bigger-ticket, highly engineered products such as medical imaging devices and excavators, including General Electric Co, United Technologies Corp and Caterpillar Inc.

And it's not as if P&G hasn't weighed the options for the Boston site.

When the company bought Gillette in 2005, it considered closing the 45-acre (18 hectare) facility. After deciding to keep it open, it then pulled the company's white-collar staff out of the city's iconic Prudential Tower and consolidated Boston operations onto the factory campus.

Keeping both its manufacturing and the design of its machinery in-house makes it harder for rivals to knock off its designs, the company reasons.

Mike Chaney, Gillette's vice president of product supply, cites the line of Sensor razors, introduced in 1990 and no longer protected by patents, as an example. "Anyone could copy it, but they don't because they don't know how to make it efficiently," said Chaney.

The company has good reason to be protective of its razor business, as it is one of P&G's most profitable ventures. The company's grooming division - which includes men's razors, as well as other products including men's deodorant but not women's razors - notched a 20 percent profit margin in the fiscal year ended June 30, well above the company's five other divisions, which make products ranging from Crest toothpaste to Pampers diapers.

CUT TOO DEEP

While a weak global economy and rising costs in emerging markets have led more companies to think like Proctor & Gamble, manufacturing experts say many executives have long looked at manufacturing operations too narrowly, focusing mainly on cost.

Quick reductions to the cost of making a product, whether by moving production to a lower-cost region or handing it off entirely to another company, can provide a quick boost to profit margins but make it vulnerable to quality problems or theft of technology and designs.

"They call it a cost center. It costs money rather than adds revenue," said Jung-Hoon Chun, the director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity. "Because it's a cost center, if you become a manager of the unit, if you get rid of that then from day one you get rid of costs."

That attitude has contributed to a slow decline in U.S. manufacturing employment. The sector currently employs about 12 million people in the United States, down from a peak of near 20 million around 1980.

While many companies have reduced headcount due to productivity initiatives, cutting manufacturing too deeply can take its toll.

The world's largest cereal maker, Kellogg Co, for instance, in November cut its profit forecast for the year, saying that it had cut too many jobs at its factories and would need to boost spending to fix problems related to food safety. U.S. regulators in June found listeria at one of the company's plants in Georgia that produces Keebler and Famous Amos cookies, and in 2010 Kellogg had to recall millions of boxes of cereal due to an unusual smell.

"We did cut too many people in our facilities in the U.S. network," acknowledged Chief Executive John Bryant in a conference call with investors.

On a similar note, an executive from Schlumberger, the world's largest oilfield services company, has concluded that trying to manufacture equipment far from its main centers in the United States and France was not the right move.

"Some of our manufacturing has been seen as something that's easily commoditized and exported to the low end," said David Rowatt, Schlumberger's research director for mechanical and materials science, at a recent MIT conference. "We have had in place an approach of being able to design in one place and produce anywhere in the world and what we have seen internally is that is a model that has not worked for us."

Schlumberger officials did not respond to request for comment on the specific problems it faced.

DIM VIEW WIDENS SKILLS GAP

Even if executives warm more to the idea of American manufacturing, a combination of factors - the perception that U.S. factories cannot compete with lower-cost rivals in emerging markets and the notion that manufacturing plants are simply cost centers - has soured the American public's view of the sector. As a result, manufacturing executives say, they have a hard time finding young people with the skills needed to work in today's highly automated plants.

"Manufacturing has a negative perception and it's a negative perception because of many years of saying, 'It's OK to be a service economy and manufacturing is all about brawn and not about brains,'" said Keith Nosbusch, CEO of Rockwell Automation Inc, a Milwaukee-based manufacturer of factory automation equipment, in an interview last month. "Obviously it's something we worry about a lot."

Jason Miller, assistant to President Barack Obama on manufacturing policy, recently addressed an MIT summit about the U.S. government's new plan to work with major manufacturers and top universities to educate young people on advanced manufacturing.

"It's not about some desire to return to a romantic notion of the past, of what manufacturing was," Miller said. "It is about a fundamental recognition that without a robust and vibrant manufacturing sector, it's going to be difficult for us to sustain a robust and innovative economy."

Proponents of manufacturing often point to the so-called multiplier effect of the jobs the sector employs. Each new manufacturing job created in the United States on average creates three more nonmanufacturing jobs - ranging from supplier jobs to restaurants and shops where factory workers spend their pay, according to a Boston Consulting Group study.

Many U.S. manufacturing executives complain that U.S. high schools are not providing students with the technical and scientific training they need to work in modern factories.

"We're having a challenge increasingly finding capable people coming out of our secondary schools, with high school educations that have the capability to work in some of our operations," Caterpillar group president Stuart Levenick said at the Reuters Global Manufacturing and Transportation Summit this week. "You think about manufacturing and a lot of people in this country think of it as an old, dirty, unsafe environment. And this is becoming a very high tech, world-class, highly paid job."

That view was echoed by Rolf Meyer, CEO of Harting USA, a privately held maker of electronic connectors. "Kids don't have any kind of relationship to manufacturing anymore, so why should they become an engineer?"

Meyer recalled hiring an engineer who was handy with computer-aided design but hopeless at building things. Meyer once had to take a screwdriver out of the worker's hands.

"I was afraid he'd kill himself," he said. "The screwdriver had a very sharp tip. He had never used it."

(Reporting by Scott Malone in Boston, additional reporting by Nick Zieminski in New York. Editing by Martin Howell in New York.)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111214/bs_nm/us_usa_manufacturing_respect

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