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Otis Elevator is moving a plant based in Nogales, Mexico, back to the U.S. This plant was moved to Mexico in 1998 for cost reasons. Now Otis CEO, Didier Michaud-Daniel, says producing at a new South Carolina plant will cost less than Mexico. Logistics and freight costs are 17.3% less in the U.S. than Mexico, and an additional 20% in savings come from "efficiencies" gained by having all its white collar workers associated with elevator design and production. Most companies that manufacture in China and Mexico keep their design and engineering jobs in the the U.S. It is not clear to what extent American companies have considered all the costs of separating design and engineering from manufacturing, including the opportunities for close cooperation possible in one location that are lost when everything is so spread out. At Otis toolmakers in Dallas and engineers and designers located in Indiana and Arizona traveled to the Nogales, Mexico plant. This can be especially important when as in Otis's case the new plant in Florence, South Carolina, plans the launch of a new generation of elevator designs. In this case there is an added benefit by making it easier for customers to visit the plant and look at the product. The new plant will have more automation and use fewer workers on the factory floor. The new factory will employ 360 workers including white collar workers, the same as the Nogales, Mexico, plant with a lower number of factory floor workers. ...

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Research from Australian National University shows steadily improving conditions for migrant workers in China. Migrant workers were able to spend more time in cities- an average of 8.9 years. The hukou sysem ensures migrants return to rural areas when they have to raise a family. About 252 million migrant workers work in factories and construction jobs in urban areas. Migrants with children leave them with grandparents back home. Improving the conditions of these workers is important to reduce the wage and income disparities in China and to reduce inequality. About a fifth of the migrant population now has pension and health benefits. Creating a balanced economy with domestic consumer spending making a larger share of GDP also requires improving wages and benefits of migrant workers. Incoming prime minister Li Keqiang says in a statement on a government website: China "must take migrant rural workers and gradually change them into urban residents. This requires that we push forward household registration reform." If done seriously this will create a new kind of China as these migrant workers are integrated into urban society after years of being shunned and ignored by China's educated middle class. Professor Meng's research at Australian National University of migrant workers shows the proportion of migrant workers with unemployment insurance increased from 11% in 2008 to 21% in 2012. The research shows similiar figures for health and pensions. Improving their living standards also make it attractive for more young people from rural areas to migrate to cities increasing urbanization....

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Greg Smith, a midlevel executive at its London office, writes an op-ed article in the New York Times on March 15, 2012, describing the culture at Goldman Sachs as toxic. Smith is from S. Africa, of Lithuanian Jewish origin, and studied on a scholarship at Stanford before joining Goldman.

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Japan's GDP declined by 3.5% in the third quarter of 2012. GDP is expected to decline in the fourth quarter putting Japan in a recessionary phase. The rebound effects following the tsunami and earhtquake are receding and sales to China are sluggish. The strong yen and the eurozone crisis hurts exports. The proposed sales tax increase by the Noda government may be jeopardized by the recessionary phase.

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Jeffrey Immelt of GE makes a critical point in this op-ed article- that the concept of the US transitioning from a technology-based, export-oriented economic powerhouse to a services-led, consumption based economy was a bad idea because it would lead to a loss of jobs, prosperity and prestige. Immelt calls it "fundamentally wrong." In this piece he makes the point repeatedly and takes his role as head of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness seriously, saying that there is nothing inevitable about the decline of manufacturing in America, that it can and must be reversed. For over two decades business leaders have taken a complacent attitude about the effects of a continued decline of manufacturing in America and the loss of jobs in the US, even as they built plants and expanded overseas. Now for the first time Immelt articulates a new policy for government and business leaders. He says businesses should invest more in advanced products and technologies that create jobs in the US. In doing this he joins Intel's Andy Grove and other business leaders who expressed a growing frustration with the pessimism that this loss of jobs and competitiveness is creating among young people in the US, and the cloud it is creating about America's future. Immelt adds that it is imperative to care about what happens at home in the US, and the growing pessimism that lack of jobs growth in the US creates should not be accepted....

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With the Shiller cyclically adjusted P/E ratio CAPE at 26 for the U.S. in 2014, and the CAPE in Japan at 21, UK, Italy, Spain at about half that in the U.S., experts say international diversification is a good idea.

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Deborah Solomon interviews Abby Cohen of Goldman Sachs. Cohen is asked about bank bonuses and compensation, about the role of the banks in the financial meltdown, and whether she and Goldman Sachs felt any responsibility for the economic crisis.