Julius Wakam worked in auto manufacturing for 11 years before being laid off in 2008. Today, the married father of three has a job at a hardware store to make ends meet until he can secure another well-paying position in his field.

Like many workers in America’s so-called Rust Belt, Wakam lost his manufacturing job not only to an influx of robots, but also because the jobs were shipped overseas where labor is cheaper.

“For me and my co-workers, they shipped the jobs overseas to Mexico, Brazil, China and a few went to India,” Wakam says.

Today, the Rust Belt is perhaps best-known for its declining industry, aging and shuttered factories, and falling population, primarily in the Midwest and Great Lakes region.

But the Midwest region was once known for the booming steel production and heavy industry that powered the nation for several generations. And it could be in a position to do so again.

“Probably the greatest driver of our opportunity in a changed economy from the factory era is this innovation infrastructure where we have 20-plus of the largest research universities on earth,” says John Austin, director of the Michigan Economic Center. “That’s more than any other region. The West Coast has 13. The East Coast has 15. No place in Europe has this concentration of large scale universities that produce thousands upon thousands of STEM, MBAs, engineers and medical talent.”

The Midwest is also home to more than 200 of the nation’s Fortune 500 companies. Austin says America’s Heartland has the horsepower to grow new jobs and industries.

“The Rust Belt can be and is becoming a center of innovation, new business and job creation in all of the arenas that are emerging,” he says. “The emerging sectors, the work of tomorrow, not just the work of the past where we kind of ruled the world and created the great agro-industrial economy that powered America after World War II for several generations.”

Austin says some Rust Belt cities have already turned the corner from being single industry towns to more diverse, economic regions. He cites places like Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Columbus, Ohio, and Minneapolis-St. Paul as examples of metropolitan areas that have built robust economies partially powered by technology and medical innovation.

However, money is key to that transformation and it’s been slow in coming. Rust Belt innovations tend to be commercialized on the East or West Coast. And that’s where most of the Midwest’s investment dollars end up as well.

Half of all investment money comes from the Midwest, but only 5 percent of total venture capital is invested in the Midwest, according to Austin, who says that dynamic must change for the Rust Belt to reach its full potential.

“We are working to create a Midwest/Great Lakes regional fund that would help more of the wealth and investment dollars from the region, and the big dollars on the coast, find good investments and create more jobs and businesses locally,” Austin says.

There is a place for laid-off workers like Julius Wakam in the Midwest’s emerging new economy. In many cases workers go back to school to learn how to program the robots that supplanted them in the factories where they once worked.

“Someone has to program the robots, someone has to maintain and repair the robots,” says James Sawyer, president of Macomb Community College. “So that’s kind of the transformation that’s gone on. The loading jobs no longer exist, but someone, a skilled worker, needs to take care of the robots that replaced that human element.”

The Michigan-based community college offers workforce training programs that can last 12-to-18 weeks.

“The majority of our workforce programs tend to focus in the advance manufacturing arena,” says Sawyer. “So these are things like robotics, control systems, integration of automation, those types of programs have been very popular in the recent past. And that’s very indicative of the transformation currently going on in manufacturing. So we’re supplying the workers to help do that transformation.”

At the time he was laid off, Julius Wakam was already pursuing an engineering degree at the University of Michigan Dearborn. He completed his degree and then signed up for a workforce training program at Macomb Community College to make himself more marketable.

“That is a program that America really, really needs with the robots taking over,” says Wakam.

Although the job search continues, Wakam says he’s gotten more interest from potential employers since completing Macomb’s workforce training program. He plans to keep looking until he lands a job that utilizes his training and skills.

“To get back to where I was before, the kind of money I was making, that’s what I’m talking about,” he says. “It’s been very rough, but I’m a child of hope. I’m never, never, never going to give up hope and I’m going to keep fighting until I get there.”
…

Smugglers and other organized criminals are likely to exploit gaps in border enforcement if Britain leaves the European Union without an agreement, a watchdog warned Wednesday, amid a growing chorus of warnings about the disruptive impact of a “no-deal” Brexit.

Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29, but London and Brussels have not reached an agreement on divorce terms and a smooth transition to a new relationship. The stalemate has heightened fears that the U.K. might leave without a deal in place, leading to chaos at ports and economic turmoil.

The National Audit Office said in a report that political uncertainty and delays in negotiations with the EU have hampered preparations for new border arrangements, and the government is now racing to bolster computer systems, increase staffing and build new infrastructure to track goods.

The office said that 11 of 12 major projects may not be delivered on time or at “acceptable quality,” with those who rely on the border “paying the price.” It added that “organized criminals and others are likely to be quick to exploit any perceived weaknesses or gaps in the enforcement regime.”

“This, combined with the U.K.’s potential loss of access to EU security, law enforcement and criminal justice tools, could create security weaknesses which the government would need to address urgently,” the office’s report said.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported that Transport Secretary Chris Grayling had raised at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday the idea of chartering ships to bring in food and medicines through alternative ports if new customs checks led to gridlock on the main shipping route between Dover in England and Calais in France.

“We remain confident of reaching an agreement with the EU, but it is only sensible for government and industry to prepare for a range of scenarios,” the Department for Transport said in a statement.

Prime Minister Theresa May said this week that a divorce deal is “95 percent” done, but the two sides still have a “considerable” gap over the issue of the border between the U.K.’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland. Britain and the EU agree there must be no barriers that could disrupt businesses and residents on both sides of the border and undermine Northern Ireland’s hard-won peace process. But so far, each side has rejected the other’s solution.

May has attempted to break the impasse by suggesting that a post-Brexit transition period, currently due to end in December 2020, could be extended to give more time for new trade and customs arrangements to be put in place that would eliminate the need for border checks.

EU has said it is open to the proposal, but the idea has infuriated May’s political opponents on both sides of Britain’s Brexit divide.

Pro-Brexit politicians see it as an attempt to bind the country to the bloc indefinitely, while pro-EU politicians say it is a sign of May’s weak bargaining hand and an attempt to stall for time.

On Wednesday, May will try to stem a growing revolt within her Conservative Party over her Brexit blueprint. She’ll address the 1922 Committee, a grouping of backbench Conservative legislators with a key role in deciding who leads the party.

Under Conservative rules, a vote of no-confidence in the leader is triggered if 15 percent of party lawmakers write to the 1922 Committee requesting one. The required number currently stands at 48; only committee chief Graham Brady knows how many have been submitted.

 
…

The U.S. will not send a high-ranking official to attend a major investment fair in China next month, the U.S. Embassy said Wednesday, in a move underscoring worsening trade frictions between the world’s two largest economies.

“China needs to make the necessary reforms to end its unfair practices that are harming the world economy,” an embassy spokesperson said, speaking on routine condition of anonymity.

“The U.S. government has no current plans for high-level U.S. government participation” in the expo, the official told The Associated Press. “We encourage China to level the playing the field for U.S. goods and services.”

State media reported the first-ever China International Import Expo scheduled for Nov. 5-10 in the financial hub of Shanghai has attracted more than 2,800 companies from 130 nations.

The fair aims to advertise China’s importance as a market for foreign goods and recent moves to encourage trade and investment amid accusations that it discriminates against foreign companies and unfairly demands they hand over crucial technology.

The event comes as the U.S. has raised tariffs to up to 25 percent on $250 billion of Chinese goods with the possibility of more such measures to come. Beijing has responded with its own tariff hikes on $110 billion of American imports.

“China’s return to the path of economic reform and sincere commitment to market-based trade and investment norms would be good for the United States, the world and ultimately good for China,” the embassy spokesperson said.

Neither Beijing nor Washington has shown any sign of backing down despite China reporting growth in its $12 trillion-a-year economy slowing to a post-global crisis low of 6.5 percent over a year earlier in September. China’s stock market has also sagged 30 percent since January.

In response, Beijing has cut tariffs, promised to lift curbs on foreign ownership of auto producers and taken other steps to rev up growth.

But leaders have refused to scrap plans such as “Made in China 2025,” which calls for state-led creation of Chinese champions in robotics and other technologies — seen as a major threat to the U.S. and other advanced economies.

President Donald Trump has also accused China of seeking to interfere in next month’s midterm elections, while offering no proof, and tensions have risen as well over Taiwan arms sales and Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.

 
…

Islamic-style banking is on the rise worldwide, showing especially strong growth in Africa recently, according to the rating agency Moody’s. This type of banking system doesn’t charge or pay interest, uses physical assets to underpin transactions, and does not invest in so-called “sin” industries like alcohol, pork and gambling. In South Africa, the continent’s financial hub, Islamic banking is gaining popularity among the minority Muslim community. VOA’s Anita Powell reports in Johannesburg.
…

The top Republican lawmaker on tax policy in the U.S. House of Representatives said Tuesday that he was working with the White House and Treasury to develop a new 10 percent middle-class tax cut plan that

President Donald Trump began touting over the weekend.

Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, who chairs the tax-writing House

Ways and Means Committee, said the plan would be crafted in “coming weeks” and would advance in Congress if Republicans retained control of the House and Senate in midterm elections on Nov. 6.

“President Trump believes American families deserve to keep more of what they work so hard to earn. We agree,” Brady said in a statement.

In what is widely seen by lobbyists as the latest Republican campaign message on taxes, Trump told reporters on Tuesday at the White House that the plan would emerge soon.

“This will be on top of the tax reduction that the middle class has already gotten. And we’re putting in a resolution, probably this week,” the president said.

Surprised

Trump’s comments came a day after congressional and administrative staff appeared to be caught off guard by word of a new tax cut, which surfaced on Saturday.

The White House on Tuesday described the new tax cut as an agenda item for 2019 and suggested it could be offset by cuts in spending.

Republicans are in a pitched battle to retain control of the House and Senate against an energized Democratic voting base that has made contests competitive even in some Republican strongholds.

“What President Trump is doing on the [campaign] trail is he’s just describing what he wants to be in the tax bill that moves next year,” Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett told MSNBC on Tuesday. “You could expect in our budget, and also in our approach to legislation next year, that we’re going to be pursuing a big reduction in government spending.”

Trump signed steep tax cuts for businesses and individuals into law last December as part of a sprawling Republican tax overhaul. Stung by criticism that their tax plan shortchanged families by having individual tax cuts expire after 2025, House Republicans voted last month to make the individual cuts

permanent in a legislative package dubbed “Tax Reform 2.0.”

“Because of the fact that the economy is doing so well, we feel like we can give up some more. I couldn’t have gotten that extra 10 percent when we originally passed the [tax] plan. We maxed out,” Trump said.
…

A report by the Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Program finds extreme weather conditions in Syria have caused the lowest production of wheat and barley for nearly three decades in this war-torn country.

Still, the Syrian government has managed to pacify most of country after more than seven years of brutal, murderous conflict that has reportedly killed more than 350,000 people. Because of improved security, more people are returning to their places of origin.

But the report says despite improved access to agricultural land in some areas, erratic weather has caused a sharp decline in crop production this year, compared to last. It says large areas of rainfed cereals have failed because of a long dry period early in the season. This was followed by unseasonably late heavy rains and high temperatures, which seriously diminished irrigated cereal yields.

Spokesman for the World Food Program, Herve Verhoosel, told VOA this extremely bad harvest will impact badly upon a population that already is short of food.

“We are talking about a third of the production compared to three years ago, then probably everybody will be affected either by the higher price of cereals on the market or by lack of cereal. Then that will probably affect everybody because they will not have the cereal, or they will need to pay more to have them,” Verhoosel said.

The report finds market access and trade has improved considerably throughout the country. It says humanitarian access to people in hard to reach places is much better.  And, with the military gains made by Syrian forces, there no longer are any besieged areas.

Though access to food has generally improved, the report finds about one-quarter of households still suffer from chronic hunger. Data show about 44 percent of households have reduced the number of meals they eat each day and when food is scarce, 35 percent of adults will first feed their children.

 
…

Coffee drinkers in the nation’s capital can now order that tall pumpkin spice iced skim latte in sign language.

Starbucks has opened its first U.S. “signing store” to better serve hard of hearing customers. The store in Washington is just blocks from Gallaudet University, one of the nation’s oldest universities serving deaf and hard of hearing students.

Marlee Matlin, the only deaf actor to win an Academy Award, posted an Instagram video of herself ordering a drink early Tuesday. “The sign for the week is COFFEE,” she wrote.

Starbucks announced in July that it would hire 20 to 25 deaf or hard of hearing baristas to work at the store.

The store is modeled after a similar Starbucks signing store which opened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2016.

 
…

Wall Street indexes fell in Tuesday’s volatile session, though they pared losses sharply by the closing bell as investors looked for bargains. Oil

dropped sharply on demand worries.

After falling as much as 2.3 percent in the morning, the S&P 500 gradually regained ground as the day wore on.

Oil prices plunged about 5 percent to two-month lows as the equities sell-off raised worries about demand growth and Saudi Arabia said it could supply more crude quickly if needed, easing concerns ahead of U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Benchmark U.S. Treasury prices rose, sending yields to their lowest levels in almost three weeks as declining stocks worldwide fed demand for low-risk debt.

The U.S. dollar recovered some of its early losses in the afternoon as the stock sell-off eased, but the greenback remained down against other safe-haven currencies.

On top of geopolitical worries and Nov. 6 U.S. congressional elections, Oliver Pursche, chief market strategist at Bruderman Asset Management in New York, cited an uncertain growth outlook amid a U.S.-China trade war.

“There’s the question of impact on global growth from tariffs and the ongoing trade war. [U.S.] President [Donald] Trump and [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] have agreed to meet during the G-20 summit, but that’s post-election,” Pursche said. “It’s clear that nothing is going to happen for three to four weeks.”

But after hitting a low of 2,691.43 around 10:20 a.m. ET (1420 GMT), the S&P gradually revived, though trading was volatile.

‘Temporary correction’

“Earnings as a whole have been good. … The market doesn’t appear overly expensive. It’s setting up to be a good buying opportunity,” said Gary Bradshaw, portfolio manager of Hodges Capital Management in Dallas, adding that he bought stocks on Tuesday.

“We’ve had what we think is a temporary correction in a bull market. Typically, you’ll see two or three corrections that are 5 to 10 percent on average per year,” he said.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 125.98 points, or 0.5 percent, to 25,191.43; the S&P 500 lost 15.19 points, or 0.55 percent, to 2,740.69; and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 31.09 points, or 0.42 percent, to 7,437.54.

Of the S&P 500’s 11 major sectors, energy was the biggest percentage decliner, last down 2.7 percent due to the tumble in oil futures.

U.S. crude fell 4.4 percent to $66.30 per barrel and Brent was last at $76.39, down 4.3 percent on the day.

Pressure mounted on Saudi Arabia over the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said intelligence and security institutions have evidence Khashoggi’s death at a Saudi consulate in Istanbul this month was planned. He dismissed attempts by Riyadh to blame the “savage” killing on rogue operatives.

Trump had said Monday he was not satisfied with what he heard from Saudi Arabia about the death but did not want to lose investment from Riyadh.

Benchmark 10-year notes last rose 7/32 in price to yield 3.1676 percent, from 3.194 percent late on Monday.

The dollar index fell 0.09 percent, with the euro up 0.07 percent to $1.1471.

The Japanese yen strengthened 0.35 percent versus the greenback at 112.44 per dollar, while the British pound was last trading at $1.2986, up 0.19 percent on the day.

Spot gold added 0.7 percent to $1,229.90 an ounce after hitting its highest level since mid-July as investors looked for safety.
…