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Trade Wars
The $100k Fee On H-1B Visas Help Will Likely Help U.S. Workers In The Short Term But Over Time, The U.S. Economy Could Suffer
A $100,000 fee is, by all accounts, going to discourage a lot of companies from hiring foreign workers through the H-1B program. What happens next is debatable.“It might improve the job prospects of certain types of U.S. workers,” said Gaurav Khanna, an associate professor of economics at University of California, San Diego. He’s thinking of computer scientists, for example. “In the short run, IT (information technology) firms might try to hire a few U.S. born computer scientists,” Khanna said.
Longer term? “It stops the IT firm from growing. And as a result, it doesn’t hire other workers,” he said. Historically, top science and engineering talent from around the world are drawn to work in the U.S. There may be a trade-off. Research by Patrick Turner, an economist at Notre Dame, suggests H-1B immigration in the ‘90s and 2000s may have limited how much more STEM workers are paid over non-STEM workers. But, the innovations created by these workers have benefitted the whole workforce, Turner said. “Not having those workers in this country means that we miss out on kind of the technological advantages that those workers bring,” he said.
Read more at Marketplace
Volvo Says It Will Add Hybrid Model To Factory In South Carolina
Volvo Cars said Tuesday it add a “next-generation hybrid model” to its Ridgeville plant outside Charleston, South Carolina. The $1.3 billion plant has a production capacity of 150,000 vehicles a year. It currently makes the electric Volvo EX90 SUV and Polestar 3 in South Carolina. Volvo Cars said in July it would start building the XC60 mid-size SUV at the South Carolina factory beginning in late 2026.
The new hybrid model will be constructed at the factory by 2030, Volvo Cars said in a statement. The hybrid model “is designed to meet the specific demands” of the U.S. market, the company said. Volvo Cars broke ground on the South Carolina plant in September 2015. Production at the complex began in 2018.
Read more at Forbes
Mortgage Rates Are Finally Dipping, But A Shortage Of Available Houses Remains A Problem
Even with mortgage rates coming down, creating a flurry of refinancing activity, home sellers are pulling back. August saw a 1.4% drop in active listings — while new listings dropped 1.1%, according to new data from Redfin. So, what’s behind some of these seller jitters? Earlier this year, home buyers in many parts of the country were finally starting to feel the market tip in their favor. “I think that that was around the time when sellers realized, ‘Hey, you know, we're turning from a seller's market to a buyer's market right now,’” said Chen Zhao with Redfin. Sellers who no longer had the upper hand in price negotiations got wise.
Sellers may be pulling back, but buyers aren’t. So, supply is starting to dwindle. Some sellers may have paid off a house, so they aren’t worried about it sitting on the market for a while if they can’t get full price. “And so, they're really hanging on to ‘this is what I think my house is worth. And I'll sell it if someone wants to pay for it, and if they don't, then it's really no loss to us’,” real estate agent Amanda Snitker in Denver said. Others may have bought their homes more recently, when interest rates were lower, and want to get the most bang out of that buck in order to buy their next house.
Read more at Marketplace
Desktop Metal Hopes to Step Away from the Chaos
Rapid upheaval in the additive manufacturing world in recent years dropped Desktop Metal at Bryan Wisk’s feet last week. His strategy for success going forward is to keep that chaos at bay. Wisk is CEO of Arc Public Benefit Corp., a New York investor that last week bought Desktop Metal out of bankruptcy. It was an opportunity born from turmoil. The company that pioneered several metal additive manufacturing applications went public in 2021 through a special-purpose acquisition corporation (the same sorts of deals that funded dozens of now-defunct electric vehicle companies around the same time).
Wisk says he sees a realistic path to profitability for Desktop Metal in focusing on collaboration with customers as a way of feeding its research and development efforts. “We’re knuckling down and just looking forward to what we think is a pretty solid opportunity to get the company to [earnings before income tax, depreciation and amortization] EBITDA positive in the near term. How long is that going to take? Unclear. But I think the core business… there’s a healthy base of recurring revenue,” Wisk says.
Read more at IndustryWeek
Milan Fashion Week 2025 Honours Armani And Debuts New Designers
Milan Fashion Week opens with a celebration of Italian style that will honour the late Giorgio Armani while introducing new creative talents at major fashion houses. The Spring/Summer 2026 women’s collections will feature presentations from Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Max Mara, Fendi, Roberto Cavalli, Ferragamo and Bottega Veneta throughout the week. The event carries a sombre tone following the recent passing of Giorgio Armani, the legendary 91-year-old designer who built a multi-billion euro empire and established Milan as a global fashion capital.
Amid the mourning, the week will feature several highly anticipated debuts including Georgian designer Demna’s first presentation for Gucci after moving from Balenciaga.Demna faces the challenging task of reversing sales declines at the Italian brand owned by French luxury group Kering, with a private event scheduled for Tuesday evening rather than a traditional catwalk show.
Read more at The Sun
Wabtec And Kazakhstan Reach $4.2 Billion Locomotive Deal
Pittsburgh based Locomotive parts maker Wabtec has reached a $4.2 billion agreement with Kazakhstan under which the Pennsylvania-headquartered company will provide the central Asian country with 300 locomotives, the U.S. Department of Commerce said on Monday. The deal will give Kazakhstan's national railway company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ) 300 "evolution Series ES44Aci heavy-haul locomotive kits over the next decade," the department said in a statement.
It is expected to support 11,000 U.S. jobs, it said. The agreement was made after a call between President Donald Trump and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a post on X. "This landmark deal advances U.S. manufacturing jobs and accelerates growth, opportunity, and connectivity in America and Central Asia," Lutnick said.
Read more at Reuters
Stellantis Launches Practical Tests With IBIS Prototype Vehicle
Stellantis, with Saft and other partners, is testing an electric-vehicle battery design that could eliminate the need for separate charger and inverter hardware. The Intelligent Battery Integrated System, tested in a Peugeot e-3008, uses software to control each battery module individually, achieving a 10% reduction in energy consumption, 15% improvement in power and an 88-pound (40 kilograms) reduction in weight, plus faster charging time. The design could reach production before 2030.
What makes the system special is that the inverter and charging functions are directly integrated into the battery. The architecture supports both alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC) and supplies electrical energy directly to the motor or the vehicle’s electrical system, while simultaneously powering the 12-volt system and auxiliary units. Stellantis cites the following advantages of the system.
Read more at Electrive
First F-47 Sixth-Gen Fighter Already Being Built, Expected to Fly in 2028
The first F-47 Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter will be ready to fly by 2028 and the first airframe is already being built, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin announced during a keynote address Sept. 22 at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference. “It’s the platform that, along with all of the rest of the systems, is going to ensure dominance into the future. We’ve got to go fast,” Allvin said. “I’ve got to tell you, team, it’s almost 2026. The team is committed to getting the first one flying in 2028.”
Allvin touted the F-47’s progress as he stressed the need for the Air Force to move even faster to modernize, including building semi-autonomous collaborative combat aircraft to work with the F-47 and the Air Force’s other combat jets, and continue work on the B-21 Raider stealth bomber, the second prototype of which was just recently rolled out, to be prepared for any potential conflict.
Read more at Air & Space Forces
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