Economically speaking, it's been a grim year. Few industries have escaped the repercussions of the downturn, and ours—metal manufacturing—is among the hardest hit. It was under a heavy cloud of concern that a stressed, worried industry came together at the 2009 FABTECH® International & AWS Welding Show, including METALFORM earlier this week. Exhibitors wondered if attendees would come.

Would companies that are making drastic cutbacks spring for the cost of sending people to the show? Would those who came buy?

They came, they saw, and they bought. (TRUMPF sold four machines the first day.) FABTECH 2009 exceeded exhibitors'—and editors'—expectations.

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It's now one in 10, probably more. Take a walk and glance around. You'll probably see someone in need of a job. Within two blocks of my house, I know four who are unemployed—and those are just the neighbors I know.

The Labor Department's release, which pegged October's unemployment rate at 10.2 percent, caught many off guard Friday. Most thought the rate would reach that point someday, but not so soon. During the past year, durable goods manufacturing unemployment more than doubled, from 5.9 percent to 12.9, the highest rate of any sector the labor department tracks.

Break it down a bit more and the picture doesn't look quite as dire. In September 2008 the fabricated metal products sector employed 1.280 million; in October 2009 it was 1.275. And get this: Employment related to motor vehicles and parts actually increased by more than 4 percent. Could the sector finally be bouncing back?

I know I'm hunting for diamonds in the rough here. Heck, I'd be pleased with cubic zirconium at this point.

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It's been eight years since the 9/11 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and killed almost 3,000 innocent prople— enough time for two presidential elections; U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq; the fall of a dictatorship; the battle of New Orleans versus Katrina; the Great Recession; and countless other famous and infamous news-making events. However, none have supplanted the memory of that tragic morning when horrified Americans and our neighbors across the world watched the devastation unfold.

Throughout these eight years, many 9/11 memorials have been suggested. Some have been realized, some scrapped, and some are in development. Perhaps the most fitting to date, the USS New York, steamed into New York harbor Nov. 2 as firefighters, bagpipers, and those who lost loved ones on 9/11 watched. As reported on CNN.com, the new Navy assault ship's bow was fabricated using seven and a half tons of steel recovered from the wreckage of the WTC.

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Talk of health reform has become frenzied in recent weeks. The latest compromises have bordered on desperation. We can't pursue the public option plan, to appease budget-weary politicians (and voters) and the insurance industry. We're uncomfortable about requiring everyone to buy insurance during the current economic climate. The insurance industry isn't going for caps on premiums. The idea of taxing high-end health insurance plans isn't faring well either. What's left are thousands of pages of legalese signifying, well, not much.

Democratic representatives, senators, and the president have all said they will pass health care reform. They say they can’t walk away from the table.

No wonder special interest groups are moving in for the kill.

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It's the waiting that drags you down.

With our unemployment rate edging near 10 percent, many are waiting for companies to finally rehire. I can imagine them shaking their heads when they look at the Dow's ascent in recent weeks. Somebody's making money, but it certainly isn't them.

I'm not sure if welder Charles Salak has been paying attention to the Dow, but he's been busy with home improvement projects, occasionally working for a relative, repairing farm equipment. He isn't sitting still. In August he was laid off from Katana Summit, a wind tower manufacturer in Columbus, Neb. The company had no choice. Katana is awaiting the go-head for a 200-plus tower order. Wind energy is capital-intensive, so even today, with the promise of government help, it takes time to get the green light. If and when Katana finally gets the go-ahead for the order, Salak may get his job back. But for the past few weeks he's been waiting.

New York Times reporter David Segal visited Columbus and used Salak as the centerpiece for his article, which appeared yesterday on the front page of the business section. Segal also visited Behlen Manufacturing, a metal fabricator specializing in farm products, machine tools, and custom fabrication. Especially poignant was Segal's description of idle equipment on Behlen's plant floor. Tony Raimondos Jr., son of the company president, gave the reporter a tour of the expansive, 850,000-square-foot shop floor. (If you need space, Nebraska has it.) Riding with Raimondos on a golf cart, the reporter recalled:

"Every minute or two, you come upon a couple of guys who are galvanizing metal or fabricating tubing. Mostly, it's quiet.

"'We're hopeful,' says Tony Jr., driving past an unused ... steel punching machine. 'But it's really strange to see it look like this. The other day I looked through this window in a door to the factory floor, and it was dark. During second shift.'"

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The cover of Newsweek could be journalism school fodder for ways to stand out on the newsstand: "The Case for Killing Granny." That headline tugs at the soul, drilling down to the heart of the health care debate. The lion's share of health care costs in this country occurs during the final months and years of life, as doctors work valiantly to prevent our inevitable demise."

I have to be honest. Seeing the headline at a newsstand this morning made me take another direction with this blog. My first thought was to describe how the health care industry could learn a thing or two from lean and other improvement methodologies rooted in manufacturing. Doctors are paid by procedure, not results. The more tests they do, the more money they make. In manufacturing, it's the opposite. Fabricators strive to simplify. Simplifying parts, producing on demand, and making life easier for customers likely will garner more work in the long run ... right?

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The financial wizards are at it again, and this time they're not betting whether you'll default on your mortgage. They're betting on your life.

The financial folks on Wall Street, as always, are looking for certainty and to curtail risk. At one point, mortgages seemed to be a sure thing. People need a roof over their heads, and home prices have always gone up at least somewhere in the country, so if you securitize—that is, package various mortgages for people of varying financial health and geography—you mitigate risk. We all know that logic didn't pan out.

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If you're connected to the wind energy business or are looking to get your foot in the door, you're probably thinking about two things:

1. You're tired of cheesy puns in article headlines (like the one above).

2. You are hoping investors start embracing the business again.

For the former, I'm a culprit among all the other business reporters using excessive verbal window dressing to write about this sector. As for the latter, investment trends are blowing in a new direction. (Apologies, again.)

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I understand the term's intent, and that it describes workers who are ever-more-valued. I just have reservations about how the term is used. When people think of a "knowledge worker," they think of a white-collar IT professional, engineer, doctor, or others who think to innovate, using their knowledge to better an organization.

But who doesn't?

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Buried within the Institute for Supply Management™'s July Manufacturing ISM Report on Business® is a telling quote from a metal fabricator.

"No stimulus for manufacturing."

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