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From the Web: Remembering Rosie; GM invests; new jobs; subpar growth; and Uber’s economic role

  1. Did you experience déjà vu when you heard of Rosie the Riveter’s death? Guess that depends on whether you recall Rosie dying in 2010.

    Here’s the story. Apparently Geraldine Hoff Doyle, Lansing, Mich., was the model for a famous “We Can Do It!” poster closely associated with Rosie the Riveter’s story. She died in 2010.

    A similarly named model, Mary Doyle Keefe, is the name of a the Rosie model whose died last week at age 92.

    Doyle is widely believed to the be the model for a now-famous “We Can Do It!” poster that became an icon of the feminist movement. The image that most Americans knew as Rosie the Riveter during WWII was Norman Rockwell’s May 29, 1943 cover of the Saturday Evening Post. Keefe was Rockwell’s model.

    Ironically, neither Keefe nor Doyle were manufacturing workers.

  2. Remember when GM was bankrupt and couldn’t pay its bills? Just a few years later, the company is investing $5.4 billion in its U.S. facilities.

    The investments include upgrades in three Michigan plants—Delta Township, near Lansing; Pontiac Metal Center; and the Warren plant. The Pontiac upgrade will create 15 new jobs.

    GM's total U.S. workforce, both salaried and hourly, has risen to 78,000 from about 74,000 in 2010; it remains well below the 91,655 at the end of 2008.

    The $5.4 billion to be spent across all GM's U.S. plants will add 650 jobs and preserve 15,300 existing jobs, the company says.

  3. A Dalton, Ga.-based company that manufactures displays and visual merchandising products is expanding in Chattanooga by investing $15 million and creating 100 new jobs.

    Geraldine Hoff Doyle as Rosie the Riveter. (Westinghouse poster.)

    A 500,000-square-foot facility the company has purchased off Amnicola Highway will be Marketing Alliance's third in Chattanooga. The privately held business has other locations in the region in Calhoun, Ga., and Dalton.

    "When an existing company expands, they are not just making an investment in our community, they are investing in our people," said Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke. "These are 100 good, middle-class jobs created for Chattanoogans."

    The company has more than 1.5 million square feet in 11 manufacturing facilities located in Georgia and Tennessee. It currently employs more than 1,200 U.S. workers and also has offices and personnel in both China and India.

  4. When it comes to the U.S. economic recovery, slow and steady—sluggish—seems to be the status quo.

    The Commerce Department reported that the overall economy grew at a barely discernible annual rate of 0.2 percent in the January – March quarter, the poorest showing in a year and down from 2.2 percent growth in the fourth quarter.

    Many economists reportedly forecast growth to rebound to around 3 percent in the current quarter and hold steady in the second half of the year.

    The Great Recession ended nearly six years ago, but growth has been subpar, averaging just 2.2 percent. Analysts continue to believe 2015 will be the year when growth accelerates to a more respectable level.

  5. Want to know what the economy will look like in 2025? Entrepreneur and futurist Zack Kanter has a prediction predicated on Uber’s autonomous cars, which he believes will destroy 10 million jobs and reshape the economy by 2025.

    Kanter believes autonomous cars will be commonplace by 2025 and have a near monopoly by 2030, and the sweeping change they bring will eclipse every other innovation our society has experienced.

    “The effects of the autonomous car movement will be staggering. PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that the number of vehicles on the road will be reduced by 99 percent, estimating that the fleet will fall from 245 million to just 2.4 million vehicles.

    Mary Doyle Keefe as Rosie the Riveter. (Saturday Evening Post cover.)

    “Disruptive innovation does not take kindly to entrenched competitors—like Blockbuster, Barnes and Noble, Polaroid, and dozens more like them, it is unlikely that major automakers like General Motors, Ford, and Toyota will survive the leap. They are geared to produce millions of cars in dozens of different varieties to cater to individual taste and have far too much overhead to sustain such a dramatic decrease in sales. I think that most will be bankrupt by 2030, while startup automakers like Tesla will thrive on a smaller number of fleet sales to operators like Uber by offering standardized models with fewer options."

    Makes you wonder if traditional automakers are taking note and investing accordingly—GM.