Adam Davidson

U.S. Battling Other Countries To Be Cheapest Source Of Goods

Adam Davidson — Tue, 14 May 2013 20:56:00 +0000

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

And I'm Audie Cornish.

There is a global race on, an odd one. Countries are competing to be the cheapest source of goods. We're not talking about low-wage countries, like China or Bangladesh. No. This is a battle between Japan and Germany and the United States. And today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed the latest scores in this race.

Adam Davidson with NPR's Planet Money team joins us to explain.

Dow's 'Record Highs' Misleading Without Including Inflation

Adam Davidson — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 21:30:00 +0000

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News . I'm Melissa Block.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

And I'm Audie Cornish.

And a record close. That's what we've been hearing both today and yesterday as the Dow Jones industrial average climbs upwards.

BLOCK: That may be an ear-grabbing headline after a recession and years of unimpressive growth. But we begin this hour with a different take from Adam Davidson of NPR's Planet Money. Hey, Adam.

ADAM DAVIDSON, BYLINE: Hey, Melissa.

BLOCK: And I understand, Adam, that you've been a real wet blanket on this.

Raising Revenues Or Taxes — What's The Difference?

Adam Davidson — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 21:56:00 +0000

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

We're going to dig into some of those policy differences now between Republicans and Democrats. When it comes to reducing the deficit, both sides insist it's time for compromise. But President Obama says tax cuts for the richest Americans must end.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: When it comes to the top two percent, what I'm not going to do is to extend further a tax cut for folks who don't need it.

CORNISH: So, raise taxes on the rich. Republicans say don't raise taxes on anyone.

This Man Makes Beautiful Suits, But He Can't Afford To Buy One

Adam Davidson — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 07:23:00 +0000

Peter Frew is one of a tiny number of people left in the United States who can — entirely on his own, using almost no machinery — make a classic bespoke suit. He can measure you, draw a pattern, cut the fabric and then hand-stitch a suit designed to fit your body perfectly.

Frew spent more than a decade as an apprentice for a remarkable tailor in his native Jamaica. He now sells his suits for about $4,000.

Scandal That Cost Barclays Chairman His Job Threatens To Spread

Adam Davidson — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 22:17:00 +0000

Every day at 11 a.m., a few big banks tell the British Bankers' Association what it costs them to borrow.

Why Matzo Makers Love Regulation

Adam Davidson — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 07:16:00 +0000

For more, see our video, Inside The Matzo Factory, and see Adam Davdson's latest NYT Magazine column

The matzo business may be the most heavily regulated business in the world.

The regulators are rabbis, who stand on the factory floor and make sure that everything adheres to kosher law.

Why Are Some Countries Rich And Others Poor?

Adam Davidson — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 17:06:00 +0000

Why are some nations rich and others poor? In a new book called Why Nations Fail, a pair of economists argue that a lot comes down to politics.

To research the book, the authors scoured the world for populations and geographic areas that are identical in all respects save one: they're on different sides of a border.

The two Koreas are an extreme example. But you can see the same thing on the border of the US and Mexico, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and dozens of other neighboring countries.

What Do The Dow's Daily Swings Mean? Not Much.

Adam Davidson — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 05:01:00 +0000

Turn on the news on any given day, and you're likely to hear about the Dow Jones industrial average. It is the most frequently checked, and cited, proxy of U.S. economic health. But a lot of people — maybe most — don't even know what it is. It's just the stock prices of 30 big companies, summed up and roughly averaged. That's it.

And what does the daily movement of this number have to do with the lives of most Americans?

The Transformation Of American Factory Jobs, In One Company

Adam Davidson — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 05:01:00 +0000

This is the second in a two-part series. Part one is here. For more, see Adam Davidson's cover story in this month's issue of The Atlantic.

Larry Sills is the CEO of Standard Motor Products, like his dad and his grandfather before him. The company makes replacement parts for car engines.

The History Of Factory Jobs In America, In One Town

Adam Davidson — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:01:00 +0000

For more, see Adam Davidson's cover story in this month's issue of The Atlantic.

Greenville County, South Carolina is where manufacturing's past and future live side by side. This is not a metaphor; it's a visible fact. In South Carolina, and throughout America, factories produce more than ever. Yet in Greenville, there are abandoned textile mills everywhere you look.

A decade ago, life in Greenville was organized around the mills.