Those of us who live in the United States probably have or will soon receive a check from the U.S. Treasury, issued as part of the government’s economic stimulus act. I expect mine any day now, but I haven’t decided how to use it, so I ask you, our wise, worldly and experienced Plant Services readers – what do you think I should do with it?

How can we spend our stimulus checks in a way that will do the most for our economy?

What other ways to improve the economy would you recommend?

The idea here is to spend it in a way that grows the economy. Should I roll the dice with some stock in an established company or try to support an emerging technology? And in what field?

How about clean energy? A recent report, “Job Opportunities for the Green Economy,” says that getting away from the “dirty, fossil-fuel-based economy” would lead to millions of new jobs in manufacturing, unions and the building trades. Can anyone tell me how I could use my stimulus check to help make that happen?

I don’t think I should spend it on an appliance or electronic gadget made in China, or splurge on fuel for a long car trip, and it would feel un-American to pay off debt or put it in the bank. Maybe I should get my wife a new front door for our house, made in the USA, finished and installed by starving local craftspeople, or replace some of our dead landscaping with plants from a local nursery. Why do some countries’ economies grow and others don’t?

A commission set up in part by the World Bank has been working on that question for a couple of years and recommends, among many other things, heavy investment in infrastructure. Economics professor Burton Malkiel notes that China’s economy has grown 9% to 10% annually for 25 years and credits the country’s investments in education and infrastructure.

There’s no doubt that how our government spends our money (or in the case of this stimulus, our children’s and grandchildren’s money) has a profound effect on the economy. “But the tiny checks the Treasury just sent out are barely enough to pay our rising fuel bills. We need a stimulus package that’s truly up to the job of restoring aggregate demand,” says Robert Reich in his May 23 commentary on National Public Radio (http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2008/099.html). Reich teaches public policy at the University of California,

Berkeley. His latest book is titled “Supercapitalism.” “The best and easiest candidate is spending on the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. We’ve deferred billions of dollars of maintenance on bridges, sewers, water systems, levees and dams. That’s already cost the nation dearly,” he says. Reich says the public doesn’t trust the government to spend money on infrastructure wisely when earmarks go to “bridges to nowhere.” So he suggests the next president establish a capital budget that lists infrastructure projects in priority order. “No more earmarks,” he says. “The capital budget will reflect the nation’s true infrastructure needs.”

The government would fund the capital budget “the way capital budgets should be funded – through borrowing that assumes a realistic return to those capital investments, just like any smart business does,” Reich adds. “That way, we keep the economy growing, create millions of jobs, and we get the infrastructure we need for the 21st century.” What do you think of that? And seriously, how would you spend a stimulus check or otherwise help improve the U.S. economy?

As we move deeper into Web 2.0, we want to know what you want from this Web site. Do you like what we have? Do you have ideas for better content? Are we delivering useful content via videos, wikis and blogs, or are we not using these technologies properly. We want you to tell us how to do our job. And this space is exactly where you can do it. Just fill out the comment section below, and we’ll gladly discuss your requests.

I’m going to share a secret with the blog readers. It’s cheaper for our print publication to send you our magazine digitally than it is to use traditional mail. Shocking news, I know. In addition to postage savings, there’s significant printing savings, etc. And if you’re reading this web site, you probably have a pretty good handle on efficiency and cost savings. Of course, it’s the American-trained mind to think that cheaper is automatically less quality. That’s simply not true in this case. In addition to saving us a few bucks, you get the following by subscribing to the digital edition:

• The issue gets to you faster
• The digital edition is live, meaning there are links to additional information
• You are doing your part to save some trees
• It’s fully printable for, ahem, bathroom visits
• It’s easily shared with co-workers
• It finds you no matter where you are (as long as you have a computer)
• It’s easier to save

You should give it a look. Make sure to experiment and let your mouse arrow hover on the pages, because I think you’ll discover live links to an assortment of supportive information on this web site, that makes each feature piece in the edition that much more valuable. Oh, and don’t forget to subscribe.

When I go to the grocery store, or most stores, I head directly for what I want, grab it and buy it. My wife meanders the aisles and carefully contemplates everything on the aisle as if she might actually purchase it. Even though we both know that there is no way she’s buying that weird apple/grape combo fruit called the Grapple.

Web sites aren’t much different than grocery stores. They each have their own layout, and you feel more comfortable in some more than others. For the most part, though, you take the same approach every time you visit. Either you go straight for what you want or you meander. In the Web world, going straight for what you want is almost always entering a Search. Whereas sifting through the navigation is more like reading the ingredients on the Grapple packaging. I’m a searcher, and our Web analytic information tells me that you are too, in increasing numbers. Thank you Google for the classical conditioning.

For me, I know what I want from my search. I want extremely relative information and if that doesn’t pop up, I better have an option to drill down to what I want. PlantServices.com is currently discussing reworking its search results page. We’d be interested in your comments and how you think we can improve it. Go ahead and try a couple searches and see if you find what you’re looking for. Did you get too much? Too little? Not relevant? I’m a sports geek and I really like the search on ESPN.com, and perhaps that’ll be a loose model for us. Please feel free to fill up the comment section on this blog entry with search suggestions - we’d love to have them.

Ok, reliability has been present on PS.com since its inception, but now it’s just easier to get the information. Sometimes, instituting reliability best practices can seem cumbersome, unweildly and unrealistic. And since it’s an inexact science, case study scenarios don’t always apply to the individual. With that in mind, PS.com has launched a new “Reliability Tips” e-newsletter (view an example, or better yet, subscribe). The e-newsletter, authored by Reliability Expert Ricky Smith, features tips that don’t require maximum effort on your part to achieve. Furthermore, PS.com has launched an associative blog, where users can comment on the tips, and perhaps, gain valuable insight from other users and Ricky on your particular problems with implementing reliability techniques. If neither of those options meet your reliability information needs, remember to attempt a site search from any page on PS.com. We welcome any suggestions for site improvements, either posted as a comment to this blog entry, or in email form to Senior Editor, Digital Media at mermitage@putman.net.

It’s not related to overindulgence in powerful potables, but I do have an observation hanging over from Labor Day.

On Monday, I repeatedly heard and read about how U.S. workers are the most productive in the world — generating about $64,000 apiece in goods and services, some 15% ahead of anyone else including Europe’s best, according to an International Labor Organization report issued that day.

Working more hours explains part of the higher output, but not all of it. The reports I heard credited the rest to American’s ”tendency to embrace new technology” and its potential for increasing productivity. “Hmmm,” I thought, “Here in the United States, where manufacturing is ‘declining’ and every mother wants their son to be a doctor, lawyer or Wal-Mart executive, those advances in medical, information and logistics technology must really be boosting productivity in the professional services and retail segments!”

But no, they say once again, it’s the manufacturing segment leading U.S. productivity.

So give youself a hand - you deserve it.

Then, please, get back to work.

If you have your doubts about the value of Web 2.0, the wisdom of the crowd as opposed to the expert, and, especially, “blogs,” well, so do we. So when I heard about Andrew Keen’s assertion that the Web is diluting and draining important traditional resources (The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet Is Killing Our Culture), I wanted to hear more. If you’re interested, I urge you to give a listen to this NPR interview but before you go, let me assure you our intention is to leverage the technology to add a dimension and a provide mechanisms for more feedback from the field, not to replace deep expertise. Our priority remains aggregating and making readily available the best, most useful information to help you improve the performance, reliability, efficiency and asset management of industrial facilities.

If you just arrived via our latest e-newsletter, let me thank you for subscribing, reading and clicking! Your satisfaction is very important to us, and here’s a great way to tell us (in front of everybody) what you think of the e-newsletters and any topics or improvements you’d like to see. Go ahead, make our day — we can take it!

Working on September’s cover story about how to foster a culture of safety, I tripped over a statistic that says more manufacturing workers are injured off the job than on it. Consider the fact that many of these folks work in environments where safety is truly a concern and a high priority. They are given safety training and are even taught about common off-the-job hazards and offered appropriate safety equipment to use at home.

I have to wonder and worry about the vast number of other people who never receive any formal hazard awareness instruction – people who spend their whole working lives in offices like mine where workplace safety hazards are never given a thought beyond desk-chair adjustments and keyboarding ergonomics (well, maybe the occasional gun-toting, revenge-seeking reader or former editor…).

With fewer Americans gaining industrial safety and hazard awareness training and experience, it’s no wonder there’s so much footage for America’s Funniest Home Videos and YouTube, and so much fodder for the Darwin awards.

Being an editor these days, I no longer get to experience plant-floor frustrations in person. So I appreciate the insight we get when any of you write or call with your stories. An anecdote that seems everyday and even uninteresting to you can help us keep the right mindset and guide our coverage to your best advantage. Meanwhile, here’s an editor’s story:

Right now I have an old machine that corroded enough to spring a leak, which I was able to stop with a temporary repair before the leak did much damage, and put the machine immediately back in production. When it leaks again, it may do much more damage and may not be repairable. We rely heavily on the machine for quality work on a daily basis.

I’ve advised my boss that the machine should be replaced, and I think it would be best to replace it before it breaks down, as consequential damages may easily exceed the replacement cost and we can select the most appropriate replacement, negotiate a good price and plan production around the replacement project. She says we shouldn’t spend money before we have to, the machine is working fine and may continue working for a long time.

OK, the machine’s a 15-year-old dishwasher; the leak is water through the enameled tub (plugged with epoxy and a sheet-metal screw); potential consequential damages are to the flooring, cabinets and downstairs ceiling; production is clean dishes, the boss has been my wife for 23 years, and Sears is having a sale, but the principle’s the same, right? What would you do?