As more workers lose manufacturing jobs as companies cut back, some are being forced into lower-paying retail jobs. But they still have union cards in their wallets.

Although the number of manufacturing jobs in the United States has stagnated, dropping 12 percent from a high in the early 1980s, the number of retail jobs has risen 43 percent.

You lose manufacturing jobs, you rarely ever get them back again.

Federal agencies that own bridges have some of the worst records for on-time inspections. Nearly 3,000 bridges owned by U.S. government agencies went more than two years between checkups.

Currently we have construction job levels reaching toward the ceiling but manufacturing jobs are virtually at the floor. With hardly any room to fall further, it doesn't seem likely that problems in housing and in construction will spread to manufacturing this time.

Lie detectors sometimes work because people believe they work, deterring the wrong people from applying for jobs in the first place, or prompting admissions of guilt during interrogations.