National, Pittsburgh Region Companies Rally To Extend Charter Of Export-Import Bank

GE Transportation recently signed a deal to build 100 locomotives in Erie — including engines made in Grove City — and sell them in Angola for $350 million.

GE used financing through the Export-Import Bank, which provides loans, loan guarantees and insurance to U.S. companies selling overseas. The bank, supporters say, helps U.S. companies compete more effectively for foreign business.

“If we hadn’t had that financing, the order would have gone to China,” said Richard Simpson, global head of supply chain for the company, who said Thursday that GE Transportation financed $720 million in sales to three other countries last year.

Such deals are in jeopardy, advocates for the 80-year-old bank say. Its charter expires June 30 and observers say it might not come up for a vote in Congress before then.

Read more: http://triblive.com/business/headlines/8548411-74/bank-companies-export#ixzz3csBLMqRz
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In Its Biggest Contract, High Steel To Fabricate Half Of The Steel For Approaches Of The New NY Bridge

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Lancaster County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

High Steel Structures has won its biggest contract ever, triggering new jobs at its Lancaster and Williamsport plants.

High Steel has been picked to fabricate half of the steel for the approaches of The New NY Bridge.

To be completed in 2018, The New NY Bridge will replace the deteriorated, congested Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson River north of New York City.

High Steel, founded in 1931, will fabricate 50,000 tons of steel for the approaches of the new bridge, to have eight passenger lanes and four emergency lanes.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/931218_In-its-biggest-contract–High-Steel-to-fabricate-half-of-the-steel-for-approaches-of-The-New-NY-Bridge.html#ixzz2nTWOUude

Study: Pittsburgh’s Social Mobility Among Best In U.S.

Locator map of the Greater Pittsburgh metro area in the western part of the of . Red denotes the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area, and yellow denotes the New Castle Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Pittsburgh-New Castle CSA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The rags-to-riches, Great Gatsby-esque storyline may be more reality than fiction in the Pittsburgh area, a national study suggests.

Pittsburgh is in the top tier of cities for social mobility, according to a report released this week.  The survey, which incorporated earnings filings from millions of Americans to assess people’s likelihood of moving between income classes, found that Pittsburghers born to parents who make just $30,000 per year typically move further up the income ladder than similar people in any of America’s 50 largest commuter areas except Salt Lake City.

And on a more regional level, Pittsburgh stands out among communities in the Rust Belt for its propensity toward social mobility.

“Pittsburgh does look more like an outlier from the perspective of the general economic situation, from the types of economic shocks that have been hitting that region in the past 20 years,” said Nathaniel Hendren, a Harvard economist and one of the report’s four authors, who hail from Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley, and are affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/business/news/study-pittsburghs-social-mobility-among-best-in-us-696470/#ixzz2Zt4OJRJU