Productivity growth in manufacturing is stuck. Despite improvements in equipment, software and management approaches, annual labor productivity growth in the U.S. was around 0.7 percent between 2007 and 2018.

As of April 19, more than 2.4 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported in 235 countries. Worldwide, more than 165,000 people have died from the disease, but more than 612,000 have recovered.

How quickly things change. On March 1, I was one of 15,000 people watching the Chicago Cubs play a spring training game at a ballpark in Mesa, AZ. It was warm and sunny, the beer was cold, and I had not a care in the world.

In January, the U.S. and China agreed to a trade deal that cut some U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods in exchange for Chinese pledges to purchase more American farm, energy and manufactured goods and address U.S. complaints about intellectual property practices.

Idle hands are the devil's workshop, or so my folks would like to remind me when I was growing up. Now, there's scientific evidence of just that.

Incredibly, the decade has ended with a moment of bipartisanship. On Dec. 10, after more than a year of deadlock, Democrats and Republicans agreed to revisions in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) that should enable the trade pact to win approval from Congress and get signed into law by the president.

It's a safe bet that many of you will soon find shiny new electronic gadgets under your Christmas trees this month.

Recently, I received an e-mail from a U.S. electrical products company warning me that, on Oct. 15, the tariff on power supplies and power cords imported to the U.S. from China would increase from 25 percent to 30 percent.

Not many CEOs become household names. Looking at the current Fortune 100, I came up with just three: Jeff Bezos of Am-azon, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and Michael Dell of Dell, the latter only because I stare at a Dell laptop all week.

On July 15, the United Auto Workers formally began talks with Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler on a new four-year contract. It was all smiles and handshakes to start, but negotiations will surely get testy before the current contract expires Sept. 14.