WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

Before Reagan urged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall," and even before Kennedy told Americans to ask "what you can do for your country," President Dwight D. Eisenhower coined his own phrase about "the military-industrial complex."

While the housing sector's troubles continue to drag down the U.S. economy, manufacturing is doing well, largely because of strong sales overseas.The exports boom has helped the manufacturing sector grow at a pace three times faster than the rest of the economy.

First of an ongoing seriesUntil March, Casaundra Bronner, 39, worked for one of the largest and certainly the most famous employers in St. Louis — Anheuser-Busch.Bronner had been there for 11 years, working her way up to a marketing manager job."

Australia's economy has generally outperformed those of other developed nations during recent downturns. It has managed this partly on the strength of its commodity exports, from iron ore to cotton.

Higher gasoline prices are largely responsible for a 0.5 percent increase in consumer prices last month from November, the Bureau of Labor Statistics just reported.For all of 2010, BLS added, prices rose 1.5 percent.Also just in, from the Census Bureau: Retail sales were up 0.6 percent in December f