Latest News – Indianapolis Business Journal

A year of poor planning led to carmakers’ massive chip shortage

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But when they wanted to increase supply toward the end of 2020, they struggled to secure capacity at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and other contract chipmakers that were busy servicing a boom in demand for gadgets that help housebound consumers stay connected, according to people familiar with the situation.
Near-sighted planning, supply-chain complexities and a tradition of keeping inventories low caused the semiconductor shortage that is now forcing carmakers to idle production lines and straining their relationship with chip manufacturers.

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Economists predicted those trends would continue this year, though mortgage rates may rise slightly from record lows if the economy improves as expected as vaccines become more widely available.
Rising sales in the final month of the year lifted activity to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.76 million units in December, the National Association of Realtors reported Friday.

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The two executive orders that Biden signed would increase food aid, protect job seekers on unemployment and clear a path for federal workers and contractors to get a $15 hourly minimum wage.
President Joe Biden took executive action Friday to speed a stopgap measure of financial relief to millions of Americans affected by the coronavirus pandemic while Congress begins to consider his much larger $1.9 trillion package.

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Indianapolis entrepreneur Kweku Larbi and his startup company, Brumachen, will be featured on Friday night’s episode of the television show Shark Tank, which airs at 8 p.m. on ABC.
Larbi founded Brumachen in 2019 and left his engineering job that same year.

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It wants to build a huge bank of bone marrow and stem cells from deceased organ donors to treat patient with blood cancers and to improve organ transplantations.
“This will dramatically increase the availability of matched bone marrow and enable clinical use of a vast, untapped source of these life-saving stem cells,” the website says.