A new study by the Milken Institute ranks Washington fifth among the states in its ability to attract science and technology jobs.

The state advanced one place from sixth, the position it held in a similar Milken study in 2004.

"The changes in this year's index give a good measure of who is ahead in the increasing competition for scarce human capital and other resources needed for a successful industry," said Ross DeVol, director of regional economics at the institute and principal study author.

The study ranked Massachusetts in the first position followed by Maryland, Colorado, California and Washington.

California fell from the second position to fourth, and Maryland advanced from fourth to second.

California's rank fell in part because a decline in academic test scores and a low proportion of the population with college degrees could potentially harm its potential to take advantage of future tech jobs, the study's authors said.

Amazon.com adds office supplies to its unending list of products.

The Seattle online retailer today said its new store includes a selection of more than 500,000 products including both well-known and hard-to-find brands such as Avery, Hammermill, Papermate, Midland Paper, Russell+Hazel and Raymond Geddes.

"We are thrilled to offer our customers an easy and convenient way to find and discover everything they need to outfit their office or classroom," Chris Rupp, director of merchandising for computers and office supplies, said in news release. "With our enormous breadth of selection, we have paper, pencils, sticky notes, pushpins and much more, all available for purchase with the click of a mouse, 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

Pension & Investments magazine had a story today about Russell.

The story says that the Tacoma financial services company is facing increased competition from SEI Investments out of Pennsylvania, which has surpassed Russell as a manager of instutional tax-exempt assets.

Here's part of the story:

“SEI has out-Russelled Russell,” said Charles “Chip” Roame, managing partner of strategy consulting firm Tiburon Strategic Advisors LLC, Tiburon, Calif.

As of Dec. 31, SEI managed $156 billion in assets for U.S. institutional tax-exempt clients vs. Russell's $58 billion, according to data reported by the firms to Pensions & Investments. Russell hired Boston Consulting Group Inc., Boston, at the beginning of the year to help crystallize its business strategy, said sources familiar with the firm's operations. Eric Gregoire, spokesman at Boston Consulting, declined to comment.

Meanwhile, the surprise exit of President and CEO Craig Ueland on June 9 has left firm officials fielding questions from employees and industry observers.

Industry watchers are speculating that Russell's spectacular hedge fund blowup — the firm had to liquidate some $6 billion in two hedge funds of funds and is winding down its non-directional hedge fund offerings — could have hastened Mr. Ueland's departure.

Russell's major lines of business are asset management, consulting and index construction, with asset management being the major revenue driver. The firm also offers transition management services. Assets under management doubled to $213 billion in the 4 years Mr. Ueland was CEO. Institutional assets grew to $52 billion as of March 2008, up from $28 billion five years earlier, according to data provided by Russell.

While growth has been strong, some changes need to be made so that Russell can again be the pre-eminent U.S. multimanager.

“Russell was the leader of the multimanager approach ... but SEI was quicker to commercialize it,” Mr. Roame said. SEI is considered to be Russell's leading competitor in the multimanager business.

Milwaukee's Midwest Airlines has announced it will retire its 12 fuel-guzzling MD-80 aircraft by next fall to cut fuel expenses.

That's likely to mean schedule reductions in cities that its fleet of more modern Boeing 717s can't reach non-stop.

Midwest flies from Sea-Tac to Kansas City and Milwaukee now. The 717 can reach Kansas City non-stop, but perhaps not Milwaukee.

Midwest is the latest among U.S. airlines to retire MD-80s. SeaTac's Alaska Airlines has accelerated its planned retirement of its nine remaining MD-80s to August 25. American Airlines is grounding dozens of the twin-engine planes made by McDonnell Douglas.

Anyone who's built a new house or remodeled and seen completition delayed because the appliances were on backorder can feel some empathy with Qatar Airways.

Boeing has told the Mideast carrier to expect delays of up to a month in the deliveries of three 777 wide body from its Everett plant because of delays in delivery of galley equipment from a German supplier.

Galleys are the airborne equivalent of kitchens.

Fortunately for Boeing the galley equipment is what's known in the aerospace industry as "buyer-furnished equipment," or BFE.

Aircraft buyer sometimes elect to contract for and provide their own equipment which the aircraft manufacturer installs.

Such BFE typically includes such interior fittings such as galleys, seats and inflight entertainment equipment.

The failure to get aircraft delivered on-time is potentially costly for airlines. Boeing 777-300ERs now have a list price of $250-$279 million.

Boeing sold two airliners last week, bringing its 2008 total orders to 455.

The company reports that it sold one 777 wide-bodied jet to Korean Airlines and one Boeing Business Jet, a modified version of the 737, to an unidentified corportation or individual.

Both Boeing and Airbus say they expect orders to slow down from last year's torrid pace -- more than 1,400 orders for Boeing -- but at the present pace, Boeing should book more than 900 orders this year, an amount that's way above the norm.

During some of its lean years, Boeing booked just a few more than 200 aircraft orders for the whole year.