[A. Pole]

"[...]This country needs salespeople, waiters, attorneys, doctors, and managers. But how could we have ever built a superpower country on those professions alone? [...]"

[The_Republican]

100 years ago, agriculture was the dominant industry and majority of the employment. Now it is probably less than 2%.

Times change - no fear!

[Clemenza]

Manufacturing, particularly the labor intensive type, is what you do when your only alternative is to pick beets or provide pleasure to visiting sailors.

As I've stated several times before, manufacturing employment is in decline WORLDWIDE due to advances in technology, making semi and unskilled workers unnecessary. Even where such manufacturing exists, the fact that it is increasingly done by young women (who leave the factory floor in places like Guangzhou after 5-10 years), while the men pursue more lucrative fields should tell you something about where labor-intensive manufacturing fits on the global totem pole.

[Realism]

Yep, I've been singing this tune for years. Our economy is being driven by retail, I don’t know how its holding together, but the stores are full and the factories are few and far apart.

[staytrue]

In the 1950's 30% of US employees were in manufacturing

The 1950's was just after wwII. In WWII, the world had zero manufacturing outside North America. Since then, the rest of the world has rebuilt their manufacturing.

[lesser_satan]

bump

[TheRiverNile]

Thank you for posting that. Good read and very much true.

[massadvj]

Please stop the fear-mongering. That should be the province of the left. This country is in better economic shape today than it has been at any time in history, precisely because we have been willing to adapt and refused to close our system to outsiders.

If doctors, nurses, systems analysts, engineers and the like are mere servants, then I would say there is great honor in service.

In the United States of America, there are plenty of avenues open for someone who wants to break out of poverty, or the working class. You have to get past the hucksters and charlatans to find the path but it is there if you wish to find it. A practically-free education is available. Open access to worldwide markets is available in just about every industry you could name.

The world economy is like electricity flowing all around you, and all you have to do is make a decision to plug into it to participate. Placing more legal restrictions on the economy would only harm those who seek upward mobility, not help them.

Maybe you'll find a more receptive audience at DU. Over here we like ingenuity and hard work, and think it should be rewarded.

[mysterio]

Nah, don’t worry. We’ll just export all of our jobs. Then we can sit around and max out our credit cards buying cool cheap stuff! Once they’re maxed, we’ll print more money! If things aren’t cheap enough, we’ll move manufacturing to even poorer countries. Borrow money from China, they’re our buddies!

[BfloGuy]

Accounting, engineering, sofware design, corporate law, advertising, trucking, air freight, railroads, mining, logging, secretarial work, running the office cafeteria, management, administration (and more) are all components of the manufacturing process and are wealth-producing work in that they contribute to the value of the finished product.

Many of the above are called "services" and are sneered at by some. But they are all manufacturing jobs if they support a manufacturing company.

That some of the manufactured goods are assembled somewhere else won't impoverish us.

[the anti-liberal]

ping for later

[Age of Reason]

Many people also say education is the key. They say that not enough Americans are being trained for engineering, science, or production occupations.

ROFLMAO.

The majority of people have IQ's around 100.

And we have already reached the point where even people having IQ's above average are finding our technological world harder and harder to keep up with.

I would guess that maybe only 10% of college graduates were smart enough to begin with to make a real contribution in our brave new economy.

The rest are in over their heads, and spend more time hiding their incompetence from peers and superiors, until they bail out for a job somewhere else, where they repeat the cycle.

Point is, the majority of people are incapable of embarking on careers in science and technology.

Most people just aren't smart enough (and God bless them for it, but that's another story).

But they can be adept at working with their hands, which is just what nature designed the majority of people to do.

This free-for-all economy ignores human nature as much as communism did, and will fail just as communism did.

[janetgreen]

Thank you for posting this. A country with declining ability to manufacture essential goods, a country who depends on third world countries to supply those goods, a country who allows insane trade agreements to be passed, a country who gives the finger to the middle class who once sustained the country, and a country who is importing poverty, disease, ignorance and dependence, does not have a bright future.

We have greedy, ignorant politicians who are destroying our nation. We keep electing them because they're the only ones who have enough money to win an election.

[indthkr]

Mfg. bump for later.......

[markman46]

nump

[xJones]

You want fries with that?

[highlander_UW]

In less than 20 years since America put in place some of its most self-devastating policy decisions (NAFTA, WTO, CAFTA, etc.), this country will have almost completely converted from a self-sufficient sovereign state, capable of manufacturing what it needs to sustain and protect itself, to a country of servants – serfs, working at the behest of foreign employers or engaged in the sales, marketing, and distribution of foreign-made goods – working at their discretion, for wages they determine, and forced to pay their prices for needed goods. This is the definition of a servant.

This is the liberal utopia they're working towards. If everyone is a serf (except the liberal leaders, of course), then society has achieved equality and won the class war dem politicians are always going on about.

[The Duke]

I think maybe the American worker has been a slave since American business became the nation's tax collector. Consider that if you work for a corporation that collects and pays into the tax system, that this is effectively no different than the corporation renting you from the government.

And you can't rent out what you don't own.

I think we've been chattel for a long time.