Posted on 02/13/2013 4:18:12 PM PST by blam
As opposed to what? More gay bars, art schools, rock festivals, video gamers, and bike paths?
Between Richard Florida and Alexander Hamilton, I guess I've got to go with the guy on the sawbuck.
Not only the wealth, but the independence and security of a country, appear to be materially connected with the prosperity of manufactures. Every nation, with a view to those great objects, ought to endeavor to possess within itself all the essentials of national supply. These comprise the means of subsistence, habitation, clothing, and defense. The possession of these is necessary to the perfection of the body politic, to the safety as well as to the welfare of the society; the want of either is the want of an important organ of political life and motion; and in the various crises which await a state, it must severely feel the effects of any such deficiency. The extreme embarrassments of the United States during the late War, from an incapacity of supplying themselves, are still matter of keen recollection: A future war might be expected again to exemplify the mischiefs and dangers of a situation, to which that incapacity is still in too great a degree applicable, unless changed by timely and vigorous exertion. To effect this change as fast as shall be prudent merits all the attention and all the zeal of our public councils; ’tis the next great work to be accomplished. …
Another example of a highly educated person totally lacking in real world life on the street.
OK, so if you are a worker in a manufacturing plant, you do not get Bill Gates pay.
But you do get an opportunity to advance to management.
Most who end up with high paying jobs started at the lowest paid job.
Go to any town that was once a manufacturing town and you will see kids in their late teens, older people in their late 20’s, walking the streets at three in the afternoon, hats turned backwards, pants about to fall off, shirt tails hanging out.....who 20 years ago would have been working in one of the plants and off the streets.
And with the opportunity to advance.
Sneer at the low wages if you like, but I can show you plenty of nice houses, small farms, paid for by men and women working by the hour.
And in addition, they saved enough to retire comfortably.
The bottom line is whether you would rather have a job or a handout.
There are no handout promotions. Handouts are a dead end.
There was a series of stories (surprisingly in the local Gannett generipaper) about a fellow who worked in a bakery who quit to start his own donut bakery.
He rented a building and the first thing that happened was a visit from inspectors who decreed he had to make the place handicap accessible (+$15,000) even though his three employees weren’t handicapped and there was no retail trade at this location.
Those are the kind of things that doom manufacturing vs. competitive countries.
However, this does not mean that manufacturing employment is strong, or is ever going to be strong again. The biggest factor in the decline of U.S. manufacturing jobs was never foreign competition, but automation. The days of having a massive manufacturing facility with several thousand employees who walk to work from the surrounding town are over -- and this will be for good, until we have some kind of "Year Zero" type of armageddon and we go back to the Stone Age to start all over again.
We have simply reached a point in human history where human labor and the human mind are actually the weakest links in any complex process -- whether it be producing widgets or flying an airplane.
Bring those manufacturing jobs back and creating new ones here can reverse our economic decline.
There are a only limited number of jobs any economy can absorb from folks in the “service” sector that produce nothing and add only paper value to an economy.
People who think any nation can remain strong with out strong manufacturing base are sadly deluded...
The truth. Few want it.
Thanks for pointing out the flaws in Richard Florida forever trying to make every American city into San Francisco with his “creative class”, i.e. homosexual lifestyle. The guy is totally a one-note johnny and I’m embarassed that my former home town in a 100% red state allowed him to try singing that song there.
Well, it got President Skidmark Obama into office, didn't it?
Nuts
I thought Baraq was going to solve that with the stroke of a pen - raising the min wage.
We need millions of jobs that will overpay the underqualified so they can afford their taxes and union dues. It’s our birthright as Americans. /s
They have. Eventual reduction of the population to a few million Eco-sensitive "lightworkers" through birth control, abortion, death panels, and Waco-ing the recalcitrant, with robots doing the work.
And, somehow,, every single liberal thinks they will be among the Elect.
Explain why we have a colossal trade deficit and why our war machines are being built overseas for the second time in history.
With the EPA and OSHA etc squeezing the life out of American Business, NOBODY can compete. Our company got a $500 fine for having a trash can with a paper cup in it with no lid on the can by MSHA. We can run a mine, just cant pump water out of it. Spill a gallon of diesel fuel, pay to fly a 55 gallon barrel of dirt out to be incinerated in a “Hazardous Waste Disposal Site”. Cant use the incinerator here...
Any honest business foolish enough to open a plant here is too STUPID to compete in a Global market. Unless of course you bribe the Democrats by putting money in their coffers. Then they will give you money.
Obama is a obsessive liar, but, “What difference does it make?”
Gee, I wonder how much they make compared to brain surgeons. That too would be a valid comparison. /sarc
Precisely. The very things that leftists point at the GOP over and call “unfunded mandates” ironically.
The left has been hollowing out the manufacturing base of the USA for decades. They know it’s one of the ways to bring the country down. All about international socialism and making the USA too weak both morally and financially to resist it. Problem is, the backlash will come in the nuclear age . . .
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