Posted on 07/05/2014 6:34:06 AM PDT by shove_it
When people talk about the “decline of U.S. manufacturing” over the past 10 years or so, they are not talking about some ephemeral or nebulous evaporation of demand or an unquantifiable off-shoring of jobs. Generally, they are not even talking about a dramatic decline in the relative amount of value added by manufacturing to overall gross domestic product, because since 2005 that share has only fallen from 13 percent to 12.4 percent. This is significant, but not staggering.
By comparison, the contribution from the finance and insurance industry fell by a full percentage point, from 7.6 to 6.6 percent, over the same period, and the contribution from construction fell 1.4 percentage points from 5.0 to 3.6 percent. Overall manufacturing output has also been fairly resilient and has generally followed the ebb and flow of the economy at large, not the downward death spiral that doomsday propagandists describe. Our factories are producing as much value now as they were before the financial crisis and more value than in 2000, when real output peaked before a contraction that coincided with the bursting of the dot-com bubble.
When people describe the decline of U.S. manufacturing, most often they are referring directly to the dramatic decline in overall manufacturing employment over the past decade. In 2003, manufacturing employed about 14.5 people in the U.S. — come 2013, that number fell to 12.0 million. At its most-recent peak in the late 1990s (manufacturing employment has been in decline for a long time), the industry employed 17.5 million people. At its most-recent low in 2010, the post-crisis pit, the industry employed just 11.5 million people...
(Excerpt) Read more at wallstcheatsheet.com ...
“American made cars” = American assembled cars. Where are the steel factories and fab shops located where all the parts and sub-assembles are “made”?
May want to check your facts on that “assembled” part. Check out Bodine Aluminum for one. Never heard of them? They make the engine blocks and transmission housings for Toyota (they are owned by Toyota) There are more American companies making parts for these “assembled in America” cars than you could imagine
The headline for this article is:
“Made In America” Is Making a Comeback With an Unlikely Ally”
Nobody has commented here on the “Unlikely Ally” - WALMART. There is a link near the end of the article to products Walmart sells that are MADE IN AMERICA - 487 or them ...
http://www.walmart.com/cp/Made-in-the-USA/1104712
Yes. Understood it. I still try to confirm by whom and where in America these products are made.
Interesting link, thank you.
(Saved)
For example, I wonder if those numbers are as reliable as Climate change data....
Good point. I’m sure there are others too but you would be sad to see the many, many abandoned shops, mills and factories in the “smoke stack” states around the Great Lakes “rust belt” if you have not seen them in person. There are sparks of recovery in some places but we need to be rid of the oppressive District of Criminals residing in Washington, DC.
A good example is the business I'm in - we started out with web and application coding in California. Well paying jobs they were - also a huge expense to the company. C level was under pressure to cut costs so moved the web to Canada and the coding to China and Singapore. Definitely resulted in a huge drop in quality...but not enough to drive customers away - they just have lowered expectations now.
That seems to be the mood of the American consumer - go with the cheapest stuff and just put up with the low quality.
After all, who would buy an American-made toaster for $40 that would last for 50 years when you can get a $15 toaster at Walmart that will last for 2 years if you're lucky?
True. I worked for Republic Steel one summer between college years back in the 1950s. I worked on the Open Hearth floor. The Open Hearth process was replaced by the Basic Oxygen process a few years later. Republic didn't adopt it for that mill. The mill is still sitting there, abandoned, to this day.
I visited Arkansas for the first time in my life last month.
We went past the WM headquarters in Bentonville.
It is far different than I expected, extremely low key and low budget.
Without the signs one might mistake it for a prison building.
Many of the large adjacent buildings on the “campus” were sheet metal structures or what we’d call a “glorified pole barn” here in Indiana.
I’m sure when vendors come in to offer their product, they definitely get the message that it’s all about low costs and low prices.
Otherwise known as the replacement of labor with virtually free capital.
“In 2003, manufacturing employed about 14.5 people in the U.S. — “
Little oopsie on the editing.
How?
China is not exactly a Communist thing. They are rapidly becoming corporatist/fascist, just like we are. But their largely dishonest business culture is already starting to cost them Western customers, and they are no longer able to be the cheapest supplier, in most cases. They are due for a tumultuous economic decade.
Think Chicaps rather than Chicoms.
The transition is underway but not free of bumps in the road
“In 2003, manufacturing employed about 14.5 people in the U.S. — come 2013, that number fell to 12.0 million.”
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Proofreading is obviously a lost art.
While I don’t completely agree with you I think I understand. In Massachusetts communism is waxing while in China it is waning. Massachusetts is also trying to drag all of us with it. Of course I’m in California so I see the waxing here also.
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