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 ...
Part of the reason for such a dramatic decline in manufacturing employment has been productivity gains. As the graph shows, even as overall employment tanked, output not only remained strong, it grew. As employment stabilized and began to grow itself in the wake of the financial crisis, the manufacturing industry at large began experiencing a robust recovery.
To me, there are very distinctly different kinds of “Made in America” products.
For example, a “Made in America” GM car or truck might as well be from Mars - I will NEVER buy one. Other examples? I make a conscious effort to investigate any product I buy online to determine where it comes from and who makes it. There are multiple companies from whom I don’t buy products because of where they do business from.
A product from a company with an American name is likely not made in America any more. Just look around at all the shuttered factories and supplier shops. Don’t believe your lyin’ eyes, numbers don’t lie, do they?
I understand that and I know how to read labels and Distributor information. To me, I’d much rather buy a product made in China and imported by a Georgia retailer than I would, say, from a product made in Massachusetts or Connecticut or New York City.... I’m just not going to subsidize liberals any more.
That’s why it is difficult in buying guns now - there are too many manufacturers who won’t leave the oppressive states where they produce their products.
The best American-made cars have Japanese brand names.
Local manufacturing often keeps American traditions alive in those communities. They support the local arts councils, parades, community projects etc.
Have you ever been to rural towns in central and western CT and MA? I think you'd be surprised.
And the .5 person got a raise.
yes but they are CT and MA. just the same.
They are still a part of the Neoeuropa that has transcended America in the northeast.
If they allow a corrupt and liberal state government to implement and execute their laws, then I don’t care how ‘conservative’ they might be.
I’d rather see them move to a freer state. Until then, I won’t buy from those states if there is another state from which I can get comparably the same thing. It’s their problem and not mine.
While I understand the reluctance to support GM, America is now facing a crisis.
We have exported a LOT of what used to be American manufacturing.
A lot.
America needs to stop sending American manufacturing overseas. Stop sending American jobs to China and elsewhere.
Bring back jobs to America.
I agree with your sentiment, but it is an unconvincing reason for me to support the unions of GM, a corrupt federal government who screwed legitimate investors, and people who stubbornly refuse to put up with tyranny because they don’t want to coalesce and throw out their government, or just willing to pass the idiocy off to customers.
I won’t support it. If they can’t exist without it, the screw them. I don’t care.
Nice chart. A picture is worth 1000 words.
A surprising amount is made in the states and provinces around the Great Lakes. Most of the parts come from Magna, a Canadian firm with factories around the world.
You can start by buying Moto X, android fone and the only phone made in America. Dallas, actually. I bought two, and am giving hubby one when his current contract is up.
Mostly in the U.S. It’s been that way in the auto industry forever. What grinds people is that the smaller, mom & pop-type suppliers to the auto industry are mostly out of business. So when you drive up and down Woodward Ave. in Detroit, you see all the vacant buildings, and you don’t see the parts and sub-assemblies coming from Indiana, Ohio, and (yes) Canada.
This Is Once Again the Most “American” Vehicle ...
So you will gladly support Communist China with your purchases? Communism isn’t exactly a conservative thing....
Yes! A major steel supplier to the auto industry, Great Lakes Steel, that used to be in Ecorse and Zug Island are long gone too. I worded there in the early 1960s as a time study analyst but saw the end coming when management folded to the USW by giving them the moon to prevent a strike.
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