Posted on 04/18/2007 7:59:30 AM PDT by A. Pole
In the 1950's 30% of US employees were in manufacturing - almost 1 in 3 jobs. This country was a relative manufacturing super power, we were the world's richest and most productive country. In 1994 approximately 1 in 8 jobs were in manufacturing. In 2014 if the US government (Bureau of Labor Statistics) projections are accurate that figure will have slipped to 1 in 12 jobs.
The government is telling us in black and white that the policies they are enacting will decrease both absolute and relative manufacturing employment to levels below that of the 1950's - over 2 million below.
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.
A country that ends up producing little of value will have little to consume at home and little to trade abroad, and will have a low standard of living. The way this country was built was by developing world-leading industries and dominating the markets for products that we invented. Now we have conceded that we are instead going to exist by selling our assets and eliminate most of our ability to produce for ourselves. This would make any country extremely vulnerable.
From 1994-2004, manufacturing was the second fastest job-losing sector in our economy (second only to agricultural employment). From 2004-2014, the government predicts that most of the employment growth will come from retail, health care, leisure and hospitality, government jobs, and “professional and business services.”
This country needs salespeople, waiters, attorneys, doctors, and managers. But how could we have ever built a superpower country on those professions alone?
Many say that we are shipping jobs overseas because they are too low-paying or too rudimentary. Anyone who has worked in factory operating a million-dollar piece of equipment can tell you the satisfying difference from being forced to work in a restaurant as a waiter because of lack of alternatives. Why would we send factory jobs overseas to replace them with jobs in retail and hospitality? Factories sustain communities. Retail and hospitality enriches absentee corporations and shareholders. Offshore outsourcing strips us of technology, taxes, profits, and career opportunities. Why would we choose that path as manufacturing jobs pay much more on average than service jobs?
Some other countries, like Japan, pay wages as high as or higher than America because their manufacturing is capital and knowledge intensive and requires fewer workers per unit of output. In addition, other countries like China that pay wages as low as 1/10 of ours, also does not have the same cost of living as the US. Their goods cost a fraction of what they cost here in America; therefore it is not possible to compare the wages on an absolute basis.
Many people also say education is the key. They say that not enough Americans are being trained for engineering, science, or production occupations. There is no point in educating people when there are no jobs – when these industries are being systematically and predatorily destroyed by foreign subsidized competition producing and operating both externally and here in this country through insourcing.
We are living in a fool’s paradise, being propped up by foreign loans to our government and foreign subsidized consumption of our incredulous trade deficits which is approaching $800 billion ($1.6 million per minute) this year alone..
The net takeaway of the Bureau of Labor Statistics report is that if you expect to earn a decent living by producing a product – any product – in this next 10 years, you will have little opportunity to do that in this country.
“100 years ago, agriculture was the dominant industry and majority of the employment. Now it is probably less than 2%.
Times change - no fear!”
Times do change but what we are talking about, in effect, is not so much a change from agrarian to industrial to information as much as it is a consolidation of power. We were mainly a country of relatively small farms progressing to small manufacturers and we had good competition because the industries were decentralized. We have now bowed to the multinationals who, in their behemoth state, are writing laws that erect even further barriers to entry through regulation and implicit (or possibly explicit) collusion. They are not serving our country...rather they are owning it. That is why policies no longer benefit the vast majority of the citizens and instead benefit those multinationals. This is done in the name of the “free market” but it actually takes away from the free market by undermining the basic assumptions of that free market.
Socialism, in a nutshell, is when the government owns the private sector. Conversely, fascism is when corporations own the government.
What does it matter whether the government owns the companies or the companies own the government? The end result is the same: A TOTALITARIAN REGIME.
History tells us that totalitarian regimes, no matter the orientation, will eventually morph into regimes that do hideous and unseemly things. Some outright rulers will be benevolent but it is usually only a short time before a malignant power arises. Having elections doesn’t protect a nation from this...see Germany.
No to denigrate your point at all and I don’t deny what you say at all. But don’t you need a trade surplus for this to be effective? Right now our economy is operating at a net loss(correct me if I’m wrong) which is sustained by an influx of foreign capital. What would happen if, say, capital found a better place to go? Could the American economy sustain itself?
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!
Big Bump to all you said and said well I might add.
What you say has some truth, but if what you say really comes to pass, what’s to stop Americans from becoming the new mexicans? If American corporate power became too agressive wouldn’t most educated Americans just vote with their feet and go and work in China if opportunities were better there?
How much I wish/hope that you are right.
These professions arn't what they used to be. Unless your some kind of specialist, they are middle class income jobs.
Yeaaaarghhhhh!!! Welcome Komrade Amerikan to our komunist paradise! Please report to komune No99, everything is taken care off, you just work and take according to your needs!
Capital is a product no less valid than a tangible product. Is the money you spend to go to a movie less important than the money you spend on an iPod? The fact that the iPod is tangible makes no difference as far as economic flows are concerned.
We attract capital because we are the most efficient, open and honest system in the world. So long as we remain so, we have nothing to worry about. Closing our system, imposing more regulations and barriers, would dry things up in a hurry, and be quite counterproductive to what protectionists claim as their goals.
They are going to be reporting to the soup kitchen after their 14 hour shift at WallMart is done.
These free trade idiots are 65% done destroying America.
What is your definition of capital, maye I ask?
Capital is a product no less valid than a tangible product. Is the money you spend to go to a movie less important than the money you spend on an iPod? The fact that the iPod is tangible makes no difference as far as economic flows are concerned.That's a good point. But doesn't that process rely on continuous appreciation of the assets that are the targets of investment? What happens when you hit an inevitable down cycle and your assets are no longer good targets for investment? I'm specifically thinking of disasters in countries like Argentina when investment dried up.
That's they key, but constant attack on those things that made America great (freedom, less gumbmint bureaucracy, resources, entrepreneurs) is eroding that status and crippling the industry with confusing confiscatory tax code, stupid regulations, environazis, unions, rent controls, etc.
Closing our system, imposing more regulations and barriers, would dry things up in a hurry, and be quite counterproductive to what protectionists claim as their goals.
It's not the question of closing our system, but removing crippling regulations, unions, enviro BS that is driving wealth producting manufacturing offshore. I'd rather design new products and make them, than cut the lawn or sKerry's hair.
That's they key, but constant attack on those things that made America great (freedom, less gumbmint bureaucracy, resources, entrepreneurs) is eroding that status and crippling the industry with confusing confiscatory tax code, stupid regulations, environazis, unions, rent controls, etc.
Closing our system, imposing more regulations and barriers, would dry things up in a hurry, and be quite counterproductive to what protectionists claim as their goals.
It's not the question of closing our system, but removing crippling regulations, unions, enviro BS that is driving wealth producting manufacturing offshore. I'd rather design new products and make them, than cut the lawn or sKerry's hair.
The problem with Latin American and other places was not the trade balance but government spending and government loan guarantees. The market would quickly have sorted things out had politicians not been involved. The capital would have been used for investment rather than socialism. It's the difference between teaching someone to fish versus giving them a fish.
The problem in the US is out of control government, not out of control business. Business operates within constraints imposed by markets, which will be imperfect, but correct themselves quickly. Government operates outside those constraints. So asking government to constrain markets is like asking the wolf to guard the hen house.
I am a business professor with a PhD in marketing. To fully understand what I am talking about requires quite an education. I have had eight years, and still do not understand it fully. But certain things are well-known, even to liberals. One of them is that free markets are way more efficient than controlled ones.
The two industries with the most out-of-control pricing are health care and education. It is no coincidence that these are the two industries with the most government regulation. Imposing more restrictions on imports and exports would yield results comparable to those we face in education and health care: it would dramatically increase the price of everything and produce a semi-permanent class of people who produce nothing but useless paperwork.
This part I agree with. It's attempting to impose trade barriers in order to protect the regulation that I have a problem with.
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.
“What you say has some truth, but if what you say really comes to pass, what’s to stop Americans from becoming the new mexicans? If American corporate power became too agressive wouldn’t most educated Americans just vote with their feet and go and work in China if opportunities were better there?”
You assume that we will be able to leave and that may be a terrible assumption to make. Do you not think the Jews wanted to leave Germany? What’s more, as technology increases, it will actually become more difficult to leave.
Lastly, with globalism in full flight, who is to say that the multinationals won’t have a grasp on the entire planet?
History teaches us that we might not be able to leave. The Bible prophesizes of another totalitarian regime that is the most ruthless of all. I doubt that we’ll care whether that regime is socialist or facist. Hopefully, that will be thousands of years from now.
ping for later
Capital is anything that can be traded. Labor, money, loans, stocks, bonds, goods. If it can be traded in a mutually beneficial exchange, it qualifies.
Capital goods are goods used in the manufacture of other goods. But capital refers to all assets, whether tangible or intangible, that have value.
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