Posted on 09/26/2010 4:44:23 AM PDT by RS_Rider
The United States is rapidly becoming the very first "post-industrial" nation on the globe. All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing.
It was America that was at the forefront of the industrial revolution. It was America that showed the world how to mass produce everything from automobiles, to televisions, to airplanes. It was the great American manufacturing base that crushed Germany and Japan in World War II.
But now we are witnessing the deindustrialization of America. Tens of thousands of factories have left the United States in the past decade alone. Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost in the same time period. The United States has become a nation that consumes everything in sight and yet produces increasingly little.
Do you know what our biggest export is today? Waste paper. Yes, trash is the number one thing that we ship out to the rest of the world as we voraciously blow our money on whatever the rest of the world wants to sell to us. The United States has become bloated and spoiled and our economy is now just a shadow of what it once was.
Once upon a time America could literally outproduce the rest of the world combined. Today that is no longer true, but Americans sure do consume more than anyone else in the world. If the deindustrialization of America continues at this current pace, what possible kind of a future are we going to be leaving to our children?
(Excerpt) Read more at seekingalpha.com ...
The single greatest enemy of industrialization is unionism.
Overunionization, overtaxation, and overregulation are paralyzing us.
The company I work for is hamstrung by mandated political correctness including diversity programs, environmental programs, and safety programs. Even though we’re a clean electronic assembler we’re terrified of the various federal, state, and local EPA organizations; any one of which can instantly shut us down. (Recently, a fire sprinkler head leaked a dime-sized drop of rusted water. You’d have thought it was purified plutonium. Somebody had to stand beside it while someone else ran for the “danger, wet floor” cone. Then, they had to have a “qualified” person wipe it up.)
We haven’t had an OSHA inspection lately, but we certainly get about two hours of irrelevant (to us) OSHA lectures a year.
Then, there’s legal liability. It’s not a matter of whether you’re going to be sued. It’s a matter when. As I understand it, the company is in court somewhere in the country basically all year around.
These are all problems brought to us by our government. If you examine the regulations on the micro-scale, they mostly make sense. But on the large scale and all combined, they kill industry. I know if I wanted to start a business, I couldn’t do it here. I have owned two companies, and I had to abandon the second because the taxes (fees) cost me more than I made. I think I could have pulled it off given more time, but the government wants its money for the privilege of doing business in their fair state NOW.
Environmentalism is running a very close second if not sprinting to the lead.
No it is not. Laws and regulations are. Many non-union manufactures have left the U.S.
Having said that, I think every economic problem in America is primarilly due to taxation.
In my opinion, taxes should be levied and used for basic social needs; police, fireman, needed politicians, and the infrastructure(s) that are necesarry for the aforementioned services.
Franklin's library has seen it's day, so IT can go (as an example and an etc.)
I wish I was patient enough to try and collect the data to break down what is taken in taxes and what is needed to operate society and compare/contrast the two.
I honestly think (with no real data to support my thought) we can operate from a very small tax burden.
Ironically American industry has responded to the challenge of unions, by exporting our factories to the largest organized labor union in human history:
The Peoples Republic of China.
At first I thought this article was going to list the benefits of the loss of our industries, no so, interesting and frightening.
That's because there ARE NO benefits to losing our industries.
A "service based" economy is an economy in decline.
The polidiots in Washington keep pushing for more consumption...
but as a nation, we can't keep consuming more than what we produce.
That's what's causing our collapse.
Some was lost for other reasons. I bought new brake rotors for a GM car years ago. They were cast in Mexico. Because foundries made smoke and were stinky and killed spotted owls and whales and the work was too hard and hot and stuff.
I totally agree,with crp and wrp government programs are taking some of our most productive acres out of production ,
The problems started when the Federal gubmint deviated from their role of promoting domestic tranquility to trying to provide domestic tranquility. The failure has been epic.....for everyone except the politicians, who continue to enrich themselves at taxpayer expense.....
The Union members are now figuring out that those at the top are the only ones who are benefiting from this relationship, at least in the private sector......
Thought this was a bit odd, so I checked. Turns out that waste paper actually is our biggest export. By volume. LOLOL
I have been to China twice as a customer. We were having our equipment built through a vendor in China. This equipment is for mining so it qualifies as heavy industry. We visited several forging and foundry facilities and it just about made me want to cry.
One evening we had banquet with the management staff of one of the foundries. I asked the G.M. how many foundry plants were in China? He laughed at the question and talked to his subordinates and came back, shrugged his shoulders and said at least 40,000.
This particular foundry had only been operating for five years. When we arrived at the plant the first thing I wanted to see (if it was there) was the pattern shop. I figured that with the plant being so new that they were having patterns made in western europe or the U.S. Not so. I couldn’t believe my eyes when we went into the pattern shop. The quality was unbelievable. I asked how they were able to transfer that craftmanship over so quickly? The interpeter said “we have 2 billion people to choose from”. He also stated that China has 43 Einstien’s and they just need to find them. They pay ~$365 a month for skilled labor. How in the hell do we compete against that?
Try and get a permit for a new foundry here in the U.S... Won’t happen.
Yup.
Most Americans are utterly oblivious, what we’re up against.
Distracted by stuff which doesn’t matter. While we eagerly give away - everything which does matter.
Two books, The Collapse of Complex Societies by Tainer, and The Fall of the Roman Empire by Grant.
Summed up. Taxes and regulation. Productive people from the most humble of occupation cease striving because the cost curve becomes too steep. Honest captains of industry flee to better climes, the wealth is left to be squeezed dry like a slumlord tenement owner, or eventually looted by the welfare state, the government minions like the Pratorian Guards of old, or like copper and wire thieves all over our nation stripping once productive factories and homes. At the other end are lawyers and finacialists paper shufflers of various occupational titles, growing fat like flies off a corpse, or a weak man with a gangrene foot.
We lived fine with out police. You got a lot of stuff? Hire a kid to guard it. Why should I subsides protecting your property, or you me?
Worried about assault, rape? Get a gun. Again, why should I subsidize the protection of people that won’t protect themselves? ( And, ladies, wimps, elderly, too f’n bad. Marry, move in, take care of old dad. Move into a building, gated community where YOU pay to be protected. )
Police are welfare security. They are the welfare of security. They are to security what public housing is to shelter.
Ditto Firemen.
Nicely done, team. I withdraw my claim with a caveat. Obama and the evil political establishment he represents is aligning the fatal trilogy of unionization, environmentalism and statism.
But the rising tide of Constitutionalism is flooding us with the ancient spirit of freedom that flows out of Christian principles. Thereby will we regain our heritage and become, once again, a New Jerusalem, a shining city on a hill, with genuine HOPE and CHANGE in a sin filled world.
We are, after all, a Christian nation, birthed in a commitment to the One True God.
In truth we have lost our way, allowing ourselves to be driven by false gods. After running ourselves into a ditch we sought help from a political establisment that seeks to catapault us over a cliff into the pit of hell.
Ahhh. It’s Sunday morning. The spirit of sermonizing has got me. I will likely persist for a while, elsewhere, in deference to your sensibilities.
Praise the Lord.
That's just plain nonsense if you stop and think about it because it isn't just manufacturing that has lost jobs. Hundreds of thousands of American jobs have been sent overseas in dozens of industries, both manufacturing or service. The overwhelming majority of those jobs were not unionized. The greatest enemy of industrialization is the fact that a worker in China makes a tiny fraction of what a worker in the U.S. does, unionized or non-unionized. You could have done away with unions decades ago and it wouldn't have saved many jobs.
You hit on an important point Willie.
It is true that we have become a “service” based economy, when we were formerly known as a production based economy.
During the period from WW2 to 1975, we were considered to be about 85% production based, 15% service based. Today, we have become over 60% service based and production is declining rapidly.
It’s no wonder why unemployment is approaching double digits permanently. NO economy can sustain itself for very long if it is so heavily service based as we have become. It’s an economic law. If you notice, the Government does not regulate or harass the service based sector, it is literally choking the industrial sector to death. No wonder why industry is leaving here as fast as it can.
Ironically American industry has responded to the challenge of unions, by exporting our factories to the largest organized labor union in human history:
The Peoples Republic of China.
My father who passed away this year worked in a factory for 38 years (machinist and aerospace workers). The plant made equipment for the medical fields. Six years ago they closed the plant doors for the final time. The union had for many years worked with the company trying to keep the plant viable. The union approached the company and asked what did they need to do to keep the doors open? The response was “even if we payed you minimum wage it does not make economical sense”. The plant was moved to Mexico.
We have to make things. We have to make things that are so good everyone wants them, and sell them at a price that provides a decent profit and ensures a good market. If we are to be technically innovative, we have to make the most of those innovations. We have to perceive possible markets: the Japanese saw the potential for transistor radios and VCRs that we missed. But we must make things: we cannot sell each other pizza and hair cuts as the basis for an economy.
Try and get a permit for a new foundry here in the U.S... Won’t happen.
NO economy can sustain itself for very long if it is so heavily service based as we have become.
The only way a nation can succeed is by taking what comes from the ground, under the ground, and the sun then make something out of them that people will buy. Nations that have such natural resources are very fortunate, as we are. Unfortunately, we have been looking for ways to NOT take advantage of and use what God has given us.
We can't beat that wage, but we could beat that wage + shipping if we could build a new foundry in this country, run it with non-union labor, and not have to deal with the excessive taxes and regulations that we now have in this country. Environazis, over-regulation, unions, and taxes add up to make productive industry all but impossible in the US these days.
The Founders of our country lived in colonies where there were police, paid by the local community. Apparently they liked the idea enough to state that they are providing for the general welfare at the national level, but that providing for the general welfare of local communities and states were their responsibility.
Also: I wouldnt want to live in your vision of a world.
If we don’t recycle all our paper here, we’re doomed!!
The Industrial Revolution is over and the traditional job is dead, but too many rent-seeking vultures are profiting from the red tape put in place under the old system. Either we sweep them away, or China will.
Thanks for posting this- very sobering.
Problem identifed. You nailed it.
Unions.
So, who pays for “Public Sector” employment? Public Employees?
Who pays for “Service Employees”? More Service Employees?
Eventually, you run out of the actual reason for a Service based economy like the one we find ourselves in. The pathetic thing is, people like yourself, have no clue what will eventually happen, nor do they care.
Having been complicit in the murder of the US industrial base, the greater number of parasitic union workers are now sucking blood from the throat of the host that is least likely to die on them: government.
The pathetic thing is, people like yourself, have no clue what will eventually happen, nor do they care.
***Overunionization, overtaxation, and overregulation are paralyzing us.****
_________________________________________________
Certainly we can’t forget an education system that since the late 1970’s has been run by socialists whose goal is to turn their students into mush brained idiots with overreaching political correctness and the inability to teach anything useful that would instill self reliance.
I think the article is BS. US is still the largest manufacturer in the world. you could have written the same doom and gloom article about agriculture a hundred years ago when 70% of the workforce was on the land. then it switched to manufacture, now its switching again. so what. In ohio for every job that “got shipped overseas” more jobs are now involved in export.
why its a good thing to have people stamping out galvanized buckets rather than writing software is beyond me.
Collapse of Complex Societies !!!
been reading that, it is an immense important book.
failure of marginal return on complexity. translation: we went into iraq but didnt get the oil. now we are doomed.
We really need to take a look a how Germany manages to be the 2nd largest exporter in the world. Like us, they have powerful unions and a very strong ‘green’ movement. Also, like us they have something similar to NAFTA to deal with - ie: the EU. They also face the same pressure to relocate their business to low cost countries... and have been (to the low wage countries of eastern Europe).
Yet despite all that, they still have a large manufacturing industry that sets them as the 2nd largest exporter on earth.
So why can’t the US be #1, then?
This is the hidden problem most can't see.
First you have a Government backed entity that puts upward pressure on wages for the sake of filling Union Coffers. Next you have a host of government employees that a new business must pay to get started in business and then must continue to pay to keep doing business. (Government regulation and taxes are used to pay government employees)
So before the first actual employee is hired to work and produce a product millions of dollars are spent to pay people who have nothing to do with actually producing the product. So in essence we have priced ourselves out of the market before the plant is opened.
And what do the protectionists/unionists want for a remedy? They want even more government regulation to fix the problem created by government regulation.
hole + /digging
How about national defense?
Do you think that it might be a little difficult to fight a war against China when they make most of what we would need?
I’m not saying that we should not embrace automation and service skills but we should not let ourselves get into the position that we are unable to defend ourselves.
You have any backup for this claim? Or did you just pull it out of your ear?
80 to 100 years ago a good portion of the "service" economy was house maids and butlers.
not sure on that but i would bet that we still make our own weps pretty much except for the small stuff. the Abrams tank plant is in Ohio where i was referencing.
not sure ont hat though but as dumb as the govt is i hope they arent that dumb.
shoulda checked hot air as well
I have read that a large portion of the electronics that go into our military equipment is sourced from China. Although we assemble the equipment here we have put us into a position that we would quickly run out of parts and material if it came down to it. Steel making, casting and forging skills are not being maintained.
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