The Myth Of Manufacturing’s Decline

Investors Business Daily ^ | JUNE 3, 2016 | Editorial

[expat_panama]

For the last two years, we’ve listened as presidential candidates promised repeatedly to “bring back manufacturing jobs.” But they really didn’t go anywhere. As the data show, manufacturing output is near its all-time high. Since 1980, factory output has grown 114%, while the number of factory jobs has shrunk by 36%, or nearly 7 million jobs total. It was technology and productivity, not China or any other nation, that “took” factory jobs.

[FreedomNotSafety]

Never called anyone a Ludditte. But your regulatory scheme to create manufacturing jobs ends in, if I recall this correctly, a 20% tariff on all imports.

[FreedomNotSafety]

Speaking of simple thinking. After Hillary banishes coal from the US should we still have tariffs on imported steel?

[InterceptPoint]

Where’s our steel plants? If we don’t make steel we will forever be at the mercy of those who do.
++++
In the big days of steel industry employment, how many people did we have working in semiconductor manufacturing? The answer is very few.

Times change. What counts is total output in manufacturing which continues to grow at pretty much the historic rate. Look it up.

The other thing that counts, the really important thing that counts, is the standard of living of the average American. In general, despite the efforts of the Democrat a Party, this continues to improve. Could we do better? Will Trump help us do better? Of course. But imagine life with our iPhones, the Internet, HDTV, YouTube, Netflix and Steph Curry.

And, most importantly, Free Republic.

[Shanghai Dan]

Excellent example. That machine requires capital investment. But many of the fascist traders beleive governemt taxes, regulations, and policies do not matter. They also beleive that empowering the US government to further tax and regulate us is the key to prosperity.

I fully agree! Capital gains taxes should go to zero - likewise corporate income taxes. We should ENCOURAGE savings, and we should ENCOURAGE companies to invest in their own future!

We have the highest corporate income tax in the world. With the Government claiming 40% of all gross profits, why would a company do here, when it could do overseas and pay half (or lower) than that - and come out well ahead even with shipping costs factored in? Add in the fact that after you pay that income tax, when you share the profits with your fellow owners, they pay another 15% or more as well, meaning Government captures about 60% of all corporate profits made in the US.

I wonder how many people here refuse to take every tax deduction they can... Why would they deny companies the right to also take those tax deductions simply because it means shifting some income to overseas?

[expat_panama]

...total dollar value of all widgets produced.

Right.  That means if this year a foreign factory makes a ton of steel worth $50, then it's measured industrial production is less that than of an American factory that uses half of that steel to produce 20,000 precision scalpels worth $1,000 each. Foreign tonage is twice the American output whose output dollar value is 400,000 times as great.

The number comes in handy for making investments or understanding the economy, although it's useless for arguing w/ protectionists..

[Georgia Girl 2]

Total horse hockey. Don’t you believe it for a minute.

[litehaus]

One robot equals 3 1/2 guys from Alabama building cars?

One computer and a laser printer equals a room full of young architectural graduates?

One touch computer panel at the kiosk equals etc etc etc etc

[Shanghai Dan]

Here's an amazingly timely article:

New Swiss Robot Assists Travelers with Luggage

Think about that - it's now getting cheaper to have a robot take your bags to the airplane, straight from your car, than to hire porters or luggage handlers or even guys to go and collect the luggage carts. In 10 years, the taxi driver job will be essentially go as self-driving cars become common. Baggage handlers and doormen will go away. All from automation.

[expat_panama]

zero support for your views here on FR.

Usually support for my views on the FR doesn't mean as much to me as does the value of my American factories.  I like being rich and if it's at the expense of making protectionists mad at me then I'll deal w/ it.    Protectionist opinions do matter if they end up setting U.S. policy --this is why I like to keep track of FR opinions. 

Yeah, it'd be a shame if these protectionist blunders ended up making me sell my factories to wrecking companies --and especially hard on the good people who work there-- but competent people can always find something useful to do.  Maybe that's also why we're happy and our tariff freepers are so miserable.

[kabar]

I question those numbers.

Those are official government numbers. We have taken in 35 million legal permanent immigrants since 1990.

And my experience is that most of those permanent immigrants are either mid-level themselves or sponsored in by people who can prove they can afford to sponsor them in (yes, I had to go through a background check AND income/wealth verification to show I could support her for 10 years - which is the requirement to sponsor in someone for a green card).

Anecdotal information does not reflect what is really going on.

[Shanghai Dan]

OK. thank you for the data.

Now, why is that an issue? Do you understand the requirements to be a legal immigrant? Is the issue ALL immigrants, or illegal immigrants?

[Colorado Doug]

Yeah, I can’t hardly find anything anymore that not made in the good old US of A. Every electronic or mechanical part and even simple things on the selves of any store, all made in the USA. And just look at all those factories, just humming away in the Midwest. /s

[JPJones]

“We ship them raw materials, not manufactured products.

We have the trade profile of a banana republic.”

Ding!

It’s worse than we thought:

We ship them Treasuries:

So, every time we by a product made in China, our taxes have to go up to pay the interest on the Bonds they buy from us.

[Colorado Doug]

Your map is listing oil and gas production as manufacturing. Sorta disingenuous, don’t you think? Look at some of the places with almost zero infrastructure in Colorado and Wyoming that they are calling major hubs of manufacturing were there is none.

[Colorado Doug]

What is it that they are “manufacturing” in Luna County, New Mexico that makes it such a hot spot of industrial activity? What did they do? Just splash paint on a map or turn a chicken loose and see where it crapped to pick their so-called high concentration manufacturing centers? What about Sandoval County? Have you ever been there? Of course not.

[Ray76]

I notice that the map has a great deal of manufacturing in Maine and none in West Virgina. The areas highlighted in Maine are harvested timber. Why does that resource harvesting count as manufacturing while coal harvesting in West Virginia does not?

[Colorado Doug]

Improvement in efficiency has nothing to do with a lack of products. Our efficiency has improved so much you can’t even see what we make.

[virgil]

You’re right about that. With the jobs, the knowledge and skills base is off shored too. So, then they have to import the labor and expand H1B type visa programs. Insane. It’s really not a good thing for the country no matter how much they try to convince us it is.

[kabar]

And my experience is that most of those permanent immigrants are either mid-level themselves or sponsored in by people who can prove they can afford to sponsor them in (yes, I had to go through a background check AND income/wealth verification to show I could support her for 10 years - which is the requirement to sponsor in someone for a green card).

20% of the legal immigrants lack a high school degree. We have a kinship system of immigration, not a merit based one.

I

Is There a STEM Worker Shortage?

The problem IMHO is that a big part of US culture (specifically amongst minorities) began rejecting the concept of education and bettering yourself at the same time that you have to educate and better yourself to work in the new economy.

We have a surplus of labor, skilled and unskilled. We are producing more STEM workers than we need. Immigrants are taking American jobs and depressing wages. If there was a shortage of workers, wages would be going up, not down.

Immigrants use welfare to a greater extent than the native born. WQe are importing poverty.

[Colorado Doug]

But steel making is far less important than steel using.

I guess if China ever goes to war with us, AND THEY WILL, we can just ask them to sell us steel?