[Alberta's Child]

All good questions, Jim.

I'll point out that this is a much more complicated issue than most people realize. I've been saying for years that the number of U.S. factory jobs that have been lost to outsourcing is dwarfed by the number of these jobs that have been lost to automation and technology.

Kudos to the Freeper who pointed out several months ago that U.S. manufacturing employment would have been declining for years even if the U.S. was the only country in the world, and there was no such thing as "foreign trade."

[central_va]

I'll point out that this is a much more complicated issue than most people realize. I've been saying for years that the number of U.S. factory jobs that have been lost to outsourcing is dwarfed by the number of these jobs that have been lost to automation and technology.

You keep saying that but it is a stupid and dumb argument. Automating a factory in the USA is good. Shipping the factory to China then automating it is a catastrophe for the USA for many reasons. You are mixing apples and oranges.

[central_va]

Dumb. How much better would we be if we had those jobs lost to China and the rest of the world?

[Will88]

Kudos to the Freeper who pointed out several months ago that U.S. manufacturing employment would have been declining for years even if the U.S. was the only country in the world, and there was no such thing as "foreign trade."

I doubt anyone has provided reliable data to support that. People make such statements, but the number of manufacturing products sold and used in the US and elsewhere is much higher now than decades ago.

Nobody was producing computers and tablets and cell phones and walkmans and a large number of other products in most every home today that didn't even exist forty or fifty years ago. And things like the number of vehicles and TVs owned by the average family is signicantly higher now than decades ago.

Here is the stat we need:

How many manufacturing jobs were required to produce all the manufactured products sold in the US in 2015, and say, several different years going back to the 1960s?

I don't believe for a second that it takes fewer manufacturing jobs to produce all the manufactured products sold now compared to any prior decade.

[xzins]

U.S. manufacturing employment would have been declining for years even if the U.S. was the only country in the world, and there was no such thing as "foreign trade."

Then why are those jobs overseas....if they don't exist?

I was in Vietnam a few years back, and I was absolutely amazed at the number of US factories I saw.

Someone needs to let them know that automation has killed those American jobs.

[riverdawg]

Yes, we manufacture about as much today as we ever have; we just don’t use nearly as much labor to do so.