Posted on 01/25/2024 10:04:54 AM PST by SeekAndFind
In an election year, candidates from both sides will generally declare that we need more domestic manufacturing, and they promise to make it happen.
Different sides will propose different ways to accomplish it. Republicans will call for lower tax rates and lighter regulations; Democrats will call for open borders and higher punitive tariffs. Each side hates the other’s methods; nothing gets done.
Does this really matter?
There are economists, investment advisors, even politicians out there, who will say it doesn’t matter. They will say we need business, of course; but as long as there are transactions happening, that’s economic growth. They don’t think we need to delve deeper.
But we do—let’s delve.
Outsourcing
A manufacturer employs a host of people to develop and market products; purchase and process raw materials or components; assemble buildable elements into a finished good; and package it all up for shipping and delivery.
There has been no collaborative decision between manufacturers to outsource any of those steps; these decisions are made business by business, product line by product line, and even component by component.
Consider an appliance manufacturer that used to injection-mold its own housings and dials, assemble its own motors and pumps, wrap its own power cable, program its own control panels, and assemble the finished product, ready to sell.
Over the decades, as cost pressures increased, the company started outsourcing the motors and cable to China; the control panels to Japan; the cable, housings, and dials to Mexico. Before you knew it, this American factory was simply assembling components imported from abroad; lots of domestic jobs disappeared.
But the jobs that did remain were the better-paying ones, weren’t they? We still have the engineering department here to design it.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Do we really want our enemies making our technology and medicines? Or providing us with foodstuffs?
In the modern world, the human condition can best be described as this: Everyone wants to pay as little as possible for what they buy, and charge as much as possible for what they sell.
When you consider that what most people “sell” is their own labor, you realize that this inevitably ends in an irreconcilable conflict where people want $35/hour wages and Walmart prices at the same time.
This irreconcilable conflict is also behind at least 95% of the policies and laws adopted by governments in modern, affluent countries.
Because it makes us independent.
Because the guy next door is employed because you bought something he made.
Because we ran out of things during Covid that we should be making ourselves.
Etc.
National security. Mission-critical components of our power grids are now coming from China. Do I really need to explain the risk?
“Why Does Manufacturing at Home Really Matter?”
Because it would bring back the entire manufacturing ecosystem, as well as the ancilllary parts.
And all of the jobs.
We are currently like a species on a barren moonscape.
National Security is by far the number 1 reason. If you don’t make your own bombs and bullets you will get your ass handed to you at some point.
We sell to Chemical tolling and manufacturers——I’ve been here for 35 years and this, by far, is the worst I have ever seen the market.
I don’t know if it can ever recover....
BTW, 2019 was the best year we ever had...bar none!
If you lose your manufacturing base you might have lower prices for awhile, but as the standard of living rises in those nations who take over manufacturing the standard of living in your own nation will drop - inevitably.
Because money is only a substitute for barter. Hard to take a cow to market to buy a rabbit and get change.
So if it is only a substitute for barter, we are back to basics. You must create or take something of value to market or you get nothing.
If you do create something of value, hether it is a loiad of potatoes, a beef cow or a race horse, you have created wealth and made someone’s life better.
For just a start....
Manufactured Housing: A trailer house? Word of warning. check the label to make sure it is designed for the area you live in. I found trailers designed for South Texas in Northern New Mexico. Needless to say, you will freeze!
Do you know how many medications are on backorder right now? It’s terrible.
Unfortunately, all of the ingredients will probably still come from China, so...
A very capable 3-D printer with quite a few advantages over the ones sold just a few years ago are available for $200 - $300. The one I bought several years ago for less than $200 was “open source” so I have been able to improve it over the years. 1 Kg roll of filament is about $20 and you can make a lot of items with that amount.
You might be able to find something that would be of use to you that you can print out at:
But I typically print items that I have either designed or modified myself, such as the external venturi adapter that I made to convert my generator to natural gas. I is a bit more versatile and efficient than most of the similar commercial items available.
A Path ForwardEver since the 17th Amendment gave birth to the modern regulatory state, Americans have increasingly turned to our politicians for solutions to our problems.
Certainly, we need to recognize the candidates who will support a manufacturing renaissance, through advocacy of tax cuts and regulatory reform, higher tariffs, and even bans on imports from enemy nations.
But we can’t keep waiting for a political solution. Our Founding Fathers would never have wanted us to demand that the federal government force us to do the right thing. We also need to demand a change in the private sector.
As purchasing and engineering managers, as supply chain and finance department executives, we need to stop waiting for government action. We need to seek out every opportunity to bring every level of manufacturing back home, company by company, part by part.
And also, as individuals, with our 401Ks and our IRAs, we need to put our money where our mouth is, and have that hard conversation with the investment analysts who manage our savings: Stop judging investments based on poppycock like DEI and ESG; start seeing the value in companies that make or source more and more of their parts here. Let’s start investing—not in the companies that flee these shores, but in the companies that return from abroad.
That’s what it will take to revive not just the American economy, but our culture—our future—the American Dream.
First off, the 17th Amendment isn't the villain. The New Deal is.
In his book Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville noted the presence of civil society, something utterly lacking in France due to its history of absolutism. When the people of a community saw a problem, they formed a committee and fixed it themselves.
The New Deal ended American civil society. Now when the people of a community see a problem, they form a committee and petition the government to fix it.
There's a difference, and that's why we're in the current fix. People have been trained to look to government for the past 91 years. That's three generations.
Because it prevents people who don’t like us from depriving us of things we need.
Or having our military strength dependent on them?
I lost a lens cap to a pair of binoculars years ago. I gave my son the other one and he printed a replacement one for them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.