Posted on 03/03/2016 5:42:56 PM PST by Jim Robinson
They're killing us and we're not even bothering to fight back. What do we manufacture in the U.S. anymore? Where have all our manufacturing jobs gone? Why can't we be competitive? Why are our costs so high?
Is government the solution or the problem?
I was going to say we manufacture welfare recipients, but we’ve even been importing them by the millions. Insanity.
Where are we robbing them blind? What does our record number of people in the workforce not working cost us?
In fact, in order to support all this “cheap” globalism crap aren’t they just running up the national debt? Won’t that eventually come back and bite us big time?
Government manages problems. If it solved them, too many bureaucracies would not be able to justify their existence.
You know how there's an army of people living off of the advancement of "global warming"? This is a good comparison of what has happened to TRADE.
But get out of the World Trade Organization on DAY ONE. Cancel and re-negotiate all agreements and NGOs involved in trade. Begin again except this time with the USA's interest FIRST. The left will go nuts---more nuts than they do on global warming issues.
That will immediately go a long way toward levelling the playing field.
Get rid of everyone in the Department of Commerce involved in trade, replace with people who have never worked for government but are business experts. Look closely at doing away with the Dept of Commerce and if it has any useful functions put them under some other department.
As someone noted above, the trade crime syndicate is about redistributing US wealth to the third world with liberals getting a huge slice off the top.
I think they all get it...It's just that we (+ Trump) verses them have different agendas...
What do we manufacture in the U.S. anymore?
Lots of stuff, just not the junk that's in Walmart from China or wherever that everyone talks about. Somebody else can make the easy, low-tech/no-tech cheap stuff.
Most of the stuff we make and export is stuff nobody is familiar with or sees on a shelf in a store. Mostly high-tech, high cost capital goods, not cheap consumer junk anyone can make.
Airplanes. Heavy equipment. Computer-controlled equipment of all types. Other highly sophisticated, high-tech manufacturing stuff. Etc., etc. None of it is on a shelf at Walmart.
Total, about 4 trillion of goods in 2015. Plus, we exported about 1.5 trillion of goods. Total about 5.5 trillion. About 31% of GDP.
By way of comparison, in 1980 goods were about 36% of GDP.
So, there's been a very slight, very slow decline on a percentage basis over the last 35 years. Not a big deal. .17% of GDP per year. Despite that slight drag, the total value of manufacturing in the US continues to set records.
BEA
Table 1.1.5
Kinda like 200 years ago when 98% of employment was in farming. Now, farming is maybe 1% of total employment, yet our farms produce 1000 times as much and we're the world's largest agricultural exporter.
Where have all our manufacturing jobs gone?
To the extent that there has been a loss of jobs, unions can take most of the credit. Extorting above-market wages has been going on for about 70 years and it doesn't work.
Slowly but surely some over-paid manufacturing jobs have left, permanently. Textiles, shoes, toys, etc., etc.
50 years ago there was still a lot of low-skill manufacturing going on. Tab A in slot B is a job anyone can do with no skill, so it's going to go elsewhere over time, even without a union accelerating it.
Why can't we be competitive?
We're competitive in many industries, we dominate many, but in some we're not because: 1) Unions. 2) Regulations.
Why are our costs so high?
Same deal. Throw in a lack of being able to compete internationally due to our stupid system of corporate taxation.
Is government the solution or the problem?
Nothing the government does ever makes US business more competitive.
Government enabled unions and we still suffer the ill-effects.
Government constantly enacts new regulations and we suffer the ever-increasing ill-effects.
Government runs the "education" system which throws out increasing numbers of unemployable illiterates.
No surprise that any business that possibly can will use robotics and technology to replace them or avoid having to hire them at all.
“We must pull out of the WTO. First step.”
Fine. Is Trump or anyone else saying they will do this?
“Then the UN.”
No argument from me on that.
1. unfair trade. foreign devaluation of currency / dumping product below cost makes it harder to compete in world markets (China’s make-work factories)
2. loss of close-proximity infrastructure to manufacturing. steel, copper, batteries, tiny parts; and the shipping costs/delays from where that infrastructure is now located: China, India, Malaysia
3. related to (2) - Decades of foreign policy promoting manufacturing in underdeveloped nations where workers work longer hours for less money. (poverty programs)
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/26/opinion/la-oe-nara-research-development-jobs-20120326
4. tech advances, versus drain of tech talent. to quote USA Today, the jobs of 400,000 can be done by 94,000. otoh, Visa-student talent (many who are subsidized by their governments) train in IT here, but go home, creating an intellect and R&D vacuum. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/30/us-manufacturing-comeback-stalling/2599059/
The government is totally responsible in killing our manufacturing base.
Some of the worst agencies are:
EPA
OSHA
Department of Labor
IRS
Department of Justice
And....our pandering government on all levels to the latest fad in civil rights and special rules for special people, sexes and race.
I’ve been in the industrial business since 1979 and as each year went by, more and more government regulations and requirements grew exponentially each year. My exposure to penalties, interest, and downright criminal and liable exposures grew with each law or rule that came at me that could spring the trap that would steal all that I had made in the name of government compliance.
Now, there are so many rules, laws and regulations that it is totally impossible for any business not to violate one of them simply because there are too many to even comprehend!
Yes, the government is totally responsible for the demise of American manufacturing because of the legal minefields they laid before them.
you nailed it.
I latched onto Trump because he knows the trade deals are bad and need to be renegotiated. I have not seen that he understands why we have bad trade deals - the globalist ideology and political power structure behind it.
He thinks it’s because our trade deal makers are just stupid. No, they are evil global social and economic engineers like the ones who destroyed Detroit. They destroyed us for the “greater good” fully knowing what they were doing.
GO TRUMP!!!
I agree. The employment market is currently not rational in the way economists use that term. With no jobs in IL 3 yrs ago I moved to Atlanta where there are plenty of jobs.
It turns out the recruiters/HR types do not want a prophet already in their country. They have the irrational belief that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.
Atlanta believes someone from IL like me is better than someone from their own Atlanta. Someone from India is even better because they come from farther away.
Several things feed this prejudice. Atlanta/DeKalb public schools are terrible. Their image is terrible with cheating scandals, etc. The Cobb/Gwinnett public schools are far worse than Chicago suburban public schools.
Another key factor is that most recruiters are now Indian. Since 1968 Ive been a consultant Fortune 100 for consulting companies. 1968-1990 virtually all recruiters were US or Canadian. 1990-2000 was a transition period. About 2000 and the tech bubble most recruiters were Indian. Now in 2016 it seems near impossible to find a non-Indian recruiter.
I get over 50 email per day from recruiters, mostly for DB2 mainframe jobs, all six figure, many $250,000+. I cant remember the last time I got an email from a non-Indian recruiter (with one exception a small placement firm in Downers Grove IL).
The irrational attitudes of American job seekers is also a problem. When I was one of State Farms 14,000 techies in Bloomington IL they were desperately looking for IT workers. I contacted one co-consultants with me at Allstate and was unemployed and on a Republican Liberty Caucus Yahoo Group. I suggested he consult to State Farm in his mainframe specialty which State Farm needed and was paying higher rates than Allstate. He told me that he had taken 1 class in C++ and now would only take a six figure position in C++. Well, the reality is that he was a beginner in C++ and not worth $50,000/yr. But his skill in mainframe REXX and JCL was worth $150,000. But he was not realistic.
With another former Discover Card co-consultant, a loud Rush fan, his excuse was:
My wife is working. When my unemployment runs out Ill work and she will go on unemployment.
Both of those friends lived in the far south suburbs and in drive-time were closer to Bloomington than the drive across the entire Chicago metro area to the far northern suburbs to Allstate and Discover.
They and others also expressed the opinion that they would not work in the corn fields, far from the amenities of the metro area.
A key factor is that many Americans are not willing to go where the jobs are. Only reluctantly after a long time unemployed do they finally agree to go to TX or GA or wherever the jobs are. That includes me. My typical consulting gig was 6 months to 1 year. Yet I was never unemployed more than 3 days between 1968 and 2012. Then Nov 2012 to April 2013 I could not find a job in IL.
I had plenty of opportunities in GA, TX and other places but rejected the idea of leaving IL where I was deeply involved in anti-corruption, conservative/libertarian politics. Finally my daughter convinced me to go to GA... plus messing with the GA voter registration and election software as a consultant to the GA Secretary of State was too tempting to pass up.
But there are large numbers of Americans who will only take a job in Silicon Valley, or in Northbrook IL and will not go where the jobs are. There are large numbers of Americans who will not work in the technology where the jobs are. They will only work in some obscure niche technology where there are no jobs. There are some who are qualified for a six figure income in the skill where they have experience. But they want a six figure income in a skill in which they have no experience.
Indians are happy to go anywhere, do anything. America is America to them. Bloomington IL is just a good as Silicon valley for most Indians. COBOL-DB2 where there are many jobs is just as good as VB-SQL Server where there seem to be few jobs. (Java-DB2 and Java-Oracle also seem to have many jobs.)
Our public mis-education system is another big problem. That would be a long essay, most of which we have all heard before.
There are other prejudices and irrational behaviors that make the job market very irrational the past few years.
After posting IT rant my screen went back to original post, which was manufacturing, not IT.
The US Hwy 20 corridor Chicago to Rockford used to be the tool & die capital of the world. They made the machines for the factories in Ohio, Detroit and industrial heartland. Pre-1970 they hired a mix of Americans an European immigrants (many of them illegals). Gradually over the 60s, 70s and 80s they could not find qualified employees.
The #1 requirement was good in math, good in 3D geometry. The products of the northern IL and Chicago suburban schools could not do math. Americans had been taught that math was their friend. But they had not been taught how to do it... how to think it and dream about it at night as tool & die makers do.
The result was that the tool & die business went to Asia first, before the factories that use their products. But the factories following to Asia was a natural progression. In the 1960s Northern IL had a massive number of plastics factories making parts for small appliances, for toys, and everything plastic. The reason they went to Asia was that was where their tool & die shops were. The issues of wage rates, excessive regulations, etc were secondary to the proximity of the tool & die shops.
I disagree. Trump's background has been in real estate, hotels, and casinos. His manufacturing background is largely missing, except for buying a few hats from China. You don't learn all there is to know about business, economics, accounting, trade, and finance from building and running casinos.
You have to ask? Seriously?
Big Government is the problem. It will ONLY be solved by Small Government.
Thank you. People keep bitching and moaning about 'trade deals', and missing the entire huge problem created right here by our own Big Government.
Yes. Exactly.
The name of every government program is the opposite of whatever that program does. I am hoping that the electorate is finally realizing this.
“Like the problem with the illegales, it’s not so much we got suckered by the deals, but that we’ve never been willing to enforce them.”
Any free trade deal that requires more than one page to document has nothing to do about “free” trade. All of the agreements binding on the US economy incorporate thousands of pages of privileges, exemptions, subsidies, etc. that benefit specific companies, countries, unions, and special interests.
The founding fathers lived at a time when the government of Great Britain controlled the flow of goods into and out of the colonies. It would not allow colonial merchants to trade with certain countries. The import and export of certain classes of goods was restricted to specific British companies (like the East India Company) or to British ships. To the founders (who by the way favored high tariffs), free trade had nothing to with tariffs and duties, it had everything to do with government not restricting or regulating imports and exports.
A true free trade agreement is simple. Both parties agree their markets are open to all companies and merchants from the other country. Neither country will place physical restrictions on transportation vehicles used by trading parties. No regulatory barriers will be placed on imported goods. Exports will not be subsidized by either government.
Tariffs are another issue entirely. Tariffs are a tax on business not unlike taxes levied on income and property. A government is doing domestic companies economic harm when it taxes profits they make on the production of goods, as well as the property and equipment used to produce goods, but doesn’t tax the foreign factory competing with the domestic company in the domestic market. Essentially the foreign company gets a free ride for access to a market while the domestic company is fully taxed. This taxation advantage, along with the export and capital subsidies provided by foreign governments to exporters, made US goods uncompetitive in the the thousand page free trade agreements negotiated over the past 25 years.
When you look at government policies and bills from Congress, most of them turn out to mean exactly the opposite from the propaganda we get from the media and pols....both Parties.
It is all smoke and mirrors and their 2000 page comprehensive bills only serve to hide their deceit and corruption. They need to fix things individually and vote on them individually as a bill, not as unread massive comprehensive bill that creates more problems.
I’ve probably become too cynical because of Affordable Care Act, Free trade, No child left behind, Patriot Act, etc.
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