How Can America Create Wealth If Our Industrial Base Is Destroyed?

The Economic Collapse ^ | 03/26/2011 | Michael Snyder

[FrogMom]

Simple answer - we can’t.

[Uncle Miltie]

A: By producing the intellectual property that the factory minions elsewhere in the world buy or license from us.

Value comes from ideas, these days.

Microsoft. Apple. Google. Oracle.

Even among big industrial concerns, the value of the idea is paramount.

Farmers buy tractors and combines in part based on the value of the software and sensors embedded in them. Did you know that fertilizers are applied by the square yard depending on whether last year’s combine reported poor yeilds for that square yard? Or that video cameras and a computer decide for each plant they view whether to spray an herbicide on that plant because it was identified as a weed?

Why aren’t people starving in the world anymore? Because we put more land into production? No. Because we Americans engineered more effective plants, and because our computing industry effectively eliminated rotting in the supply chain.

We can make stuff: Intellectual stuff.

[oh8eleven]

Green jobs ... you know ... WTF.

[driftdiver]

You’re missing the point of this whole exercise which is to redistribute our wealth, not create more.

[BikerJoe]

We can make stuff: Intellectual stuff.

Which is promptly stolen by our competitors because they could care less about IP rights.

We need to do it ALL, ourselves. In a pinch, they'll need our ideas less than we'll need their production, so whose really dependent on whom?

[driftdiver]

Millions of people are starving.

[mazda77]

Wrong, get the government out of the way and we can create anything. Much of the industrial base is old and has not been updated or modernized so a complete restart would have to be initiated without taxes on such. In that light, the midwest would be radically challenged by the population and technology shifts to the southwest and south.

[Uncle Miltie]

Almost always because of mal-government. Not because of lack of food availability world-wide.

[NetLiberty]

We can make stuff: Intellectual stuff.

I used to think this way, but as a country we also don't have a monopoly on design and creativity. China, India and other growing nations are also getting into the design and intellectual property game, and the winners will be those countries who have both design capabilities and an integrated design and manufacturing base, preferably within the same company. Not enough to just design something and throw it over to China--the most agile players of the future are designers who are also close to the manufacturing process. Outsourcing has hidden costs, and designers who are close to their manufacturing processes have substantially increased efficiencies.

Couple of good links for on this topic for background reading:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/02/we-still-make-stuff-in-san-francisco/70946/

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20110215,0,442445.column

[Uncle Miltie]

"We need to do it ALL, ourselves"

I salute your Juche philosophy, comrade.

[driftdiver]

Sure its usually because of mismanagement but it shows your premise if false.

Its much easier and cheaper to steal intellectual property than to create it. China and India are actively seeking to acquire knowledge in any way they can.

[Uncle Miltie]

Background from the L.A. Times and The Atlantic?

Thanks, but I’ll skip those publications.

If you want to have an argument about the stupidity of our public schools making us long-term non-competitive in IP, I would agree.

[Minus_The_Bear]

You can't eat ideas.

Most young Americans don't respect copyright or intellectual property rights.

Nations without manufacturing bases cannot thrive.

[Walts Ice Pick]

America doesn’t create wealth; Americans do. The distinction is important.

[BikerJoe]

"We need to do it ALL, ourselves"

I salute your Juche philosophy, comrade.

Hey, being independent is a conservative thing, right? Why should it be any different as a nation?

[Uncle Miltie]

"Sure its usually because of mismanagement but it shows your premise if false."

No, the fact that only governments these days can get in the way of the application of our good IP to cause starvation proves (not disproves) my main point.

Your (and others') secondary point about the theft of IP is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. But that hasn't stopped much of America from becoming very wealthy selling IP.

[Enough is ENOUGH]

Why isn’t this one of the many main issues actively being attacked in Washington by the conservatives we voted in?

[Uncle Miltie]

Check.

[sbark]

ultimatly all true created wealth comes from the land.

That is why the left is so hell bent on denying us energy development.

One can ask then why is the left not constricting Agric and food as much as energy-———because if they shut down energy they shut down Agric, transportation, construction etc....

Our energy policy is dictated to us by a element of the population similar in size and ideology as the Soviet Commies in 1920’s.......and they really do have a concrete plan.