'The lights are going off' Lost jobs in Rockford, Ill., underscore free trade issue

The Boston Globe ^ | 10/20/2003 | Mary Leonard

[Fester Chugabrew]

A while back I started a thread to list some of the better products still manufactured here. Maybe the list has changed by now. Manufactured goods seem to be getting cheaper and cheesier by the day.

[x]

If you looked at China or India rather than Central America, you'd get a different view of things. The NYT has an article on India's economy today.

With automation, there will be less employment in manufacturing, but letting basic production go is a mistake. Think of Hegel's dialectic of master and slave. The master lets the slave do all the work for him. The slave accumulates the skills that enable him to become the true master. So it is with countries that neglect basic production. They let too much go and rely on investments that, sooner or later, don't bring in sufficient returns.

The Vermont view of the world, in which we get by psychoanalyzing and selling art to each other is pretty unrealistic. Sooner or later, reality intervenes and it isn't always pleasant. One of the promises of technology was that we might be able to provide for our material needs without brutalizing the labor force. It's unfortunate, that instead, we simply look abroad for other labor forces to brutalize, and let the loss of steady employment contribute to brutalization at home.

[Clemenza]

The Vermont view of the world, in which we get by psychoanalyzing and selling art to each other is pretty unrealistic.

Good point. As trendy and artistic as we New Yorkers think we are, this has become a 1 1/2 industry town. When the stock market tanks, the entire economy falls apart here. The 1/2 industry I am talking about is fashion, which doesn't employ too many people aside from the designers and their models.

[Clemenza]

I think that the stuff (linens) my company makes at their plant in Portugal is FAR superior to anything coming out of Asia OR the US. There is a good reason why the New England mills used to import their labor from Portugal.

[winker]

Where is Willie Green to the rescue?

[Ches]

Clearly this town has not moved forward witht he times if the PR reps there are still pushing the invention of the hand-cranked pencil sharpener.

It is not Wall Steet nor Silacon Valley. It is Rockford Ill. The Heartland.

It is unfortunate that the author even mentioned pencil sharpeners for you to focus on. This small city has been an industrial hub since its founding and has provided the nation and the world with a great deal of cutting edge technology. SunStrand would have been a better example. They developed Hydrostatic Drive Systems used in most heavy equipment and industrial machenery, including military equipment, just as an example. Many of the corps. made state of the art line equipment but with offshoring the no longer have a large customer base. There have been many such firms, now a thing of the past.

The situation in the area is critical, far reaching and effects a large segment of the community as well as other bisiness's for many miles around. Add to this a large influx of illegals in the building trades and it is a pretty lousy picture.

[Ed_in_NJ]

BOHICA!

[BooBoo1000]

Would any one like to hazard a guess as to how much Unions have contributed to the loss of Jobs?.
I remember after WW2 all of the auto manufacturers were going full blast. Selling everything they could produce at their price./
Every year the Unions wanted something, and the Auto companies thought rather than have a strike, give them what they want/
Now the Auto Companies are buried under benefits they can no longer afford/ie no contribution from the worker for Health Insurance. The Unions have brought this on, in my opinion..

[Ed_in_NJ]

No question that unions have been a major factor -- but they are not alone; environmentalists, corporate greed, bureaucrats (socialists) should be included.