Posted on 10/20/2003 9:55:39 AM PDT by riri
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:10:55 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
ROCKFORD, Ill. -- On April 15, Ingersoll International Co., a manufacturing mainstay here for 112 years, told its 300 employees to stop work midshift because it was shutting down. The company, one of two in the nation that had produced drilling machines to build F-35 fighter jets, had recently lost a defense contract to a Spanish firm and had been staggered by fast-growing competition from Asia.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
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.
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.
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.
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