Should we try to reduce productivity to save jobs? While we are at it, do we need to increase tariffs on buggy whips so that we can increase employment in the buggy whip industry?
Lastly, what are we doing to bring back more employment in the elevator operator profession? That profession has been decimated!
Posts like these are meant to confuse. Look at the bottom line which lies in the status of the market.
Taxes have been reduced, the market is on a solid upswing, and employment nationally is improving.
To nitpick issues as these to warp opinion, is generally synonymous with formulating a political agenda.
The industrial infrastructure itself is collapsing.
"Output" figures are often deceptive because domestic finishing operations take full credit for the final product while more crucial steps earlier in the production process are outsourced offshore.
Thanks for your intelligent and well-meaning inquiry.
According to the CIA's "Factbook," manufacturing as a percentage of GDP is dramatically higher than the USA's in a number of countries.
Ireland 48%, Austria 33%, Germany, Japan, Spain 31%, Sweden 29%, Australia, Canada, France 26%, India 25%, Belgium 24%, USA 18%, HongKong 13.5%.
Must be that all those other countries are composed largely of stupid, fat, lazy, buggywhip makers, eh?
Now it's our turn: why do you suppose that those other countries make it a national policy to maintain those numbers, and that China is doing anything possible to attain those numbers?
Hmmmmmmm????
If my company is any measure -- output is down. Our sales (output) are about 1/3 of what they were 2 years ago, and we are in danger of going under. It's nnot that my employees don't work hard and produce a great deal, it's just that we haven't had the orders. Some of the work has gone overseas, some just hasn't materialized, and some of the customers have gone under.