State factory loss a 'crisis,' panel says

Ya gotta understand, Bill, we get cheap consumer goods from China, we weren't getting anything from Iraq.

Good point. I've watched my portfolio grow like gangbusters in the last year as companies reduce their operating costs, in many cases by outsourcing jobs. I'm keeping a lot more of my income due to the tax cuts. This is why I continue to contribute to Republicans (including the President's reelection campaign). More than anything, I want to see the tax cuts made permanent so I'm not facing a tax increase in the coming years. I certainly don't want John Kerry increasing my taxes either.

So what, other than a bunch of whining by people complaining that the government ought to take care of them after they lose their jobs, is the problem here? Liberals continue to blame government when people are put out of work instead of asking those who out of work what they did to improve their chances of staying employed? It's a rough world out there, the difference between liberals and conservatives is that we take responsibility for ourselves and our own economic well being. Liberals want the government to assume that responibility.

You know what's really funny...some of the people professing the "more-is-good" and "labor should be subjugated" themes here actually think thoughts exactly as you have satirized...pretty scary, isn't it. ;-)

I used to wonder how Nazi Germany went over the edge, now I don't...

Ummm, How can output rise when the factory no longer exists?

I hate it when arm chair economists who never worked in a factory in their life tell us who did work all our lives in a factory how good it is to see factory work disappear.

Make sure you keep repeating the mantra!

The problem is not jobs leaving the country, it is not capital equipment leaving the country, the problem is not intellectual property leaving the country, the problem is not contracts going to communistic/fascistic/socialistic government run countries that prop up their companies with government funds to defer losses that the US companies cannot compete against...

THE PROBLEM IS YOUR ATTITUDE ABOUT IT!! JUST KEEP TELLING YOURSELF THINGS WILL GET BETTER AND THEY WILL!

How can I stand on my feet when the government is allowing in material produced at rates that are slave labor devised that I cannot possibly compete against?

How can I stand on my feet when the industries that I and my family traditionally worked in are sent overseas: material,machines,knowledge; to be operated by Communistic/Fascistic/Socialistic Governments that prop up their industries with Government money all the while I am supposed to use my own money and compete with my own capital and if I fail use my own money to cover the loss?

I have a memory of 2nd grade. We were in a Social Studies class and a substitute teacher was leading the class, and we started talking about how American companies were setting up companies in foreign lands to allow the people of those countries to make their own clothes and goods. Until then, I assumed, these people either wore sandals or went barefoot, and we brought them clothes for the first time maybe, but they must have had their own methods of making clothes before we showed up!

As it turned out, as the lesson went on, we were told that these American Companies went to these foreign countries to set up complete companies to provide jobs, too, for these people, people who had a lower standard of living, but doing the same work in these new factories as people here in the US did.

It became obvious to me, that if these people lived a much lower standard of living, they needed lower pay, the companies would pay them lower wages, and still make the same product as good as ours made in the US were made.

It didn’t take a genius to make the next logical step here: If they were making the same product there cheaper, they were soon going to sell it back to us at a lower price that our own workers could not compete with, thereby putting us out of business, one company at a time. I asked her,” What will happen 20 years from now, though, when they will be making it cheaper then us, won’t they put us out of business?" She said I was a real John Bircher! And guess what?
Does anyone here know of any major textile industry in your neighborhood? I mean one that is still in operation. Does anyone here doubt that what I asked her 35 years ago is true and worsening? WE ARE GIVING AWAY TECHNOLOGY to 3rd world nations and we are making ourselves unemployed when we do it!

Either way, the recognition of the terror coming does not make the terror acceptable, it is still the terror, and the economic policies that feed the terror are what is the problem, not the desire to move when I hear the lions roar.

Our politicians are feeding us to the lions, and they are calling it rain on our crops. The passing of laws that allowed H1-B visas was supposed to allow only the highest educated people to work in this country to fill the place of someone who did not exist here before, not take the place of someone already employed here. It was not supposed to replace American Citizens with foreign nationals just to benefit the profit margins of companies in competition with foreign markets.

Since I stopped being a mechanic, and got my ASME in 93, I have had the same average wage for the last 10 years.

In fact, I used to have a steady job while I was a mechanic, but since I got an engineering job, learned 5 CAD languages, and 4 programming languages, I have had more than 30 jobs in the last 7 years.

Seen more than half the companies I worked for in the last 8 years go belly up. Not a joke. Even the steadiest job I had is almost closed, Kaman Aerospace. Got laid off from Colt when they had to hire a team of lawyers to defend themselves against the lawsuits. Video Terminal company I worked for is defunct.

The rest, except for one, is overseas. China. One company is a fastener company, another is a jet engine manufacturer, and another went to Mexico. All the small companies that made parts for these companies went out of business.

Thanks to NAFTA. GATT.

Someone asked me, "What I'd like to get is an explanation of why "entire technology groups" disappearing is bad".

This needed to be explained??

Where do certain materials come from? Isn’t it true that we cannot just mine a hole in the ground to get Bauxite? How about Copper? Aren’t we supposed to go to a particular spot where we know there is Copper? Now, if someone wanted to deny us Copper, they would be starting a war if they cut us off, or they would be causing undue influence on our way of life if they controlled it and raised its prices above that which we pay.

Now, that same logic applies to industry. Any industry. If we cannot make a bearing in a cost effective way in this world, where is the logic to send the means and knowledge to make bearings to another country where competition does not exist?

We are sending away the means to produce the most basic materials we use in industry! This is not about singular items like sneakers or IT programmers; it is about entire means of creating anything.

The machines we send over to these countries are used to create other machines. These new machines are going to, if not already, be used to create the competition for our remaining industrial goods, to be operated at slave wages by people who did not have to be trained in high tech skills to operate, but only told when to press a button, thanks to Computer Controlled Machining.

We are not sending over looms and combines to people to allow them to live better, we are sending over complex CNC machines and devices that are used in Aerospace, Automotive, and computer industries, and they are being setup by us, used by them, and they are not worried about profit in making their business run, they have governments run their businesses, and that means profit is not the motive! At least not where the operation of the company is concerned!

What product am I going to make that cannot be reverse engineered by a geek with a set of verniers and a tape measure and calipers and shadowgraph??

Even if I did design something unique, since we handed the technology of machine tools and the methods to produce to these slave labor countries, my new product will only exist in competitive form in this country for no more than 3 years. Once it makes it overseas, and is recognized as a commodity that greedy westerners will buy, it will be copied and mass produced for pennies on the dollar, and we GAVE THEM the means to do so!! They didn’t develop it!! They didn’t design it!! They didn’t spend the money necessary to finalize the design or methods; they just copied what they saw or outright bought the machines that the originating company used to make this product!!

Goodness! People are so stupid!! We are handing away the store on this stuff, the technology we are giving away is not just intellectual, it is a the physical machines we used to make widgets, buttons, fabrics, filters, oils, sheet metal, (did you know that? Even the simple sheet metal bending industries are losing work to China?? The simple press brake is going to disappear because a SLAVE can learn how to bend metal just as well!!)

A lack of profit from where we are concerned makes or breaks a company. Overseas, Profit is the long term goal only if it means they make enough machines to outsell us in the market. People are stupid, these technologies are not single use when taken in a whole, and they are entire industry wide! 5-Axis CNC machines, VTL's, borers, lathes, bridgeports, all CNC controlled, means that they now have the means to make high quality materials and devices at costs where the
US cannot help but fail in competition, and not one of these countries developed these technologies in order to compete in the open market, they either bought it from someone, or they bribed someone to bring it there! And now, there is so much over there, it is impossible for the US to ever recover with a living wage as we are used to.

Some fools try to claim that all it is going to take is some genius with a brainstorm to create a new device or technology and open up a factory and VIOLA! We all have jobs here! All that does is showing me that most people here never worked in a factory, or do they work in mechanical engineering. I can copy almost any device, and if I am paying people slave wages, and if I already have the machines in place to make things that I have a drawing for, I can reproduce any product in a similar fashion and maybe improve upon it and sell it for a cost that will immediately put that American genius out of business in his 2nd year.

We are not dealing with people who live in the Stone Age! We are not dealing with little Coolies pushing/pulling rickshaws! We are dealing with industrial giants who have purchased the most modern machines the world has to offer, and in case you didn’t know, American companies are
NOT buying new machines at any rate similar to China or India!

We are dealing with an industrial powerhouse that is using our hard earned gains and are turning it against us, and taking away the factories that we worked at and leaving us with no places to work at! The industrial skills that many of us trained for are no longer needed on the scale of the 1970's, and it is not because of a catastrophe, it is because our government allowed it to leave, and to make matters worse, we sent this technology to countries that are our sworn enemies and are using these machines operated by people who are working at slave labor wages, and in some cases in China, literal slaves or prison inmates!

And you cheer leaders of Free Trade say this is a good thing!

You are the traitors here.

This is what amazes me most about the free trade cheerleaders. None of them work in manufacturing, so all they do is quote some pundit or Limbaugh.

Limbaugh is an ignorant man on this. He thinks all this so-called Free Trade is going to be a boom for us! He shows he never worked in a machine shop or factory. It does not take a rocket scientist to see, you can copy a product. When you learn how to operate the machines, all you need is a monkey to press the buttons nowadays.

And if you have government sponsored purchasing of machines, and government sponsored operation of companies to cover losses, you have humans who are better educated than any generation and capable of following instructions...VIOLA! Any product can be made at a cheaper price when it is made by a slave!

That is NOT FREE TRADE!
That is NOT market competition!!
That is NOT capitalism!

These companies, in order to stay in business, moved to a socialist government run country that props up industry with government money, and that is not what Capitalist countries can compete with, especially when those socialist countries pay slave wages.

Plus, we are handing these economic competitors our technology which they did nothing to design, develop, or contribute to, and they are using it to take away our jobs and our job futures. And if you don’t see it coming, you need to drink some more coffee or something...

We all went to school; played the game, paid our dues, and then the people who had to power to make the decisions yanked the rug from under us!

We are NOT competing against capitalist countries on the whole, we are competing against socialist/Fascist countries that use government funding to support, create, and provide for the companies that they take from us. These are NOT private individuals starting up machine shops in China, it is the Chinese government!

These are not companies spending their own money to develop and design and trouble shoot the machines to make the product, these are countries that have purchased the materials and machines to make all products from scratch, run them by slaves, LITERALLY, and then have the government supply all monies to keep them from going under.

Good God!! That is NOT free market, that is NOT capitalism, that is NOT free Trade, it is
SOCIALISM!! It is a form of Fascism!! And we are not doing anything to stop it or defend our own countries ability to produce or provide for our own selves!! They are literally using slave labor to run the high tech machines and we cannot compete against that using our Free Market Capitalist ideals!

The cat is out of the bag. People are all human and all capable of thinking. Now that we gave away the technology to make these products, and educated their new leaders, and then gave them the machines to do it and through all this provided the profits to buy more machines and materials, we have signed the manufacturing death warrant for our nation!!

Why in God's name is this so hard to see for some people??

Let's see...
We design and build a machine capable of cutting steel, we design and build a product using that previous machine, and we mass produce it, make a profit from it, only to sell the metal cutting tools and production tools and the technologies necessary to repeat the previous processes to a country that does not engage in free market competition because the government props up the business and prevents it from operating at a loss...and you say we can compete against that?

Humans are human. They can be educated to run complex machines. If we design through our own efforts new technologies that give us great advances that cause our people to advance in technology and culture, what in the world are we doing giving away these technologies to other countries that are our ideological enemies?

WE spent the money to advance these technologies, to develop it, to debug it, using monies from profits, not government, losing our shirts in the process in a capitalist society where the fittest survive only to give it away to a communist nation that pays its workers of these new companies in rice bowls? And you say that is what we are able to compete against?

I got a news flash for you: My friend from High School runs a small machine shop; He just had a new machine put in. When the guy came to install it, he told him of his recent trip to China to install a new machine there. Once the machine was leveled and wired in, they brought down the worker for this machine...removed his shackles and handcuffs...did you get that? He was hand cuffed; he was shackled, barefoot, and brought out of is cell to run the new 4 axis miller.

We cannot compete against this type of manufacturing. This is not a backward country trying to use a crude lathe to make cheaper table leg. This is an industrial giant using computer controlled machines where all a person has to know is what button to push and when thanks to developments in CNC technology. And they pay them in rice bowls, and when he makes a mistake they make a new part until they fill the quota for good parts because they can afford the training curve to run the machine right to eliminate errors.

Socialist Countries propping up their companies is NOT FREE TRADE; neither is American Companies moving off shore, providing the means and personnel to run these companies that formerly employed Americans Capitalism, either!

Not one of these countries developed these technologies themselves, not one of them spent the money to do the research and development to achieve the high quality that these products are now, and not one of these countries started these companies with an individual who is competing solely on Free Market Capitalist Ideals!!

This isn't about whining, it is about giving away the company store to those who are trying to destroy us economically!! It is about giving away the means and technology to compete against ourselves!! That is not sane!!

We are not talking about an individual or group of individuals starting up their own little version of Microsoft in the open market, we are talking about Socialist Governments using Government funds to support all the waste and error that would bankrupt any other company by buying all the machinery from us, the instructions on how to use it coming from us, and then demanding that we use this new company to provide a product, thereby depriving an American competitor a chance to make the product at a cheaper price only they cant BECAUSE THESE FOREIGN COMPANIES ARE USING SLAVE LABOR!!

Capitalist companies cannot compete against that because we are liable for our losses in manufacturing through human error, we use our own money not the governments, and when we go under, it is our tough luck.

Not so in China or Malaysia or Thailand or India or Mexico....

Recently, Black and Decker announced they were moving operations overseas. Yes. Losing jobs in manufacturing is bad because entire technology groups are disappearing, and it is way more than Black and Decker. If you just aren’t in the field, maybe that’s why you don’t know.

Okay Cheerleaders, chime in and defend socialist countries supporting these companies with government funds, and let’s see what happens 5 years from now when the Black and Decker American people are thrown out on their ear and the technology they imported becomes property of the STATE!!

Lets see what went there: Mechanical knowledge, electrical motor technology, battery manufacture and power use technology, recharging technology, plastic manufacturing, molding technology, assembly jobs, electrical jobs, admin jobs....Well, since no IT went there, maybe it is ok??

Now, tell me, How is the identification of the loss of industrial technology a DIM Idea?

IT IS COMMON SENSE!! And BOTH parties are doing it! And NEITHER are stopping it! And that is why Conservatives were against GATT and NAFTA, and that is why we had State Department laws against the transfer of technology, and that is why we used to try to NOT let machines out of the country!

Goodness! One entire building of McDonnell Douglas went to China back in the 80's, and several employees were fired for trying to stop it or sabotage the machines because they saw the strategic threat of giving the Communists these complex machines!

How can I stand on my feet when the government is allowing in material produced at rates that are slave labor devised that I cannot possibly compete against?

I thought this was a "conservative" forum dedicated to rolling back Government, instead it appears to have attracted a bunch of neo-liberal protectionists intent on bringing the north korean' model of "self-sufficiency" to the United States by errecting walls around our borders, thus crippling our economy in the name of "saving" jobs.

Nah, it's a neo-con forum dedicated to forwarding the GOP no matter what the future costs to America...ever read George Washington's farewell address?

Ever read the writings of any of the Founding Fathers?

wow this is really long reply:

"Ummm, How can output rise when the factory no longer exists?"

Well obviously you have not been looking at manufacturing data. And your question is really silly becasue you are assuming that ALL factories have closed. They havent

"I hate it when arm chair economists who never worked in a factory in their life tell us who did work all our lives in a factory how good it is to see factory work disappear."

Well I am sure that agricultural workers felt the same way in the 20th century when they lost their jons due to mechanisation and increased productivity. What is happening to manufacturing is wha thas already happened to Agriculture. Output will rise with significantly fewer workers.

"Make sure you keep repeating the mantra!"
mmmm..its not mantra, its fact

"The problem is not jobs leaving the country, it is not capital equipment leaving the country, the problem is not intellectual property leaving the country, the problem is not contracts going to communistic/fascistic/socialistic government run countries that prop up their companies with government funds to defer losses that the US companies cannot compete against..."

this is mostly not the case. In fact isnt H1B visas importation of intellectual proerty? AS for socialism, the world is less socialistic than it was 40 years ago, yet the US had no problems competeting then

"How can I stand on my feet when the government is allowing in material produced at rates that are slave labor devised that I cannot possibly compete against?"
You have a very low opinion of yourself and your fellow americans. The wage gap between the US and the rest of the world is LESS today than it was in the good old days when we had lots of factories and manufacturing jobs. your prosperity should not depend on keeping other countries from economically developing

"Does anyone here know of any major textile industry in your neighborhood"
Textiles are mostly gone, those that remain pay minimum wage.

"We are handing away the store on this stuff, the technology we are giving away is not just intellectual,"

what you dont seem to understand is that India and China graduate far more science students than does the US. Thus we arent giving anythign away. the idea that they cannot develop their own technology is ridiculous

I cant respond to all the rest. Most of it is ignorant ranting.

Basic point is manufacturing employment in the USa peaked in 1978. For other western nations it peaked in the 1960s or 1970s. Even China will see a peak in manufacturing employment in about 10 years.

What is happening to manufacturing CANNOT be stopped anymore than the decline in agricultural employment could be stopped. Manufacturing will not go away, more will be made with less than 1/2 the nubmer of employees as today.
No policy can stop this, no law can stop this, no amount of ranting can stop this. It is an economic fact that as productivity grows faster than demand as it is in manufacturing and as it has in agriculture, employment will fall even as output rises.

Don't forget to mention the fact that cost-of-living in America is 10X higher due to parasitical factors that have nothing to do with producing anything? (e.g. high taxes spent to support over-paid gov't. employees and "elected" servants").

So many people are on the scam in the good ol' USA (darn workers want a "living wage", they should be happy with a bowl of rice like Chinese workers)

Very good points. Many of the same needless expenses that drive up the cost of doing business in the U.S. also drive up the cost of living for workers. This is what many people fall to take into account when they talk about low wages in other countries. You don't need to make as much if it does not cost as much to live.

"...ever read George Washington's farewell address?"

While I admire the founding fathers, why is it so many Freepers are stuck in a 18th century time warp?

Have you ever known of any political movement that said "lets go back 200 years, to the way things were then?" and was successful in forming a majority?????

"Have you ever known of any political movement that said "lets go back 200 years, to the way things were then?" and was successful in forming a majority?????"

Probably not, but does that make the Constitution and the Bill of Rights null & void? That seems to be the end effect of the actions of both parties year-after-year, to which I say count me out...

Of course, I probably would have gone against the majority in Nazi Germany and been shot as a traitor to the state for spreading the teachings of a man who crucified back 2000 years ago..."lets go back 200 years" if at all possible, but I'm afraid we don't have the heart anymore.

"Probably not, but does that make the Constitution and the Bill of Rights null & void?"

no but it also doesnt mean we should avoid foreign "entanglements" either.

What Washington said was relevant in the 1790s, but not today.

"What Washington said was relevant in the 1790s, but not today."

I beg to disagree with you Suh...

Outstanding rant.

We are not dealing with people who live in the Stone Age! We are not dealing with little Coolies pushing/pulling rickshaws!

It's not only the jobs; we've even trained most of the leaders, movers, and shakers, of those foreign countries. Just check how many were educated at American Universities; and how many were given free entry and financial support to attend; and then to top it off, quite a few them teach our own numbskulls their socialist skills.

And we wonder why the socialists are [apparently] winning!

The reason this has happened is that America has spawned a whole generation of con-artists that have no interests in the future of the USA and are only interested in "getting theirs".

If George Washington had felt this way he would have sold his allegiance to the crown and provided the name of every Son of Liberty plotting to succeed from the rule of Britain...

Unfortunately, most Americans are too dumbed-down, apathatic and brain-washed to take back our gov't. from the "Children of Privilege" and restore the once Great Republic envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

The average voter seems happy to feed at whatever leftovers the DNC or GOP elites in power throw into the trough...

yes, it can be stopped. It is called TARRIFFS.

And it is not ignorance, it is experience, I am living it, not just reading it or listening to some free-traitor cheerleader.

I thought this was a "conservative" forum dedicated to rolling back Government, instead it appears to have attracted a bunch of neo-liberal protectionists intent on bringing the north korean' model of "self-sufficiency" to the United States by errecting walls around our borders, thus crippling our economy in the name of "saving" jobs

You are coming in late to this.

I never called on socialism, it is the free-traitors who are going ot get Socialism, due to the sheer numbers of people who are going to be out of work thanks to outsourcing, or underpaid when their company leaves and they cannot replace the wages they made, but still have the same bills!

As U.S. senators, they need only look in the mirror to see where the problem of lost jobs due to overseas outsourcing has been created.

BUMP!

WFA^® at 24.

oops . . . 25

Tariffs are a 19th century solution to a 21st century problem. Hate to tell you but the US already has numerous tariffs on various products, including cars, trucks, produce etc. Tariffs certainly wont stop the job losses associated with productivity gains and they wont stop the loss of white collar jobs. Not to mention retaliatory tariffs will cost jobs at Boeing, CAT, Monsanto etc.

Think before you leap

neo-liberal protectionists

Another new freeper that doesn't know squat about conversativism, US history or economics. Welcome to FR there are plenty of lberals like you that think they are conservative here. You should feel right at home.