State of Manufacturing Base Is Cause for Concern

National Defense Magazine ^ | 02-01-04 | Lawrence P. Farrell Jr.

[NMC EXP]

I suppose the PRC will sell us the material we need if we ever get in a real war.

Or maybe the WTO will call a time out on the war so we have time to retool?

Regards

J.R.

[NMC EXP]

An adios to manufacturing heads up.....

[truthkeeper]

Another BFO alert. (Blinding flash of the obvious.)
Thanks, good post.

[Willie Green]

Articles previously found at TradeAlert.org are now at AmericanEconomicAlert.org

[hedgetrimmer]

The Navy League has been sounding the alarm on the ship building industry for years.

What has happened to this country that people don't know or care that our ability to produce our own food and manufacture goods sought worldwide for their quality, engineering and inventiveness are what made America great?

[NMC EXP]

Seems like all these "BFO's" are bad news.

Regards

J.R.

[hedgetrimmer]

Protectionism is not the answer

Why?

[NMC EXP]

Thanks....got it bookmarked.

Regards

J.R.

[truthkeeper]

How can we forget how quickly we were up and running after Pearl Harbor? All thanks to our strong manufacturing base.

I mean, it's not like all our "friends" are going to come to our assistance the next time, is it?

[NMC EXP]

What has happened to this country that people don't know or care that our ability to produce our own food and manufacture goods sought worldwide for their quality, engineering and inventiveness are what made America great?

I could write a book but here is the Cliffs notes version:

(1) corporations managing quarterly earnings reports rather than a company in it for the long haul. Corporations which bribe congress and administrations to implement GATT, NAFTA, WTO, FTAA, ad nauseum.

(2) egalatarian altruism infecting decision makers -- export US wealth to the rest of the world to ease the suffering in poorer countries.

(3) a secondary and college education system which has elevated "free trade" to the status of a civil religion.

(4) an ignorant and uninformed public.

Regards

J.R.

[NMC EXP]

THe author writes for a defense industry magazine.

He knows which side of his bread is buttered. He is not going to take a shot at "free trade".

Instead he goes on to say that "government and industry" should spend more on tooling and R&D.

In other words he wants our taxdollars to support defense related R&D and excess manufacturing capacity in the US because the major corporations will not do it.

Regards

J.R.

[meenie]

Sadly we are not the same country that we were after Pearl Harbor. Short term profit takes precedence over the health of our nation. You cannot maintain a national defense without a national manufacturing base. Without a national manufacturing base, we cannot maintain an economy to support the expenditures a first rate military has to have to remain strong. Rosy the Riveter was just as important in WW II as GI Joe for the victory over the Axis Powers.

[neutrino]

Great post! And your comments about our leaders' misguided altruism is right on target.

We are committing national suicide in the name of getting cheaper trash that we neither need nor really want. I fear we - or, perhaps our children - will pay a terrible price.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Protectionists! :>)

Yeah, it's called national defense.

With tin foil hat in place I am seriously saying that I agree with any argument that "cheaper trash" is a diversion.

"Export[ing] US wealth to the rest of the world" is the objective. Another form of Kyoto? (A cheap commie trick.)

A product of the "Third Way?"

A big step toward disarming / hamstringing our military? That after all leads to the co-objective: the destruction of our miltary.

But who is doing this....

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Or is it just useful idiots like Lenin said?

[DustyMoment]

Someone in the Administration needs to think back to December 7, 1941.

We don't have the same capability in the US today to build enough war weapons to defeat the Japanese and the Germans. Given our current manufacturing capacity we MIGHT be able to wage a protracted war with the French (eventually wearing them down and accepting all their surrenders), or be able to wage a sustained war against an army from Madagascar consisting of people who don't give a d*mn one way or the other.

But we can never repeat the feats our manufacturing capability allowed us to accomplish between December 7, 1941 and August 14, 1945.

[primeval patriot]

Watch cases to war production. His hair is white, but his eye is keen. Fifty years of precision work for a Kentucky watch-case manufacturer, now converted to war production, gave this artisan rare skill in developing fine dies for the arsenal of democracy. Wadsworth Watch Company, Louisville, Kentucky.

Palmer, Alfred T., photographer.

CREATED/PUBLISHED 1942 Feb.

Squaring part of a torpedo. Skilled machine operator working on the process of torpedo manufacture in an eastern Navy arsenal.

more here

One of America's thousands of skilled women war workers, this young Midwesterner twirls the wheel that controls the drilling of holes in machine gun parts. A skilled machine operator, she formerly processed spark plugs on a similar machine, but turned her efforts to war work when the factory was converted to the manufacture of machine guns. A.C. Spark Plugs.

Rosener, Ann, photographer.

CREATED/PUBLISHED 1942 July.

Women in war. Machine gun production. Intent on the important job at hand, Elsie M. Terry uses a precision snap gauge on the machine gun part she has milled. One of 2,000 women employed by a Midwest plant, converted from spark plugs to machine gun manufacture, Mrs. Terry typified the American woman war worker. Serious, skilled and reliable, she is making an invaluable contribution to the war effort. A.C. Spark Plugs.

Rosener, Ann, photographer.

CREATED/PUBLISHED 1942 July.

[Minuteman23]

I suppose the PRC will sell us the material we need if we ever get in a real war. Or maybe the WTO will call a time out on the war so we have time to retool?

Nothing more needs to be said.

[Minuteman23]

I suppose the PRC will sell us the material we need if we ever get in a real war. Or maybe the WTO will call a time out on the war so we have time to retool?

Nothing more needs to be said.

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

Good post.
Henry Kissinger, Senator Lieberman, Congressman Duncan Hunter and others have spoken on this issue, not in terms of economics (which brings in so many pet theories), but in terms of national defense. Unfortunately, there has been little notice by the media or the GOP.