You've got to be joking.
ROFLMAO!
---Theodore Roosevelt, 1895
Posted on 12/12/2006 8:10:42 AM PST by A. Pole
U.S.-made products are losing market share to imports across a wide range of core industries in the United States, according to a new study.
Among 114 product categories, U.S.-based producers boosted their domestic market share in only three categories between 1997 and 2005: heavy trucks and chassis, computer storage devices, and computer chips. Imports gained market share in 111 categories.
The survey from the U.S. Business and Industry Council, a nonprofit group in Washington of small and midsize manufacturers and a critic of U.S. trade policy, used Census Bureau data. The survey excluded inexpensive consumer products found in Wal-Marts, Targets and dollar stores. Toys, clothing, sporting goods and other products in those retail stores are typically blamed for the soaring trade deficit.
Instead, the study focused on industrial and engineered products, such as wireless equipment, plumbing fixtures, tire cord, navigation and guidance systems, power boilers, and heat exchangers.
Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the council and author of the study, said yesterday that the study showed that the United States "is failing to pass the test of global competition." He said the country appeared to no longer be a place where many manufacturers want to invest in advanced factories.
A spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers, the main trade group for manufacturing companies, said yesterday that there was a "mixed picture" for U.S. manufacturers and dismissed Tonelson's study as too pessimistic. "Manufacturing is still the heart and soul of the U.S. economy," spokesman Hank Cox said. U.S. manufacturers are losing market share, but the entire market is growing, allowing them to expand, Cox said.
"To be sure, U.S. manufacturing companies have a lot of problems," Cox said. "But to have Alan Tonelson and Lou Dobbs running around waving a bloody shirt, saying 'we've been sold down the river' does not help." Dobbs, a CNN commentator, has criticized U.S. trade policy.
The last recession pounded the manufacturing sector, causing it to shed about three million jobs. Profits at U.S. manufacturing companies have rebounded modestly in recent years. But job losses from earlier in the decade appear permanent, as factory employment has remained stuck at 14.3 million to 14.4 million since mid-2003.
"The reality is that until there is a change in the trade situation, there won't be new manufacturing jobs," said Daniel Meckstroth, chief economist with the Manufacturers Alliance, a nonprofit educational and business-research organization. The group is free-trade-oriented.
Meckstroth said the number of U.S. factories declined every year between 1997 and 2005, falling to 334,700 from 374,600. Meckstroth said he expected the factory level to stabilize this year. He said the nation's trade deficit as a share of the economy, now at about 6 percent, is unsustainable.
Many economists have said a weaker dollar might help manufacturing companies. But Tonelson said he believed import penetration rates would keep rising even when the U.S. dollar was weak. "Anyone who thinks that a major U.S. devaluation will be a cure-all for U.S. manufacturing is really kidding themselves," he said.
Tonelson also said it was unlikely that U.S.-made products were capturing a higher share of foreign markets, which would offset losses at home.
"It does not make sense to suppose that U.S. products are doing better in foreign markets than in their home U.S. market," Tonelson said.
You've got to be joking.
ROFLMAO!
Seasonally adjusted sales for these manufacturers totaled $1,455.2 billion for the quarter, up $15.2 (+/-5.7) billion from the $1,440.0 billion recorded in the second quarter 2006, and up $73.6 (+/-18.9) billion from the $1,381.6 billion recorded in the third quarter 2005. After-tax profits averaged 8.5 cents per dollar of sales for the quarter, 8.1 cents last quarter, and 7.9 cents a year earlier.Manufacturing Corporations Seasonally adjusted after-tax profits of U.S. manufacturing corporations totaled $124.3 billion in the third quarter 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau reported. Third quarter 2006 after-tax profits were up $7.3 (+/-0.6) billion from the $117.1 billion recorded in the previous quarter. Third quarter 2006 after-tax profits were up $15.3 (+/-1.2) billion from the $109.0 billion recorded in the same quarter a year ago.
Economic and Statistics Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce
I wonder if Tonelson the omniscient, and his minions of doom here at FR -- who treat his every word as gospel -- can explain how US manufacturing profits are setting records while the sector hemorrhages market share due to our disastrous free market policies.
Reagan Democrats and Buchananites register Independent these days. So you know.
based on stories from the business articles, Toyota factories in the USA still use the same family of suppliers they would have used in japan. They don't use any significant local suppliers.
That can be easily solved by a trip to your local Toyota dealer, where you can look at the federally-mandated domestic content sticker on each auto.
While virtually every new car program has similar goals to Camry's, most companies' efforts to reduce price and increase value amount to little more than lip service or supplier squeezing. But Toyota took a very calculated approach to pulling out cost. Unlike the competition, Toyota took a critical look at its own process to find cost savings. In the end, it created new development tools, established new priorities, reduced labor costs and is taking Camry's U.S. domestic content from 85 to near 100 percent. [emphasis added]
That's simply because registering as Socialists isn't a viable option.
Maybe maybe not; it would be hard to prove either way. What we know for sure is that they campaign on the freerepublic for Democrats by posting stuff from Democrat groups like the U.S. Business and Industry Council.
And I'm sure that switching to cheap labor imports is highly profitable. I'm not surprised. As the two-to-one trade deficit attests...and further implies that substitution is happening.
But unlike you, I'm also not impressed with the contention that you blindly swallow...that these are in fact "American manufacturers" anymore. Maybe once. But not anymore.
There has been quite a row in the National Association of Manufacturers over just this issue...with the bulk of its members...concluding that the big guys are fronting for the importers...and have co-opted NAM to be an import lobby.
Just because a product is built abroad does not mean the company is not American.
If a company is outside it shouldn't be called an American Company.
Perhaps you can direct the rest of us to the section where the U.S. Dept. of Commerce discusses how its figures are calculated?
Keep in mind...this is the same Federal Government which now refuses to publish M3 numbers.
Obfuscation by the Phoney Free Traders and Big Spenders in the Administration is apparently the name of the game.
Didn't think you could. Thanks anyway.
Ditto.
Burden of proof is on you. Besides, I'm tapped out after dealing with the guy who thought U.S.-built Toyotas are primarily manufactured with foreign parts. Incidentally, that also flies in the face of the BS you posted.
My wife had a haond a few years ago, it was made in Ohio adn had 76% of the parts from the US, the ford Rustangs (Mustangs) are made in the US but 70% of the part are from overseas. Quess my wife honda was more American then the rustang. Sad.
I come from a long line of Reagan Democrats. We are church going, blue collar or the children of blue collar, social conservatives, but in trade and economics we are more of a moderate. If you do not like it, to fraking bad! The republicans can not win nationally without us. Free trade is a loser of an issue.
George W. Bush won without the Reagan Democrats. Twice.
Exactly --this is something like the header I had in mind:
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