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.
Are they flowing back to you or anybody you know?
Do you support such federal mandates?
But those shareholders hire people to clean their pools, mow their lawns, make their beds and watch their children, so it all works out.
yeah, and Paulsen and Bernanke are in China now only because they wanted some good general tso's chicken. rather, they are begging them to deal with their currency peg, because in addition to losing massive manufacturing and technology industry investments being made there, instead of here, we are losing control of the dollar too.
But hey, have a party - everything is just fine.
sure, if you want an $8/hr service job cleaning pools and mowing lawns for the elites.
he knows people at Goldman Sachs I am sure - they just announced their AVERAGE employee bonus today - $622,000.
Are you sure?
No. Thank your friends at the UAW.
No, it's a burden squarely and fairly on you.
I already pointed out the M3 numbers travesty. That pretty much says it all.
As for your Toyota Camry numbers, as solitary examples, don't establish any legitimate counter-point. You need to see the forest for the trees.
China is planning on flooding the U.S. with cars soon. It is already flooding the parts market.
I love the smell of class warfare in the morning.
I refer you to your comment #30, well upstream from mine. Nice try.
But those shareholders hire people to clean their pools, mow their lawns, make their beds and watch their children, so it all works out.
Yeah illegal aliens that make $7.00 an hour or less, no benefits and the money goes back to Mexico to take of their families. You're right it all works out.
These plants are usually in low tax, nonunion states, so I'd say blaming government and (union)labor is exactly the right thing to do.
No. Again, your comment, "Just like the Republicans just won the House and Senate again without the Reagan Democrats," upstream from mine.
I'm accusing you of engaging in class warfare as well. There, glad that's out of the way.
You can't prove we do. More ships? No. More planes? No. More computers? No. More trains? No. More steel? No. More what is being built precisely?
other than your usual obfuscation and data dump two stepping.
You're practicing projection again, I see.
Your portfolio of explanations rivals that of Clinton himself.
Xlinton is your Globalist Free Trade exponent deluxe. He's on your side.
So since you are aligning with him...I don't think you've any credibility in your casual attempt to rhetorically smear the conservative position as "Clintonian".
Talk about "obfuscation"...I was dead on about you.
Interesting.
But they likely don't have a Pension fund cliff hanging over them. The advantage of a comparatively recent start-up.
Demographics is history.
I don't think you should be a shareholder. If you did, you might be able to retire one day with enough money to support yourself.
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