Posted on 12/31/2006 6:25:30 AM PST by A. Pole
AMERICAN manufacturers no longer make subway cars. They are imported now, and the skills required to make them are disappearing in the United States. Similarly, imports are an ever-bigger source of refrigerators, household furnishings, auto and aircraft parts, machine tools and a host of everyday consumer products much in demand in America, but increasingly not made here.
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the experts shifted the emphasis from production to design and innovation. Let others produce what Americans think up.
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But over the long run, can invention and design be separated from production? That question is rarely asked today. The debate instead centers on the loss of well-paying factory jobs and on the swelling trade deficit in manufactured goods. When the linkage does come up, the answer is surprisingly affirmative: Yes, invention and production are intertwined.
"Most innovation does not come from some disembodied laboratory," said Stephen S. Cohen, co-director of the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy at the University of California, Berkeley. "In order to innovate in what you make, you have to be pretty good at making it — and we are losing that ability."
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Franklin J. Vargo, the association’s vice president for international economic affairs, sounds even more concerned than Mr. Cohen. "If manufacturing production declines in the United States," he said, "at some point we will go below critical mass and then the center of innovation will shift outside the country and that will really begin a decline in our living standards."
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"It is hard to imagine," Mr. Tonelson said, "how an international economy can remain successful if it jettisons its most technologically advanced components."
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(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
My father is a woodworker, and highly skilled. He renovated a 110 old house to period, can build kitchen cabinets without giving it a second thought, has made many, many pieces of furnishings... I could go on. He started out as a teenager making duck decoys. And then progressed from there.
At one point he was trying to explain to a group of people what a knife for a lathe was, what a router was and how it worked... and how a woodworker must CUT the plank of wood to the right shape, sand it, stain it, varnish it... as well as assembly.
These people looked at him dumbfounded. They didn't know people MADE things like that. They thought that if you wanted cabinets, you ordered them at Loews.
It makes me laugh because people don't realize the amount of work that goes into making something. First you have to have the idea, then design it, then try to make it... THEN you can spend countless hours "tweeking" it until it works properly.
Things don't just snap together on their own. And if your dining room table is just a snapped together piece of cardboard, why waste your money? Eat over the kitchen sink instead... THAT'S more practical, right?
The number of engineers flooding the field in India and China. Supply and demand -- the more engineers there are, the lower the average salaries.
If you look at the WSJ article I posted just above, you'll note that engineer salaries are rising in most, if not all, branches.
According to the source the WSJ used, it looks like MBA is the place to be:
BETHLEHEM, PA—The hiring outlook is bright for Class of 2007 M.B.A.s, according to a new report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).
Employers responding to NACE's Job Outlook 2007 survey reported plans to hire 22 percent more M.B.A. graduates from the Class of 2007 than they hired from the Class of 2006.
"Projections for M.B.A. hiring are in line with what we're seeing in the job market for new college graduates as a whole," says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director. "Employers reported plans to increase their college hires by more than 17 percent this year."
By sector, manufacturers have the most aggressive hiring plans. Survey results show that manufacturers expect to hire 32.4 percent more M.B.A.s in 2006-07 than they hired in 2005-06. Service employers plan a 15.4 percent increase.
By region, employers in the South, projecting an increase of approximately 59 percent in M.B.A. hiring, are planning the largest increase, closely followed by employers in the Midwest who expect to up their M.B.A. hires by about 51 percent. Projecting less dramatic hiring increases are employers in the Northeast (14.6 percent) and West (13.5 percent).
Respondents also reported salary plans for newly hired M.B.A.s. More than 40 percent said they will offer new M.B.A. hires an annual base salary of more than $75,000. However, the largest group of respondents (approximately 47 percent) indicated they will offer a base salary ranging from $50,000 to $75,000.
The red ink has everything to do with our system of credit and our individual behavior and zippo to do with manufacturing things overseas.
The point I was trying to make was that there would be a continuous demand for new refrigerators even if the old ones were built to last because the number of new households is constantly increasing as are the number of new office buildings; and eventually the old ones would ware out.
Perhaps if appliances were built to last, the average American consumer would have a couple of bucks in the bank.
What does the unearned tax credit have to do with wealth in this country?
Zip.
I could own outright a million dollar home and get the unearned tax credit.
Engineers are suppose to be problem solvers. If they are unemployed, they have a problem they need to solve. It might require a career change or a move..
People who made buggy whips were artisans. That skill simply did NOT transfer to working on an assembly line, making pieces for Fords.I suggest that you go and find out HOW buggy whips were made; from start to finish and while you're at it, explain to us all, how those making whale oil lamps were so easily moved into positions making light bulbs. Oh yes, and do, please also explain how those who had machines for making rubber products immediately, after WW II, used the same machines and workers to make things out of plastic. LOL
The best engineers are problem solvers. And they are like gold. Unfortunately, there are too many in the field who can only solve problems that have been solved previously.
I think I saw that written on a Congressman's website. Conyers or Rangel, don't remember.
I've posted much the same many times. Nothing in the world is stopping you from buying a Honda Civic and taking it apart in your garage.
If you aren't old enough to remember, please go look up what the steel unions were pulling during JFK's administration.
JFK was full of platitudes, thanks to his speech writers. When it came to handling Unions, he was even less effective as than the BAY OF PIGS fiasco.
That, and the total refusal on the part of steel companies to reinvest profits into new innovation or efficiency gains.
I'll give you the T.V.s, but NOT the iceboxes.
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