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 ...
Buy a Subzero...it'll last longer than your old icebox did.
Ironic, considering they're both mediocre.
JFK was full of platitudes, thanks to his speech writers...
The "ask not what your country can do for you..." line came from his old headmaster at Choate.
Job loss has been solved previously by engineers.
People who made buggy whips transferred their skills to making belts for motors and the like, and yes I have read how buggy whips were made. As for whale oil lamps, demand for those slowly fell off since electricity was not widespread in the US still the 40s outside of urban areas, and kerosine was pretty much a staright though replacement for whale oil.
As for workers who specialised in rubber products, again, it was not much retraining involved to transfer their skills to plastics. Stamping parts made out of rubber is not that different than stamping parts made out of plastics. Another example is the first machinists were trained blacksmiths.
I am going to be blunt here, but globalists such as you, are quite arrogant, but at the same time, seem to little understand the process involved in the production of goods. I have done research on the turn of the century and the transition of the US into an industrial sociaty, and despite what you may claim, there was no great displacement of workers when newer technology was introduced, the workers did not require extensive retraining, their skills transferred more or less staright though. I know that doesnt fit your ideology very well, but those are historical facts.
Haven't had the opportunity to read the whole thread...just quickly scanned it.
Has anybody pointed to the biggest elephant in the room, i.e. the stupidity of way we tax ourselves?
Our current tax policy is the number one killer of American manufacturing, job-creation, savings and capital formation.
If we don't change it, and soon, there won't be anything left to save.
I believe that was a Veblen theory -- he came up with the word technocrat. I don't see it happening.
Our current tax policy is the number one killer of American manufacturing, job-creation, savings and capital formation.
We can't cut taxes down so that salaries are a buck an hour or less. We could eliminate all corporate taxes, outlaw unions and let kids work, and China would still be cheaper. In fact, China is getting a little pricey for some items. Companies are starting to look at Vietnam as the next factory.
My sister's electric bill soared when she took my dad's 20 year old refrige for a spare one for down the cellar. She got rid of it and bought a new spare, electric bill barely increased with the new one.
US steel companies made some boneheaded moves when it came to union contracts in the 30 years after WWII, but still made a heavy amount of profits well into the 70s. Like so many old line companies, the Steel firms managment was taken over by accountants and slaves to Wall Street, and they refused to invest in new technology that could have kept them ahead of the curve.
Yes, the union contracts would have still been a problem, but in the end, the buck stopped with the managment. They decided to boost dividends and invest money into other ventures such as shopping malls, airlines and even sports teams. An excellent book to read on how corporate managment in the US lost its way is the "Wreck of the Penn Central", that came out in 71.
Another example is how Roger Smith at GM refused to invest profits back into GM itself, and wasted billions unopn billions on Areospace and other unrelated industries such as Hughes Aerospace.
I ain't talking about the paltry measure of merely "cutting taxes."
I'm talking about the stupidity of the income tax, period.
We are loading up our products, those that are consumed in America AND abroad, with all of the costs of taxation. Meanwhile, foreign-made products have none of those costs built in. They not only have the advantage in the world market, they are advantaged in our market too. It's sheer stupidity, and in fact economically suicidal.
Oh another example in another thread, about Railroad porters, many were absorbed into the RRs freight end starting in the 50s, wile other went to work for Hotels and Motels.
The point is that the amount of job displacement going on now and for the last few years, really does not have an equivlent when looking though history. In t he past, skills were largely transferable, now they are in so many industries, not.
I'd have to agree. And I say that as no big fan of unions...
Well foreign products from other first world nations do have taxes built in, as in the costs of national healthcare in these nations, its just that the costs are tabulated differently, in a less direct manner compared to the US.
Well, the simple fact is, if we had the brains to go to a consumption-based retail tax, our products would be totally free of the tax burden, both domestically and internationally...while at the same time, foreign-made products, sold in our market, would finally be helping to carry the burden of taxation.
This is the core problem. All of the other stuff is insignificant in comparison.
Even the Union contracts were by in large the result of Wall street being short sighted. When the profits were rolling in, managment took the short term approach and bought labor peace at all costs. For example, there was no reason why a steel worker in 1975 was making in 1975 dollars, $15($60 hr equivlent today) hr along with 6 weeks of vacation a year, a 1 hr paid lunch and other goodies. Now I do believ in having a well trained, well paid workforce is essential for a stable society, but the excess in the 70s were a bit much. That said, we are at the other end of the spectrum today, and I fear that as more and more Americans become economically stressed, the road to a European style Socialist state will get shorter and shorter.
. Now again, even with these bloated contracts, the steel firms still could have re invested profits and adopted newer technologies, and by the 70s, attrition started to take hold in the steel industry and could have planned a future with a leaner labor model, but sadly, managment was clueless.
Politics can change all and any aspects of the "Global" economy, no matter what Wall Street may say. There is no Free Lunch despite what the likes of Kudlow claims.
That will never happen, a value added tax, I think a flat tax would be an easer sell, but you are correct that the Byzantine style of taxation in the US does hinder many things.
That said, is there any developed nation that is based on a Value Added tax? I can not think of any off hand.
Are they older and closing in retirement? I can sympathize with people in that category.
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