DoD $$$ would never of gone to replace PRIVATE machinery/etc. anyway...
Posted on 02/04/2008 5:47:14 PM PST by Clintonfatigued
In an important exegesis on Melman’s relevance to the current American economic situation, Thomas Woods writes: “According to the US Department of Defense, during the four decades from 1947 through 1987 it used (in 1982 dollars) $7.62 trillion in capital resources. In 1985, the Department of Commerce estimated the value of the nation’s plant and equipment, and infrastructure, at just over _$7.29 trillion… The amount spent over that period could have doubled the American capital stock or modernized and replaced its existing stock” (7).
The fact that we did not modernise or replace our capital assets is one of the main reasons why, by the turn of the 21st century, our manufacturing base had all but evaporated. Machine tools, an industry on which Melman was an authority, are a particularly important symptom. In November 1968, a five-year inventory disclosed “that 64% of the metalworking machine tools used in US industry were 10 years old or older. The age of this industrial equipment (drills, lathes, etc.) marks the United States’ machine tool stock as the oldest among all major industrial nations, and it marks the continuation of a deterioration process that began with the end of the second world war. This deterioration at the base of the industrial system certifies to the continuous debilitating and depleting effect that the military use of capital and research and development talent has had on American industry.”
Nothing has been done since 1968 to reverse these trends and it shows today in our massive imports of equipment — from medical machines like _proton accelerators for radiological therapy (made primarily in Belgium, Germany, and Japan) to cars and trucks.
(Excerpt) Read more at mondediplo.com ...
While the anti-military bias of the author is flagrant, his point about the deterioration of the manufacturing base is unfortunately accurate, even if the rest of the article is over the top.
This is a joke........ it is pure leftist ideals at work throughout.....
read
then it made sense to hire people; the only way to grow was to leverage yourself. then you moved.
but you still owned your factory.
and he had to go to a French Paper to get Published.
I just saw an example of a woman who was induced to buy a home for $750,000 with $10,000 down and an adjustable mortgage. Her income? $38,000/year. WTF! She probably couldn’t afford the property Taxes let alone any of the interest or principal of the loan!
If these guys were peddling securities they would be in jail or, at least ,facing heavy fines and banishment from the industry. Instead they’ll just be allowed to go on to the next, ill-informed, victim and we’ll be asked to bail out the Lender in some form or fashion.
This is free market Capitalism run amok IMO.
Manufacturing is in decline everywhere in the world. Why? Because technology in just the last 20 years has replaced most of the old smoke stack industry jobs. Who is developing the technology that makes those machines work?
Microsoft, IBM. etc.
Conservatism doesn’t mean being reactionary. The decline in the manufacturing base is a natural part of an evolving economy. It Capitalism in action
Code is code.
Bits are bits( cutting bits )
I don’t see why these machines should not last 50 or a hundred years?
Do I think anyone in this article has ever even been in a machine shop? No.
It’s nice to be a lefty. You can seem like an expert without have any basic education or experience in what you are babbling on.
USA government has been giving it’s money away like a drunken sailor , while we can not take good care of our injured soldiers and ordinary citizens. This nation is suffering from inadequate health care and a real lack of good jobs. Millions of people have had the jobs go overseas, and in the meantime, we have Muslims coming hear trying to take any jobs that we do have. Americans are getting the rug pulled out from their feet and they can not stand. It is time for all of us to cry out. Save our Nation!
Speaker: Representative James Traficant, Jr. (Ohio) addressing the House:
“Mr. Speaker, we are here now in Chapter 11. Members of Congress are official trustees presiding over the greatest reorganization in world history, the U.S. Government.
We are setting forth hopefully, a blueprint for our future.
There are some who say it is a coroner’s report that will lead to our demise.
It is an established fact that the United States Federal Government has been dissolved by the Emergency Banking Act, March 9, 1933, 48 Stat. 1, Public Law 89-719; declared by President Roosevelt, being bankrupt and insolvent. HJR 192, 73rd Congress in session June 5, 1933 - Joint Resolution to Suspend the Gold Standard and Abrogate the Gold Clause dissolved the Sovereign Authority of the United States and the official capacities of all United States Governmental Offices, Officers, and Departments, and is further evidence that the United States Federal Government exists today in name only.
The receivers of the United States Bankruptcy are the International Bankers, via the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.
All United States Offices, Officials, and Departments are now operating within a de facto status in name only under the Emergency War Powers.
With the Constitutional Republican form of Government now dissolved, the receivers of the Bankruptcy hav adopted a new form of government FOR the United States. This new form of government is known as a Democracy, being an established Socialist/Communist order under a new governor for America.
This act was instituted and established by transferring and/or placing the Office of the Secretary of Treasury to that of the Governor of the International Monetary Fund. Public Law 94-564, page 8, Section H.R.13955 reads in part:
‘The U.S. Secretary of Treasury receives no compensation for representing the United States.’
Gold and silver were such a powerful money during the founding of the united states of America that the founding fathers declared that only gold or silver coins can be ‘money’ in America. Since gold and silver coinage were heavy and inconvenient for a lot of transactions, they were stored in banks and a claim check was issued as a money substitute.
People traded their coupons as money, or ‘currency.’ Currency is not money, but a money substitute. Redeemable currency must promise to pay a dollar equivalent in gold or silver money. Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) make no such promises and are not ‘money.’
A Federal Reserve Note is a debt obligation of the federal United States Government, not ‘money.’ The federal United States Government and the U.S. Congress were not and have never been authorized by the Constitution for the united states of America to issue currency of any kind, but only lawful money - gold and silver coin.
It is essential that we comprehend the distinction between real money and paper money substitute. One cannot get rich by accumulating money substitutes, one can only get deeper into debt. We the People no longer have any ‘money.’
Most Americans have not been paid any ‘money’ for a very long time, perhaps not in their entire life. Now do you comprehend why you feel broke? Now do you understand why you are ‘bankrupt,’ along with the rest of the country?
Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) are unsigned checks written on a closed account. FRNs are an inflatable paper system designed to create debt through inflation (devaluation of currency). Whenever there is an increase of the supply of a money substitute in the economy without a corresponding increase in the gold and silver backing, inflation occurs.
Inflation is an invisible form of taxation that irresponsible governments inflict on their citizens. The Federal Reserve Bank who controls the supply and movement of FRNs has everybody fooled. They have access to an unlimited supply of FRNs, paying only for the printing costs of what they need. FRNs are nothing more than promissory notes for U.S. Treasury securities (T-bills) - a promise to pay the debt to the Federal Reserve Bank.
There is a fundamental difference between ‘paying’ and ‘discharging’ a debt. To pay a debt, you must pay with value or substance (i.e. gold, silver, barter or a commodity). With FRNs, you can only discharge a debt. You cannot pay a debt with a debt currency system. You cannot service a debt with a currency that has no backing in value or substance. No contract in Common Law is valid unless it involves an exchange of ‘good and valuable consideration.”
Unpayable debt transfers power and control to the sovereign power structure that has no interest in money, law, equity, or justice because they have so much wealth already.
Their lust is for power and control.
Since the inception of central banking, they have controlled the fates of nations.
The Federal Reserve System is based on the Canon law and the principles of sovereignty protected in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. In fact, the international bankers used a ‘Canon Law Trust’ as their model, adding stock and naming it a ‘Joint Stock Trust’ in 1873. The Federal Reserve Act was legislated post facto (to 1870), although post-facto laws are strictly forbidden by the Constitution (Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 3).
The Federal Reserve System is a sovereign power structure separate and distinct from the federal United States government. The Federal Reserve is a maritime lender, and/or maritime insurance underwriter to the federal United States operating exclusively under Admiralty/Maritime law. The lender or underwriter bears the risks, and the Maritime law compelling specific performance in paying the interest, or premiums, are the same.
Assets of the debtor can also be hypothecated (to pledge something as a security without taking possession of it) as security by the lender or underwriter. The Federal Reserve Act stipulated that the interest on the debt was to be paid in Gold. There was no stipulation in the Federal Reserve Act for ever paying the principal.
Prior to 1913, most Americans owned clear, allodial title to property, free and clear of any liens or mortgages until the Federal Reserve Act (1913) ‘hypothecated’ all property within the federal United States to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, in which the Trustees (stockholders) held legal title. The U.S. citizen (tenant, franchisee) was registered as a ‘beneficiary’ of the trust via his/her birth certificate.
In 1933, the federal United States hypothecated all of the present and future properties, assets, and labor of their ‘subjects,’ the 14th Amendment U.S. citizen, to the Federal Reserve System.
In return, the Federal Reserve System agreed to extend the federal United States corporation all the credit ‘money substitute’ it needed. Like any other debtor, the federal United States government had to assign collateral and security to their creditors as a condition of the loan.
Since the federal United States didn’t have any assets, they assigned the private property of their ‘economic slaves,’ the U.S. citizens as collateral against the unpayable federal debt. They also pledged the unincorporated federal territories, national park forests, birth certificates, and non-profit organizations as collateral against the federal debt.
All has already been transferred as payment to the international bankers.
Unwittingly, America has returned to its pre-American Revolution, feudal roots whereby all land is held by a Sovereign, and the common people had no rights to hold allodial title to property.
Once again, We the People are the tenants and sharecroppers renting our own property from a Sovereign in the guise of the Federal Reserve Bank.
We the People have exchanged one master for another.
This has been going on for over eighty years without the ‘informed knowledge’ of the American people, without a voice protesting loud enough.
Now it is easy to grasp why America is fundamentally bankrupt.
Why don’t more people own their properties outright?
Why are 90% of Americans mortgaged to the hilt and have little or no assets after all debts and liabilities have been paid?
Why does it feel like you are working harder and harder and getting less and less?
We are reaping what has been sown, and the results of our harvest is a painful bankruptcy, and a foreclosure on American property, precious liberties, and a way of life.
Few of our elected representatives in Washington, D.C. have dared to tell the truth. The federal United States is bankrupt. Our children will inherit this unpayable debt, and the tyranny to enforce paying it.
America has become completely bankrupt in world leadership, financial credit, and its reputation for courage, vision, and human rights.
This is an undeclared economic war, bankruptcy, and economic slavery of the most corrupt order.
Wake up, America! Take back your country.”
No, it isn't.
Machine tools are a tiny fraction of our industrial base.
Are you serious. Ever heard of wear? We have machines that are ten years old and, true to the author's contention, they were not mainitained or upgraded. The corp. just wanted to run them into the ground. Now they produce half of what they did ten year ago.
CNC is outdated because there are faster more simple controllers out there. PLC's are slow and being replaced with faster more versatile PC's.
DoD $$$ would never of gone to replace PRIVATE machinery/etc. anyway...
They will, but if they are not upgraded, their owner will be undercut and lose business to those who bought new or upgraded their old equipment. Fortunately, the mechanical parts probably don't need any upgrading, well maybe some servos and such, but you probably can't even buy spare parts for their electronics if they are over 10 years old, maybe 5.
No, the defense budget is not the problem.
Only a military loathing sixties style leftist would try to sell that line.
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