Posted on 08/12/2009 6:11:35 AM PDT by La Lydia
...In "The Graduate"...Dustin Hoffman's Benjamin is given a one-word bit of career counseling by one of those shallow and corrupt grown-ups at a shallow and corrupt grown-up cocktail party: "Plastics." Forty-two years later, the line has picked up a meaning that the makers of "The Graduate" could not possibly have anticipated.. today, the reaction is, "Oh, right: America still made things then."
We don't any more...Since 1987, manufacturing as a share of our gross domestic product has declined 30 percent. Once the world's leading net exporter, we have become the world's leading net importer. In 2007, we exported $1.2 trillion worth of goods and services but imported $1.8 trillion...
...there are moves afoot that could begin to end this...Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Congress's leading proponent of American manufacturing, is calling to make permanent the research-and-development tax credit and injecting some pro-American considerations into our trade policy.
...the decline of manufacturing presents a huge obstacle to U.S. economic recovery... in every recovery since the Great Depression through 1990, when American consumers started buying more, U.S. factories recalled laid-off workers and started making more. Today, when the government puts more money into consumers' pockets, it means that Chinese factories recall their workers and start making more. It means that American retailers will hire more low-wage workers...
The long-term decline of American manufacturing has depleted our high-tech, cutting-edge industries as much as it has our more venerable sectors. Our furniture makers have lost 60 percent of their productive capacity since 2000...The United States fell behind China in the value of our high-tech exports in 2004, and we've fallen further behind every year since...
What makes the decline of American manufacturing particularly galling is that we're not falling behind because we're inefficient...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I think you’re right.
Politicians don’t seem to realize that everybody can’t get a college education and a white collar job.
Our politicians should get their heads out of their Obamas and realize that it’s the tradesmen/truckers/plumbers/welders/powerline workers/farmers/etc who provide us with the things we use.
We could eliminate EVERY politician and lawyer and still function.
We couldn’t do that if we eliminate those real workers.
So, the solution is quite simple, isn’t it?
I was sure the "solution" was wrong as soon as I saw the name Sherrod Brown. I read the rest of the article.........and sure enough, he's wrong in suggesting even more government interference.
Well, we ARE inefficient... taxwise, that is. The doubters who don’t think there is a Laffer curve, much less that we’re way right of its peak, ought to see a deal where all Federal tax would be cut by 3% each year keeping up as long as total revenue did not decline.
People like to praise free markets. Nice concept. But, with apologies to Patrick Henry: "Gentlemen cry 'Free Markets! Free Markets!' But there are no free markets."
I think we need to return to real work, and maybe tariffs are a way to do that.
I don’t think the Brown idea of making the r&d tax credits permanent is a bad one. But I don’t agree with the author’s conclusions.
Not so simple: the rise of the income tax era (vs. tariffs) coincided with the rise of the manufacturing era. Going back to a mess of tariffs would be to throw one grand monkey wrench in.
When NCR and DHL left Ohio (the latest in a long, long line)
Ted complained that they didn’t even talk to his administration.
The reason Ted is that Ohio’s priorities are not at all aligned with business/factories priorities. In fact Ohio and associated City governments are 180 degrees occupied with driving out not attracting businesses/jobs.
So long as politicians are driven to create new legislation regardless of the actual consequences businesses will be driven out.
It is not a difficult principle: Business are about profit. More taxes, regulations, and red tape translates to less profit.
Ted, Mayors of Ohio’s cities, if you want jobs, do two simple things: Go back over existing law with a representative business panel and revise it to work in partnership with business. Second, require any new laws to be reviewed and scored in terms of impact on businesses and jobs.
The bottom line is that this is still a free country and barriers to relocation are low, especially if other states and cities are offering enticements.
Cut regulation. Cut labor regulations. Cut environmental regulations. Eliminate duplicate regulations (e.g. state and federal coverage of the same issues). Cut business tax rates. Cut federal laws which give unions unearned power in the marketplace. Drill here, drill now. Mine here, mine now. And so on.
We drove on I95 past Baltimore, Philadelphia and NYC. I was amazed at how many large factories are rusting away -- large factory buildings with broken windows and missing doors.
To visit Penn and to grab a cheese steak at Geno's, we had to go through much of Philadelphia. Philadelphia looks like a 3rd world city. Factory after factory is just rusting away.
As we went through NYC on I95, NYC looked like a 3rd world country. My daughters couldn't believe that people actually live in the hell holes that our big cities have become.
Who let this happen?
Ironic, isn't it.
The root cause for the problem is that it costs too much to do business in the US.
For one thing, Americans cost too much, especially in comparison to Chinese or other low-wage workers. This includes not only direct wages, but also benefits and things like employer contributions to Social Security and Medicare. Unions are partly to blame for this, but most of us have rather high expectations which thereby entail high costs.
For another thing, the cost of doing business is too high, what with regulations, taxes, paperwork, and so on. Overhead is enormous, and taxes are onerous.
Government can help a lot just by getting out of the way -- reduce taxes, primarily.
It is mind-boggling that, at the end of WWII, America had 60% of the world’s manufacturing capacity. 60%!!
Today, as the result of bad tax policy, environmentalism and nanny-state politics that have driven manufacturing facilities offshore, our manufacturing capabilities stand at ~20% of the world’s capacity!! Since the end of WWII, we have shiped !40% of our manufacturing capability and the jobe that went with them to other countries!!!
Zero’s Cap and Tax plan, if the Senate passes it, will likely be the end of all manufacturing in America.
“Who let this happen?”
We did!
WE = The American public at large
But also technology has eliminated much of the inefficiency of foreign transport. In the past total reliance on foreign goods was more risky, because of wars, and risks of losses from storms, better weather forecasting has reduced much of this risk.
However, that still does not mean there won’t be risk in the future, should say, China become more belligerent.
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