[HiTech RedNeck]

Nice if true.

What kind of stuff is being cranked out here? Is half of that guns and ammo?

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Probably the result of inflationary monetary policy.

[familyop]

The Washington Post Manufactures a Fake Industrial Rebound

Alan Tonelson
Monday, January 04, 2010
United States Business & Industry Council

Can the manufacture of hype replace the manufacture of tangible goods as an engine of U.S. wealth creation? Obviously not. But the more articles we at GLOBALIZATION FOLLIES see like the Washington Post’s December 23 paean to dollar weakness as a cure-all for manufacturing’s ills, the more powerful and widespread this delusion seems.

After all, domestic manufacturing remains mired in a genuinely historic downturn. Yet what Post reporters and editors evidently consider of paramount importance is fragmentary evidence that “The weak dollar has made it easier for U.S. manufacturers of parts for appliances, automobiles and other equipment to compete globally on price and is helping them win back business lost to overseas competitors.” Even better, according to the article, “Economists say [this shift] should help the country's economic recovery.”

It’s arguably interesting, as the observed, that “U.S. exports were 12 percent higher in October than in April”– although that claim per se tells us nothing about exports of manufactures specifically. It may even be interesting that 47 percent of manufacturers in one survey reported “doing more business in the United States as a direct result of the dollar's decline....”

But a little perspective, please. Although inflation-adjusted manufacturing output is now 4.61 percent higher than in its June trough, it remains 12.85 percent lower than when the recession officially began in December, 2007. Real output in key industries like machinery, fabricated metal products, steel, construction equipment, and heating and cooling equipment stand at 15 to nearly 25-year lows, while in sectors like ball bearings, machine tools, and engines and turbines production stands at all-time record lows. And manufacturing capacity is actually shrinking for only the second time in modern American history.

And although manufacturing exports are indeed up this year, manufacturing imports have increased even more. Thus the manufacturing trade deficit is rising once again (by more than 30 percent since the April trough stressed by the Post), and consequently is slowing growth overall and sinking the whole economy further into debt.

There’s nothing wrong with, as that classic song says, “accentuating the positive.” But when it comes to domestic manufacturing, this article reveals the Post to be whistling in the dark.

Sources: “Dollar’s decline a boon for U.S. manufacturers,” by Dana Hedgpeth, The Washington Post, December 23, 2009; calculated from “Federal Reserve Statistical Release: Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization, Tables 1 and 2, 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, and 1E of the G.17 Supplement; and Table 10: Industrial Production: Market, Industry Groups, and Individual Series, Data from January 1986 to present, and Data through 1985, Seasonally Adjusted,” http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/table1_2.htm; and calculated from Trade Dataweb, U.S. International Trade Commission, dataweb@usitc.gov

Alan Tonelson is a Research Fellow at the U.S. Business & Industry Educational Foundation and the author of The Race to the Bottom: Why a Worldwide Worker Surplus and Uncontrolled Free Trade are Sinking American Living Standards (Westview Press).

[familyop]

It’s the Trade Deficit, Stupid!

Wednesday, February 03, 2010
by Peter Morici, Ph.D.
http://americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=3401

[lewislynn]

Nameless manufacturing plants are churning out the products?

Someone name 5 American manufacturers from this study and the "american" cities where their "manufacturing" plants are located.

[dennisw]

We have a huge trade deficit so we must not be manufacturing the right items. A lot of our so called manufacturing is making Twinkies, Cocoa Puffs, TV dinners and other processed foods. This stuff is almost non existent in China.....What China makes is a truer mix of what we traditionally think of as manufacturing

Germany and Japan are manufacturing super powers yet don’t run trade deficits. They manufacture more high end items and export them

[death2tyrants]

recent round of quarterly earnings

To Obama, increased earnings should equal increased taxes.

[dila813]

Raw Materials Pegged to Dollars and Products Sold in Dollars.

As long as the Dollar stays low and the dollar is stable, it will be a building boom in Mfg.

The concern here is on spending and a collapse of the Dollar and Raw Materials (China) removing their peg.

[iopscusa]

Maybe US Mfg is rebounding, no thanks to the FedGov. BTW, I find BI to be full of crap on most things, just like the rest of the crap that spews out of NY centered economic news...the commentary on BI is chock full of creepy Kos types that know nothing! They are the People Mag of Business newz!

[Flavius]

Well I’m gearing to do some good old US manufacturing.
So, if anyone could back my 1M bank loan it would be appreciated.

[DH]

Ok, I give up. Who is buying all of this stuff being manufactured here in the U.S.? It sure the hell isn’t Americans.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/35de8406-155c-11df-8f05-00144feab49a.html

“China confirmed as world’s top exporter”

How’s that “free trade” thing working out?