Posted on 01/27/2012 9:38:36 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
The U.S. is still the leading manufacturing nation on earth and the percent of GDP that manufacturing occupies has remained about the same for the past 30 years.
By Michael Newkirk, director, SAS
(Excerpt) Read more at industryweek.com ...
But, I do agree with his last paragraph:
Manufacturing in the U.S. is the engine that has largely pulled not only the U.S. economy out of the ditch, but the world economy as well. And if we don't pay attention to what manufacturers are saying about what hinders them from creating new jobs and innovating new products, we do so at our own peril. Manufacturing is not even in the hospital, let alone dead. But if public officials play fast and loose with the truth and use MNCs, and manufacturing MNCs in particular, as a punching bag, they can certainly make her very sick.
Michael Newkirk is the director of Global Manufacturing & Supply Chain Product Marketing for SAS.
We are probably the leading manufacturer of porn and derivatives.
What products are now manufactured it the US. It is very difficult to get a list of products which are currently manufactured in the US. I doubt if there is very much produced.
What a boatload of crapola!! If we are the "leading manufacturing nation on earth", how come most of our goods come from China!!???
The fact is that at the end of WWII, America had 60% of the world's manufacturing capacity. Today, we have less than 20%. Somebody is smoking funny cigarettes if they think that makes us the "leading manufacturing nation on earth".
One of the biggest changes I’ve noticed in basic manufacturing is the lack of new American-made machine tools like lathes, milling machines, etc, which are the starting point for producing things like dies, molds, process equipment, just about everything used in manufacturing. Almost all the old US makes are gone now and the Japanese, Koreans and Chinese presently dominate the market.
We couldn’t duplicate the production we achieved during WWII because today we just don’t have that type of industrial base to build upon.
Our nation now manufactures born regulators for every level of government, government-linked business and academia. Those born regulators rule our country and manufacture lies through their sponsored propaganda. New, small manufacturing operations are effectively illegal, with fake, legalized manufacturing starts allowed only where the landlady/bank awaits with business-murdering flooring costs.
Have fun with the decline of the foreign-manufacturing-for-debt regime. We’re not buying, until it’s all over and better leadership is seen in every level of business, government and academia. Enjoy the slide.
There is a couple of great books that have been written on the subject, but the vital US machine tool industry was targeted for destruction at the same time it was horribly mismanaged (think conglomerates.
In dollar terms, as in the dollar value of manufactured goods, of all kinds, U.S. manufacturing, of all kinds, still represents the largest single-nation amount.
"The fact is that at the end of WWII, America had 60% of the world's manufacturing capacity. Today, we have less than 20%. Somebody is smoking funny cigarettes if they think that makes us the "leading manufacturing nation on earth"."
You are absolutely right.
And, at that time, how many Asian nations, who were into manufacturing before WWII, had their industrial capacity greatly reduced during the course of the war? Japan? Yes. China? Yes. How many Asian nations were not much industrialized before the war? Most. And since then have Japan and China recovered, industrially? More than. And since then are many more Asian nations industrialized now? Yes.
And can many of those same kind of questions be asked, and many of those same answers, be given for many nmtions in Europe and South America? Yes. So the entire "world manufacturing pie" is a whole lot bigger and whole lot more spread out across the globe, than it was in 1945.
The only way that the U.S. would have still been doing 60% of the world's manufacturing is if so many other nations had not improved as much as THEY did since 1945.
We were part of a very small club in 1945. We are part of a bigger club today. The biggest change in our economic relationships with others is less about the U.S. falling back than it is about others moving up to our standards.
Primarily capital goods -- products used to manufacture other products. Things like machinery, raw materials, etc..
The output of American manufacturing has doubled since 1975. I'd certainly like to see it even larger, but people who claim we don't make anything are talking through their, um, hats.
Many, if not most, consumer goods are now manufactured abroad. The U.S. specializes in the more profitable capital goods.
I spoke to one of the old-line U.S. manufacturers in this area. He said a portion of the problem, not all of it for sure, is due to American protectionism when it comes to the raw materials, in industrail metals goods, that his company needs. U.S. steel manufacturers and other metals manufacturers have not been as competitive, in world markets, as they needed to, and U.S. presidents, inlcuding GW Bush, have often coddled them, with protectionist import policies. Its not just that his competitors in Asia have access to cheaper raw materials, but U.S. protectionist measures keep him from getting better deals from our domestic suppliers and keep him, from getting as much as he might otherwise get from elsewhere. I heard the same thing from a U.S. manufacturer of bicycles. He said the only way he could compete with Asian imports is to one way or another get his plants using, or located where they could get, the raw industrial metal products he needs, competitively. He explained to me how a cheaper dollar, said to help our exports, can also sometimes hurt a U.S. manufacturer who must import the raw goods he needs - when the dollar goes down, his invoice from his overseas raw-materials suppliers goes up.
There are many reasons for many of the changes in U.S. manufacturing over the years. They are not all one-sided and they are sometimes as much about what the government has done as what it hasn't. While it's true that we have at times needed "fair" and "fairer" trade policies, our own protectionism in their absence is not a holistically beneficial solution. One manufacturer's source of a complaint against "cheap imports" is another manufactuer's source of exactly the competitive materials his manufacturing plant needs.
King Dollar should be the Treasury’s goal and low, low inflation the goal of the FED. Let the market sort out the winners and losers itself.
• PornUntil we have "fundamental change" with "bold ideas" nothing will change; for the good anyway.
• Debt
• Liberals
• Abortions
• Mushminded Graduates
------and of course…
• Foreign Autos
Such as?? Cars? The asians pretty much control that market. Clothing? Indonesia and China are the largest clothing makers. Jewelry? Europe and the US are the major manufacturers. Consumer electronics? Again, Asia owns that market. Industrial electronics? Europe and Asia.
So, what are the "more profitable capital goods we are manufacturing?? Service sector jobs??
I specified "capital" goods and you respond by naming a list of consumer goods. Capital goods are the products used by business to produce other goods: medical equipment, materials handling equipment, earth-moving and construction equipment, industrial engines, telecommunications equipment, aircraft and aircraft engines, chemicals, fertilizer and lots of food.
That's not the entire list but it's indicative of the type of materials that American manufacturing excels in. Even if taxes on capital and corporate profits, we will probably never see consumer goods assembly return to the U.S. It's not profitable enough and less-skilled and less-educated countries can handle it.
We will probably remain centered on high-technology capital goods because that's where the money is and because we have enough capital [money and infrastructure] to do it (unless Obama gets another term.)
I think “they” changed the definition of manufacturing when the numbers starting looking bad, kinda like the did with unemployment and inflation. I recall a few years back when there was an attempt to add flipping burgers to manufacturing.
Within an hour radius of my home, I can think of these.
A world leader in magnetic resonance imaging machines.
Two of the leading manufacturers of mining equipment.
One of the world leaders in industrial transformers. They just finished a massive expansion.
After these big companies, are smaller manufacturers like.
A company that makes about half the utility trucks for power utilities.
A company that makes the tooling to make lost foam molding for casting.
A company that makes automatic backup power generators. This place is adding 400 jobs this year.
One of the leading manufacturers of sailing equipment. They are building a huge new facility.
This isn’t counting the hundreds and hundreds of smaller companies that make components for other manufacturers filling industrial parks all over the area. I know of smaller shops that prototype for auto manufacturers, others that make specialized aircraft parts.
IMHO, too many people only think of consumer products when they think manufacturing.
As someone who has been in telecomm for over 30 years, I can assure you that most of the manufacturing of that equipment is outsourced to mostly Asian countries. American companies get to put their logo on it, but the equipment is not manufactured here.
Increasingly, what gives the same hardware different operating characteristics is a unique operating system for a given company so that it appears to be a different system. Given the influence of unions on manufacturing costs here, it is simply cheaper to manufacture offshore.
American companies often give the appearance of manufacturing goods because the manufacturing management remains here, but the actual grunt work is in Asia.
In addition, many high-tech companies have sent their engineering research and development efforts offshore to countries like India, Taiwan and China to conserve costs. As with manufacturing, the engineering management remains here, but the acual R&D work is done offshore.
Last but not least, you did stipulate capital goods (and I appreciate your reply - it helps me better understand where you are coming from) and some of my responses could be construed as consumer only. To that degree, I agree with you, but I think a lot of the capital manufacturing you are addressing is primarily for domestic use rather than export. I'm not an expert on medical imaging devices but I have worked with many folks who are they have all complained to me about having to wait for parts to come from either Germany or Japan for their medical imaging euipment.
In 2008, pre-recession, the government published figures which showed a $2.6 billion increase in the export [just the export, not the total manufactured] in communications gear.
All I am trying to say is that American manufacturing is not dead. It exists and its total output is double what it was in 1975. We remain the biggest manufacturing country on the globe and we still produce something like 1/5 of the world's output.
That is not to deny that we have competition or to claim that we wouldn't be better off with more manufacturing. But to claim that we don't make anything is just mistaken.
I concur and I don't think I said that. My point was that American manufacturing is nowhere near what it should be and we have been exporting manufacturing and the jobs that go with it since the 80s.
With respect to the 2008 government report, I am extremely suspicious. We know that the government cooks numbers like that and I would love to see an itemized breakdown of that alleged increase. A lot of the time, things like intellectual property and management services are considered to be exports and are reported as such. That's why I am so dubious of the number, not your presenting it here.
Thanks for a good discussion, I really enjoyed it.
FRegards,
Dusty
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.