Posted on 08/02/2016 5:46:48 AM PDT by expat_panama
Foreign trade took a beating at both major party conventions, with speakers blaming free-trade agreements for all but wiping out U.S. manufacturing and eliminating millions of middle-class jobs. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have promised to renegotiate or abandon trade agreements with key U.S. trading partners such as Mexico and Canada. That would be a colossal mistake.
The number of manufacturing jobs in the United States has indeed been in a long decline since the late 1970s...
American factories and American workers are making a greater volume of stuff than eve...
...Americas 21st century manufacturing sector is dominated by petroleum refining, pharmaceuticals, plastics, fabricated metals, machinery, computers and other electronics, motor vehicles and other transportation equipment, and aircraft and aerospace equipment.
We produce more manufacturing value with fewer employees...
The political anger about lost manufacturing jobs should be aimed at technology, not trade.
The political anger about lost manufacturing jobs should be aimed at technology...
...globalization and trade agreements have made a huge contribution to the ongoing success of American manufacturing...
...more than half of what Americans import each year is not for consumption but for production...
Like technology, globalization has allowed American manufacturing workers to trade up to more challenging and better-paying work...
...millions of U.S. jobs are eliminated each year by technology and changing consumer tastes, only to be replaced by new jobs that are being created by the same dynamic forces.
The right response to anxieties about trade is to invest more in education, retraining and enhanced labor mobility, not to pick trade fights with other nations that would put in jeopardy the success of Americas modern, competitive manufacturing sector.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
fwiw, there are more manufacturing employees now than during the recession:
So they’re including “flipping burgers” and “bagging fries” as “manufacturing jobs now, huh?
hahahahaha!
Trade helps the whole economy in the aggregate, but the benefits are very spread out across large numbers of people, while those who are specifically and badly hurt are easily forgotten, and are making their anger felt politically this season with leadership from Trump and Sanders.
The number of jobs may have increased, as the country has grown. But what percentage of jobs in America are in ma ufacturing vs. 20 and 40 years ago?
It's a beautiful new day campers and stock indexes were mixed in lower volume yesterday and futures traders today see more of the same (-0.03%) for stocks and metals are seen +0.39% ---meanwhile gold and silver are powering up to $1,358..85 and $20.76!
Flood warning from the bean-counters:
8:30 AM Personal Income
8:30 AM Personal Spending
8:30 AM Core PCE Prices
8:30 AM PCE Prices
2:00 PM Auto Sales
2:00 PM Truck Sales
From today's IBD website:
8/01/2016 The most absurd plank to appear in either party's platform this year is the Democrats' call to "raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour over time and index... More
5:32 PM ET Oil fell below $40 a barrel in New York for the first time since April, falling into a bear market on concern that the global supply glut will expand. Saudi... More
2:05 PM ET This economy may be perilously close to recession. That was the message of the second-quarter real GDP report and its meager 1.2% growth rate. Over the past year, real... More
5:25 PM ET New revelations put Hillary Clinton's actions while in office under deep suspicion -- including her enabling a "reset" with Russia that seems to have led it to expand its power. More
6:17 PM ET Stocks ended mixed Monday in another orderly session that saw biotech stocks prop up the Nasdaq and oil stocks weigh on the S&P 500. More
I think slapping a 40% tariff on anything you import into the country won’t affect anyone in the United States and bring manufacturing back. The United States makes everything that you need to make anything that was ever made or will ever be made.
/sarc
The fact that technology has made manufacturing more productive is nothing new. We have had ongoing technology improvements in manufacturing productivity ever since we started making muskets in a factory with interchangeable parts in the 18th Century.
What is new is the closing since NAFTA and other global trade agreements of tens of thousands of factories in the United States and the opening of factories making those same goods in Third World labor countries like Mexico and China and yet being granted access to the US market.
The movement of much of the US industrial base to other countries under global trade agreements is not because of advances in technology.
What we are seeing with China and Mexico is not natural comparative advantage. It is purely labor and regulatory arbitrage under global trade agreements and the reason is it happening is because the US government has become the agent of the global-redistribution Left and of transnational businesses, and is no longer the agent of the American people.
Explain to me the replacement jobs that are being created when Ford, Carrier, or any of those other big companies move their factories to Mexico
I guess I missed that part
Well, since the paper mills and garment factories closed around here, there are lots of new jobs.
Heroin distribution and meth cooking are growing fast. They always need volunteers at the suicide hotline. ER visits are up 50%.
I suppose that's one way to look at things, sure.
Sorry. America has given “free trade” a thirty year test drive. It’s NO SALE!
This has nothing to do with offshoring factories. Different issue altogether.
So the 55,000 plus factories off shored since 2001 are now all automated? Right......
The USA could make everything it needs. The only thing stopping that are the Free Traitors that have bought off congress.
BLS - Bureau of Lying Statistics.
FRED - Federal Reserve Economic Dissembling.
So many people talk about “free trade” as if it were a monolithic, never-to-be-questioned “benefit”.
These people need to consider the TERMS of so-called “free trade”...
It should be obvious that the prices of all goods are NOT set through haggling in the “marketplace”. And it should be obvious that some parties have more market power than others when setting the TERMS of trade.
And so it should be obvious that some “trades” are more “free” than others.
The devil is always in the details — for those smart enough to look for those details.
Well stated.
......and manufacturing hair weaves and nail designs, and vaping .........................
I’m waiting for Ford, Carrier and Nabisco to announce price reductions now that their products are hecho en Mexico. Globalism is making us all rich!
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