Op-Ed Globalization isn't killing factory jobs. Trade is actually why manufacturing is up 40%.

Los Angeles Times ^ | August 1, 2016 | Daniel Griswold

[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...

...America’s 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 America’s modern, competitive manufacturing sector.

[Lopeover]

Left is mobilizing all their forces to promote the commie agenda in support of Hillary.

[central_va]

Supplying drugs to communities ravaged by globalism seems to be a growing business.

[central_va]

Trade protectionism certainly didn’t hurt the USA from 1789 to 1913.

[Nifster]

Go back befor booze....this graph is misleading

[Nifster]

Trade deals are only good if the trade partner abides by them .....our trade partners do not

[Red Badger]

We have vaping stores and nail and hair salons it seems like on every street that has a strip mall.........................

[drpix]

"This message is brought to you by the Gringos for the Reconquista/LA-Times"

[Nifster]

If you don’t like this web site leave

Are you voting Trump who wants to deal with trade issues in a rational way?

[Nifster]

And just where has any one suggested a forty percent tariff?

[central_va]

Displaced workers either become drug dealers, pimps or prostitutes. Or they go to medical school. No middle ground.

[central_va]

The new “wealth creation”.

[cymbeline]

Are hamburger-flipping jobs really considered manufacturing jobs now?

Technology eliminates jobs and also creates them. Does it eliminate more than it creates? Are the created ones lower paying than the eliminated ones? Are the created jobs higher paying but fewer in number. These questions are beside the point. We must allow our free economy to keep our citizens working and having enough money to live decent lives. What’s a decent life? A slippery question.

What we don’t need is an invasion of cheap labor and lower-cost foreign made products. Our citizens need to have jobs. It doesn’t matter if home-made things cost a little more than foreign-made things. Things are real cheap now compared to the past. If a given item costs us a little more than it costs in another country, historically it’s still a good deal. There’s real value to the item being manufactured here.

I want America to be a thriving economy. I don’t want America to be part of a “thriving” world economy (there’s probably no such thing) in which America suffers and the global leaders get rich.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"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"

Explain to me how not having NAFTA would stop those companies from moving their jobs to Mexico? What was in place before NAFTA that discouraged any company from moving those jobs to Mexico? Most economist surmise that if those jobs had not gone to Mexico, they would have been relocated to China without NAFTA. In fact we have lost far more manufacturing jobs to China, not Mexico.

"U.S. employment increased over the period of 1993-2007 from 110.8 million people to 137.6 million people.[9] Specifically within NAFTA's first five years of existence, 709,988 jobs (140,000 annually), were created domestically.[10] The mid to late nineties was a period of strong economic growth in the United States. When a country is experiencing economic growth (i.e. GDP is increasing), there is usually also an increase in employment.[11] Thus, because trade liberalization can sometimes contribute to increases in GDP, it can help to bring the rate of unemployment down in a country. The U.S. experienced a 48% increase in real GDP from 1993-2005."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAFTA%27s_effect_on_United_States_employment

[central_va]

You sound like a Patriot. You are the enemy of the globalist.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

There is more automation in factories now than 20 years ago. There is no question about that. Some of the job losses are due to that. Some of it is also due to plants being relocated. The fact is we have grown in jobs since NAFTA was enacted. Yes some jobs have been lost to Mexico, but more jobs have been created because of NAFTA. Many of those jobs lost to Mexico would have most likely gone to China if not Mexico. How would you stop that?

[Flick Lives]

40%. Round numbers in stats are always a lie.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"Are you voting Trump who wants to deal with trade issues in a rational way?"

Since we have two Democrats running, I have to vote for the one I hate the least. So yes, I'm voting for Trump. At least I think we'll get good judges with him.

[nathanbedford]

I don't think the rules of the game have changed much, the game is to be a mercantilist economy exporting high-value added manufactured goods and importing relatively cheap commodities. That's how the British did it, then the Germans, that's how the Chinese have been doing it up until very recently.

So the question to ask is not, are jobs are being created, but what kind of import export balance do we have in quality as compared to quantity? We ought to ask what is the percentage of manufactured goods being made and being exported as a percentage of the economy?

If the object were only to create jobs we would take a leaf from Milton Friedman story of the Soviet Union in which heavy equipment was not being used to dig a canal but men with shovels. He was told that it provided jobs whereupon Friedman replied, why not have them dig with spoons and create even more jobs.

In a companion article which appeared only a few moments ago it was argued that the low cost of oil is bad for the economy because oilpatch jobs are lost. Many of us pointed out that a low price of oil lubricates the whole economy like a tax cut. The lesson to be learned is that when one monkeys with these matters there are always unintended consequences.

It is unquestioned that our trade policy favors one set of Americans (jobholders and consumers) against another set of Americans (jobholders in other industries). Change the trade deals and you are inevitably going to change the set of Americans who are harmed. It does not come cost free.

Finally, if you want to increase American exports, especially exports of manufactured goods, stop regulating, stop taxing to excess and let manufacturers prosper and export. They hidden cost of leftists' regulations has done untold harm to our export economy.

[central_va]

A 20% across the board import tariff balances the budget immediately and promotes domestic manufactures to stay put. It also incentivizes repatriation of industry.

Smoot Hawley did not cause the Great Depression, that myth is laughable. Pliers are not going to cost $400 a pair if Made in the USA. Cell phones will not cost $4000.00 if made in the USA. Have I covered all the Free Trader scare tactics?

[Mase]

But what percentage of jobs in America are in manufacturing vs. 20 and 40 years ago?

In 1900, 40% of Americans worked on farms. Today it's about 3%. Even so, we grow more food today than at any other time on our history. Should we still be farming on 40 acres with a mule?