Posted on 07/03/2003 9:25:05 PM PDT by edsheppa
Edited on 04/22/2004 11:49:19 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
What role will U.S. manufacturing play in the national and global economies in the coming years? What jobs will be left for American workers?
It's more than an academic question for many company owners. Stan Donnelly, who owns Donnelly Custom Manufacturing Co. in Minnesota, is studying Mandarin in case he has to move his machines to China. Already, he buys molds from China to make his custom-designed plastic parts. To date, Mr. Donnelly has been able to keep production of those parts in the U.S. But as his customers increasingly demand lower prices, he wonders if he will one day need to move production to Asia as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Less than 50 years, almost everybody worked in manufacturing. As manufacturing productivity improved, both through automation and through trade, people were freed up to work in service industries -- from flipping hamburgers to computer software to making movies.
Fifty years from now, people will look back and marvel at how many people used to work in what we now call services, most of which will be automated by then. We don't know what people will be doing for a living in fifty years, but we do know that people will always have needs and that other people will find it in their interest to satisfy those needs.
Preventing free trade may benefit some individuals or groups, but facilitating free trade will bring greater benefits to more people. To compete we will have to actually educate our children -- and ourselves, as adults -- but that is a problem to be solved not by building up trade barriers but by breaking down mental barriers.
Service sector jobs are, typically, a step dopwnwards, for the last century, not a move to better and higher paying jobs. Government jobs soak up excess workers and keep them off of the unemployment roles. There are more people working for government than for the manufacturing industry.
Given OPIC by the American government and currency controls by China the governments of these nations have implemented subsidies for Chinese manufacturing.
I fail to see how a worker making $7/week or month will be able to afford a washing machine in the near future. Presuming the wage 30 times higher and a savings rate of 1$/week in 100 weeks they will be able to save $100. However such a savings rate is vastly higher than one may expect. Look for rates more like $.10/week. The lower paid worker is barely managing to subsist. For them a luxury might be some occaisional protien or more than a one room hovel without running water and electricity. More likely they are living in a Chinese dormatory and any privacy is a luxury.
Bullsh$t. There is no such thing as free trade what we have is subsidies to foreign government from the American taxpayer. As to the $1200 microwave oven the cost mostly lowered when they were being producued in the USA. It was competition within the American market that lowered costs.
Now when we come to tennis shoes. The wholesale cost differential was on the order of magnituude of 10% for foreign manufacture. The $100 tennis shoes do not cost significantly more to make than a $2 pair of tennis shoes it is all the advertising and marketing.
Do not talk about things you are ignorant of.
Niether is the CEO of Boeing. If the USA has a substantial reduction in the standard of living here people such as he might well be facing having to live in a walled guarded compound travel in armored limosines and still face continual fear that someone will manage to take them out. Where on this planet does he expect to live?
First, we are not in a free trade envirornment. free trade would mean that US produced goods and services would be allowed to freely compete in foreign markets as well as foreign goods and services being allowed to compete in american markets. Further, government subsidies for offshore investing would not exist.
As to trade barriers the USA developed as the foremost manufacturing economy with trade barriers in place that is behind protective tarriffs for manufacturing. That is historical fact. Unless and until you can prove your case I would suggest you not comment about that of which you lack knowledge.
... there are of course other USA taxes...
Union wages that are inflated
Benefits for everything from daycare to non-married spousal benefits
The ubiquitous LAWYER TAX that affects all businesses
Minimum wage laws that drive up everyone's wages
It's all well and good to gripe about jobs moving overseas, but there are financial reasons for it happening. Those reasons must change and likely won't. This change includes the gov't subsidizing these moves.
There are whole industries that will either move overseas to be competitive, or will go under by refusing to support American jobs. In either case, the jobs will be gone. If you currently find employment in one of those industries, change now while you can.
ampu
No, kidding? You would have to be an idiot to pursue any kind of factory or machinist work in the USA today. Unless you speak Chinese and are willing to work for 46 cents an hour, of course!
Now that the free traders are well on the way to wiping out manufacturing in America, they are doing the same to the IT field. The WSJ is full of it!
Yes, I know several machinists out of work too and also a very highly skilled tool & die maker -- my husband. The plant where he had worked for 22-1/2 years closed a little over a year ago, and after much searching for a similar type job, he recently went to work at a local grocery store. He is making about 1/4 of what he was earing just over a year ago. I guess he's lucky to find a job at all. One of the jobs he applied for over the last year was for an airport screener. Do you think his veteran status (Vietnam veteran, two high security clearances, communications expert) got him anywhere? Guess not. I assume 54 years old is over-the-hill!!
I think, and I could be wrong, the washing machine miraculously will not cost the $500 it costs here.
I used to live in Europe. I would buy Kellogs Nutri Grain bars. I would pay $2.00 for a box of them. I come home and a box of Nutri Grain bars can set me back $3.69.
I know you are a cutey!
Now if teh currencies were allowed to float the price might be somewhat comparable not necessarily exactly the same as temporary currency fluctuations up or down may inflate the price in one economy and deflate it in another.
Violence results from major economic dislocations.
If this crappola applies to individuals, it should apply to corporations also. Corporations should not be allowed to outsource jobs because if they had not gotten their start in the USofA they would not have been successful. This is what corporations owe the Americans that have fought and died for their freedom, growth and prosperity.
The problem is there are not politicians willing to do what is necessary to maintain the underlying health of the American economy. I really have nothing against the "rich." What I have a problem with are government policies that are designed to destroy American jobs, be they manufacturing, IT, or picking vegtables. There used to be a very big market for migrant workers to pick tomatoes in the USA then people developed a tomato harvesting machine. Capital investment increased American productivity. i want to see more capital investment in the USA.
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