Posted on 08/10/2003 8:00:24 AM PDT by Willie Green
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:10:37 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
In August 2000 the American economy lost manufacturing jobs. It lost more in September and October. For the next 33 months, right up until today, the same thing happened. Raise your hand if you detect a pattern here.
If you want to know why the job market is so weak, manufacturing is a good place to start looking. While service employment has roughly held its own over the past 18 months, manufacturing jobs have disappeared at a rate of about 75,000 per month. And then there is the bad news. Some forecasters think the decline will continue, even if the overall economy gets better. ''It is not clear to me why this should end right away,'' said Anirvan Banerji, director of research at Economic Cycle Research Institute in New York.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
What a bogus article...I'll just pick on one paragraph to save space...
I've been involved with robotics for over 20 years...You'll be hard pressed to find any American made robots and if you do, they will have Chinese electronic components inside...This is a bunch of bull put out by the Labor Dept...
Nuts and bolts, pipefittings,??? China...The trend is China, not the U.S. of A...Try to find an American made fishing pole...There's a couple on the higher end but very few...Shakespeare, Mitchell, Johnson reels??? All gone to China along with the quality...
About the only thing listed in this paragraph alone that hasn't gone or is not in the process of moving would be the drugs...And I'm not so sure about that...
This whole article was written to fool some people and it probably succeeded...
You mean like working for the US government? All high-tech jobs can be shipped overseas or performed by someone on a H1 visa.
”Many of those higher-margin, technology-intensive production will remain in the U.S., and should help keep jobs here becoming steadily better, safer and higher paid than in earlier generations.”
This is sheer conjecture. Why should these jobs stay in America? Don’t the manufacturers of high-margin technology intensive products want to make higher profits?
”Other jobs serving certain protected markets, like medical instruments that are carefully monitored and require collaboration between doctors, hospitals and producers, should also remain, as will those involved with making something big and bulky, like kitchen cabinets that are costly to ship, or perishable items like frozen food and bread”
More dreaming! Medical instruments are already manufactured overseas and my grocery offers a wide variety of Mediterranean, Italian, and Mexican breads prepared overseas.
”Demand will also escalate for basic goods like washing machines, cars and telephones in parts of the world where many people have never had them before. That will keep global assembly lines humming”
Sorry Jack but those washing machines, cars and telephones are not manufactured in America!
”concluded a two-year study by the Manufacturers Alliance, a public policy and business research group in Arlington, Va”
Isn’t it interesting that the Manufacturers Alliance does not have a single manufacturer on its staff??????? Go to their web site and see for yourself.
”But positions in computer and mathematical occupations are expected to increase 29% in the coming decade.
This is based on absolutely nothing.
Thanks for adding another career to the list.
I'm sure people can recommend other jobs, too.
But not everyone seems to want to think as creatively as you.
thtr wrote:
You mean like working for the US government? All high-tech jobs [1] can be shipped overseas or performed by someone on a [2] H1 visa.
I didn't suggest "high tech jobs" or working for the government.
I suggested particular jobs.
[1] I'll repeat what I wrote :
I think it might be a good idea to encourage our children to go into careers that are harder to move overseas.[2] As for competing for jobs, against people with visas...Maybe they should think about becoming doctors, teachers, nurses, receptionists, dentists, therapists, auto mechanics, plumbers, housebuilders, etc.
I don't know that there is a demand for workers in each of these jobs, but factoring in "non-overseas-transportability", while considering careers, might be helpful.
I've suggested getting the same kinds of jobs that plenty of other people have held for years. And, my list was nowhere near being all-inclusive.
I'm optimistic that people who have held jobs in factories are capable of holding those other jobs.
I hope you are, too.
They're all on the Executive Committee and Board of Trustees, dummy.
It still makes sense.
Workers with visas won't be taking all the jobs.
US doctors have been "competing" with Visa holders for jobs for three decades.
We have a lot of foreign born doctors, but we still have a lot of US born doctors.
The trick is to be creative enough to find a job in a field with decent pay and a demand for workers.
Come to think of it....that's always been the answer.
...I never suggested working for the government.
But....Come to think of it...you have a good idea.
Being a dental hygienist in the Navy or a doctor in the army might not be a bad idea. Or how about being a librarian at the National Institutes of Health?
Hale to the Bush....Hale to the Bush
Nice of you to wish Bush good health.
We want a healthy president while we fight terrorism
Gee, seems to fly in the face of the empirical data. This piece is based on seriously dated assumptions that no longer hold thanks to white-collar out-sourcing. Computer graduates are unemployed in droves. Mathematical graduates are unable to get work, and in either case when there are jobs...they go to the H1-b hirelings from India. [ Further discouraging U.S. students from going into technical fields ]
Wonder how they reconcile their macho-theory...with hard cold reality. Without manufacturing, the 'innovation' ...we call it Research & Development, goes with it. Witness Motorola. They are investing $10 billion in new super-state-of the art semiconductor plants in Red China, so they can avoid spending $50 billion here. And, oh, btw, they are building a bunch of R&D plants to go with the manufacturing plants. End of the U.S. R&D.
I like a simple life, too, but I have no objection to giving medical or dental care to people serving in the army or navy. And making information available to people through government libraries doesn't bother me either.
Lawyers provide a vital service in an economy based on "division of inheiritance", as opposed to "creation of wealth".
China, South Korea, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Bolivia… is that enough. I’ve been to Japan and Germany too if that counts for anything.
Sorry. Not enough countries for you to have an opinion on this :)
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