Posted on 08/17/2016 7:09:34 AM PDT by Kaslin
International trade figures heavily in the presidential race. Presidential candidate Donald Trump said, "Hillary Clinton unleashed a trade war against the American worker when she supported one terrible trade deal after another - from NAFTA to China to South Korea." And adding, "A Trump Administration will end that war by getting a fair deal for the American people. The era of economic surrender will finally be over." He lamented, "Skilled craftsmen and tradespeople and factory workers have seen the jobs they love shipped thousands and thousands of miles away."
Hillary Clinton has offered her own condemnations of trade and globalization. Some see her stance on trade as little more than typical campaign rhetoric. Bill Watson's Reason magazine article "Hillary Clinton's Protectionist Promises Would Do Serious Economic Damage," looked at Clinton's trade agenda. Watson concluded that for "fans of free trade and globalization, Clinton is a much more appealing candidate simply by not being horrible."
It is true that the number of manufacturing jobs in the United States has been in steep decline for almost a half-century, but manufacturing employment disguises the true story of American manufacturing. U.S. manufacturing output has increased by almost 40 percent. Annual value added by U.S. factories has reached a record $2.4 trillion. To put that in perspective, if our manufacturing sector were a separate nation, it would be the seventh richest nation on the globe.
Daniel Griswold's Los Angeles Times article tells the story: "Globalization isn't killing factory jobs. Trade is actually why manufacturing is up 40 percent." Griswold is senior research fellow and co-director of the Program on the American Economy and Globalization at George Mason University-based Mercatus Center. He says what has changed in recent decades is that our factories produce fewer shirts, shoes, toys and tables. Instead, 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.
Griswold suggests that political anger about lost manufacturing jobs should be aimed at technology, not trade. According to a recent study by the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University, productivity growth caused 85 percent of the job losses in manufacturing from 2000 to 2010, a period that saw 5.6 million factory jobs disappear. In that same period, international trade accounted for a mere 13 percent of job losses.
Manufacturing job loss is a worldwide phenomenon. Charles Kenny, writing in Bloomberg, "Why Factory Jobs Are Shrinking Everywhere," points out manufacturing employment has fallen in Europe and Korea and "one of the largest losers of manufacturing jobs has been China."
While job loss can be traumatic for the individual who loses his job, for the nation job loss often indicates economic progress. In 1790, farmers were 90 percent of the U.S. labor force. By 1900, about 41 percent of our labor force was employed in agriculture. Today, less than 3 percent of Americans are employed in agriculture. What would Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton have done in the face of this precipitous loss of agricultural jobs? They might have outlawed all of the technological advances in science and machinery that have made our farmers the world's most productive and capable of producing the world's cheapest food.
There's one thing to keep in mind. Losing a job due to outsourcing or losing it to technological innovation produces the same result for an individual: He's out of a job. The best thing that we can do is to have a robust economy such that he can find another job.
History suggests another alternative to those concerned about manufacturing job loss. The Luddites were 19th-century English textile workers who protested against newly developed labor-saving technologies. They went about destroying machinery that threatened to replace them with less-skilled, low-wage laborers.
We aren’t talking about labor saving devices. We are talking abut offshoring American jobs to cheaper labor overseas and in Mexico.
Then they sell back to the US, and don’t use the funds they get to buy US products in return. They use those funds to buy US equities and debts. In effect, we are liquidating America.
How much would you tariff each one of those phone calls to prevent off shore customer service? Or would you empower government even more to deny companies the ability to locate their customer service in another country?
Just think how much good could be done if we empowered government to do more good?
It’s up to YOU to refute the point Williams made, not verify it.
Good thing our 401K's and IRA's aren't invested in any of those corporations making a profit. I think we should rely entirely on government largess for our secure retirements!
Even so, the US share of total global manufacturing is three times that of Germany. If you spend time in Germany, you need to ask Germans about their quality of life. There is no way I would ever want to change places with them.
Because of this festering economy we have become a nation of 'Dollar Tree' shoppers. Also contributing to the lack of quality/premium items our society used to seek, is we evolved to a 'throw away' culture. The price is cheap so what if it doesn't the last...a number of Dollar Tree/Dollar General/Family Dollar are just a few blocks away.
“its thinner steel” - That is EPA driven. I am very familiar with the steel industry.
“craptastic plastic parts” - Plastic injection molding is a much easier mfg plant to pass the EPA regs than any aluminum, mag or iron caster. Hence, it makes sense that any OEM works to replace metal alloy casted parts with injection molded plastic parts.
“cheap sourced parts” - More likely the cheap sourced parts are cost nuetral after significant price increased due to the above issues.
“monkeys and children who have no concept of what they are even building.” - How does that explain the quality degradation for the whirlpool washing machines assembled in Michigan?
You might like to talk a lot about manufacturing, but it is clear that you don’t know much about it.
“losing it to technological innovation”
I know someone who has seen a new, major car manufacturing plant. Almost completely robotic.
There are TWO actual humans there. 2. The robots manufacture 24/7/365.
German quality of life makes them a net importer of other European nationalities seeking permanent residence (having nothing to do w/the Syrians).
Additionally, Germany outranks France, Spain and Italy as a tourist attraction, on an annual basis.
As well, they have the most high-tech economy in the world.
For a nation that created/developed the Integral Calculus and Classical Music; they are hardly in need of the opinion of others.
Hahaha! See my post #29. I said the same thing, just much more wordy.
Great. The opportunity here and the quality of life still outweighs that of Germany. Besides, I’m not one to praise welfare states....and Germany is very much a welfare state. Plus, the median income in Germany is lower than all but nine states in the US. I like visiting the country, but I would never want to live there.
So you raised the price of imported cars (and the US cars that compete with them), and Americans now have less to spend on other stuff.
How is that going to keep jobs here?
If $2000 on every car saves jobs, how many would be saved by $4000? Or $6000?
It's easy to dump on the US, and we tend to do that a lot here on FR when a democrat is president. In reality, and with all the problems, there is no where else on earth I would rather live than here...at least for now. And I've traveled the world extensively over my lifetime for both work and pleasure.
Agreed. But the next war isn't going to be anything like WWII. Also, as a teacher, I have a hard time seeing auto workers making $52/hr with benefits while I worked for half that. If they want to keep their jobs and not find themselves displaced by machines or their jobs exported, perhaps they need to temper their wage demands. My last 5 years teaching I never did get a raise. Sorry, but that WWII protectionism just doesn't play in today's world.
No. It would make more sense to say the only way you can collect unemployment comp is if you attend XYZ retraining program at the same time. I'd do the same thing with welfare recipients. Make them show up every morning at 7AM to wash windows, clean toilets, etc. in public buildings. I wonder how fast they would find a real job. But politicians don't want you to have to do anything to get your free taxpayer money. If they actually had retraining programs or made you work for your benefits like the rest of us, people wouldn't be dependent on politicians, and that's the last thing they want.
No. The cost depends upon how you restructure unemployment comp, as I mentioned above.
Better thing that 401k investments benefit fair trading not free trading and globalism. That way all boats may rise,but if one fails it does not mean all incestuous others fail as would your self centered globalist preference do
Oil isn’t included, because it isn’t manufactured. Gasoline is included, because it is manufactured from oil. The benefit of fracking to manufacturing is lower energy costs, and an increase in the manufacturing of drilling equipment.
Funny that you should be mention buggy-whips when outsourcing causes technological regression in the states that practices it. Anyone notice the quality of most of our goods are declining or the costs in things like cars is increasing at an alarming rate?
The problem with economists is their inability to connect how the world works or make accurate predictions.
For example technological innovation has always been driven by the need to reduce labor costs. Thus high wages are required in order to increase our our productivity enhancing developments. On the other hand exporting jobs to low wage factors reduce technological development by reducing the need to save money on labor. This slows tech development and reduces quality.
It wasn't an accident that the industrial revolution got started shortly after the black death wiped out half of Europe and causes huge wage increases that forced people to spend money on machines to reduce labor prices. Economists are all agree on this fact. However, they're unable to connect that same phenomenon to how outsourcing works against improving productivity. All these see is the money coming in and not the hidden loss from tech developments or the costs in human lives when people can't find work.
Remember when you never wanted to buy an American car made on a Monday or Friday?
I'm happy to have a Nissan and a Subaru in my garage, both made here in the States, but using Japanese management and without one minute of so-called "work" from the UAW couch potatoes.
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