Obama Names Treasury Official to Spur Manufacturing

[pampango]

Source: New York Times

President Barack Obama plans to announce on Monday that he has named a top Treasury Department official, Ron Bloom, to lead an effort aimed at revitalizing America's hard-hit manufacturing industry.

The U.S. manufacturing industry has lost hundreds of thousands of jobs in recent years to overseas competition as some U.S. businesses have relocated abroad to take advantage of cheaper labor. Bringing an invigorated manufacturing base back to America was a campaign pledge of Obama last year.

Bloom's appointment follows news that the U.S. manufacturing sector had expanded for the first time in 18 months and had the highest monthly output in two years.

Bloom said in the statement that a strong manufacturing sector is a cornerstone of American competitiveness. "As we meet the challenges of globalization and technological change, it is vital to have a concerted effort across the administration to support an innovative, vibrant manufacturing sector," Bloom said.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/09/06/news/news-us-obama-manufacturing.html

[Zenlitened]

1. K&R

[skipos]

2. Well, there aren't t 50 posts complaining about Bloom yet

so he must be OK. I don't know anything about him.

[global1]

6. Tuesday We'll Probably Find Out A Lot About Him From Glenn Beck......nt

[justgamma]

3. China recently lost a case

The FTC ruled in the manufacturers favor. They will impose a surcharge on incoming products from China. The result? We are busier than ever and we are one of the few manufacturing plants that is hiring.

Now that wasn't so hard, was it?

[madrchsod]

5. what do you make?

[justgamma]

23. Nothing complicated.

Refrigerator shelves, freezer baskets, and wire products.

[David Zephyr]

4. Now, this is good news.

And his union background will serve us well.

[OHdem10]

7. Hooray!

[NecklyTyler]

8. I hope Mr. Bloom pushes for Green Sector manufacturing

We could sure use some home grown solar panels, wind powered generators, and electrical distribution infrastructure jobs

[pasto76]

12. my thoughts exactly

[Pharlo]

9. Bloom needs to get out there immediately and emphasize

the importance of a GOOD health care reform plan (preferably single payer) to the return of manufacturing jobs to the US.

These are NOT two independent topics and need to become cojoined in the minds of the US public.

[dhpgetsit]

10. My formula for fixing manufacturing. Obama, I hope you're reading. LOL

1. Screw "free trade" and impose tariffs on imported stuff that we can make here.

2. Get Employee Free Choice Act passed.

3. Roll back the Reagan tax cuts.

[Amos Moses]

11. Put this man on the White House payroll.

Preferably in a position that would have a lot of influence on the President.

[Mari333]

16. amen

[defendandprotect]

18. Re-regulate capitalism -- all of these are obvious steps which they're obviously ignoring .. .!!

[Raineyb]

22. Don't forget single payer heallth care

We can't compete in manufacturing if the employers are paying big chunks for health care for the employees. Other industrialized countries don't leave their manufacturing sectors with such a burden.

[Mithreal]

25. Damn straight, with the strong Public Option or Medicare buy-in too.

What is with all the feigned excitement of appointing people when solutions that work are so obvious to everyone but remain unspoken. Naming people czars or to head committees just isn't good enough anymore.

[pampango]

27. Go "European".

1. National health care.
2. Progressive taxation (not only is it more "fair", but if corporations and the rich pay higher taxes there is less incentive to squeeze an extra dollar (or euro) out of labor through outsourcing or pay reductions.
3. Strong social safety net.
4. Effective market and financial industry regulation.
5. Free trade with your neighbors and lots of "un-free" trade with the rest. (China exports more to the EU than it does to the US.) Smoot, Hawley, and Hoover (all repubs) tried tariffs in 1930. Roosevelt campaigned against those tariffs in 1932 and dismantled them with bilateral deals with other countries once he was president.)

[jonestonesusa]

13. K & R!

Kudos to President Obama for thinking in terms of specific sectors of the economy and starting to customize how we approach those sectors. We need to do the same thing with specific regions of our country that have struggled the most economically.

[Skink]

14. So sorry about that Chinese drywall. So sorry....

do we need anymore poison imported?

[Odin2005]

15. Good!

[defendandprotect]

17. 50,000 manufacturing plants closed in the last ten years!!

Does this mean "spur" new capitalism on . . . or subsidize it?

[MannyGoldstein]

19. Chinese workers make $3 a day, and companies can pollute at will.

Until we have tariffs against micro-wage countries, manufacturing ain't coming back.

[Mari333]

20. wsj article about Bloom

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/02/16/who-is-ron-bloom/

[gtar100]

21. "in recent years"... What?! In "recent years"!!! How about the last 29, fools!

The U.S. manufacturing industry has lost hundreds of thousands of jobs in recent years to overseas competition as some U.S. businesses have relocated abroad to take advantage of cheaper labor.

Like that's new to them. For christ's sake! That's not news to any of us. Guess they had to spill the beans to make sense of this.

And they say "some U.S. businesses". Fuck them! How about nearly our **entire** manufacturing base. And are there more accurate numbers than their "hundreds of thousands" figure? Or did they think all these low-wage service industry jobs were equivalent to manufacturing and engineering positions?

You would think that everyone in the media were not from around here. Hell, they act like they're not even on the same planet. These media people are pathetic.

[Mithreal]

26. Traded it for a service economy.

Blame it on the last few years of Bush and it's easy to ignore what every President since Reagan has done to our people.

[pnorman]

24. "Who is Ron Bloom?"

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/02/16/who-is-ron-bloom/

pnorman