Shouldn't we be apoplectic that we aren't MANUFACTURING....

[JanMichael]

...stuff???? Should that not bother ALL of us (Regardless of occupation...We DON'T MAKE THAT MUCH STUFF ANYMORE!)? Is an affluent Service Economy (long term...Over 50 years) even remotely feasable? What the hell will everyone do? Trade houses until there's only one owner of all Real Estate in the country? Is the "Middle Class" doomed with the WTO/WB/FTAA outsourcing bonanza?

I know it's getting late but WTF is going to happen to the bottonm 90% over the next few years?

Yeah, it'll happen faster under Bush but...We must PRODUCE things!

[mikehiggins]

1. We are, we are. Well, at least I am.

Free trade is a fraud intended to do just what Ross Perot said it would. The world will eventually consist of three kinds of people; the dirt poor, the filthy rich and the scum that exist to protect the filthy rich.

But hey, maybe I'm being too optimistic.

[JanMichael]

2. I've had some ugly epiphanies lately...Perot's "Giant Sucking Sound"...

...was RIGHT! Sure he was daft on everything else but man...

[sweetheart]

5. giant sucking sound

Please explain that reference... i don't know it, and it sounds insightful.

[JanMichael]

7. Google it. Perot's campaign was based on two issues:

One sound and one stupid.

"A Giant sucking sound" is the correct one. He was a tech robber baron. He saw that we'd lose even that eventually. Sure he was focusing on either textiles or plastics...Either way he was right. His billionaire buddies sold out the American Worker for some more profit to spend on people like Paris Hilton...

"Flat Tax" (Or a similar scheme that would benefit the very rich) was the stupid one. No need to describe that.

[Yupster]

27. It was Perot's argument against NAFTA

He said if we pass NAFTA, we will hear a giant sucking sound and that sound will be millions of jobs leaving America.

Search for a transcript of the Gore versus Perot Larry King debate on NAFTA. Gore tore poor Perot to shreds, but I tend to think Perot was right on that one. I changed my opinion when my company moved its phone banks jobs to Manila.

[JanMichael]

33. This may be the first time that I've agreed with you!

At least post-wise:-)

[cthrumatrix]

46. we are ...but corporations clearly have an agenda to maximize profits by

screwing thier workers....it's time we start screwing them...quit becoming a "good shopper"...screw them and tell them when they move manf back to the US ..you will buy again

[Sugarbleus]

50. LOL..

Soooooooooooooooo true!
I actually HAD a real job oh, way back in 1984!! It's been temp services ever since. Now, I'm disabled.

I'm of the "boomer" generation. I remember when one could go to college if they found a way and earn a phd, go into a profession etc. The rest of us still had manufacturing to fall back on. There was something for everyone to do if he wanted to work. We worked hard and hoped to have a pension afterwards. We SAVED money...(WHAT STOCK MARKET???) Eventually, we could buy a house. Novel eh? We didn't want fame, we just wanted to feed our families and go camping once in awhile. Perot was RIGHT ON THE MONEY (and so is Edwards now). I remember Perot's lectures about NAFTA etc. I KNEW he was right when he said it. I was a supervisor at Seagate then and saw what was coming down the pike from the inside of the company. I was appalled, though I never thought it would get this bad.
Dean is PRO nafta. He believes we can't change the globalization of the world economy, though he had some ideas on how to "modify" the rules of nafta that I might get behind.
We have to STOP the outsourcing of everything. WE have to STOP the companies from being allowed to get off the ground with our sweat only to take the jobs away to some cheaper labor market. Thats a crime. This is a huge country; EVERYONE CAN'T be a CEO et al! There has to be some employment that the common person can do and do with dignity to earn a living.!! Today, even the WHITE COLLAR jobs are being shipped overseas!
I fear for my children and my grandchildren.
DOWN WITH NAFTA,WTO, AND THE REST.
Freaked out, Sugarbleus :scared:

[Ksec]

3. if a war ever starts

and we are isolated...bad shlt man. Really. Ive been talking about this on another site and the RWankers seem to think we can always rely on others to supply us. Thats preposterous. We are fast becoming a country that can be put in harms way by an embargo or a ban on us by other countries that may be pissed by our actions of late. It dangerous. Very dangerous to rely on anyone for all your goods.

[eleny]

4. We are!

Even parts for our munitions are manufactured in other countries. Heck, I'm even watching Lou Dobbs talking about job exports right now in his replay. If I'm watching him, you know it's bad!

[camero]

14. That's more than likely how are military may be defeated

We've outsourced so much and spent so much money on fancy hardware where the parts are made overseas. That all a country has to do to weaken us is to lower the quality of the parts.

They take our money, we get faulty guns, planes and tanks.

Nero fiddles while Rome burns.

[eleny]

21. My cousin was a mechanical engineer for Litton

when they still had gov't military contracts. He said that they'd design parts for military and the prototypes would come back from foreign companies so shabby. They'd have to be sent back over and over until they got it right. He said it was not so when the parts were made in the U.S.

[camero]

28. It's the new trojan horse.

But the idiots running the gov are so blind to greed that they can't even see this.

[htuttle]

6. That cow left the barn a long time ago

(as Perot would say, I suppose).

Remember when a household could not only be supported by a single breadwinner, but they could also reasonably expect to be able to buy a house for their family before they were 25?

The legs of the middle class were kicked out during the 80's. That's when everyone started needing two income households, and were really put at the mercy of corporate migration.

As far as the majority of people in the US goes, it's been downhill ever since. The whole tech boom really didn't benefit that many people directly, other than providing a lot of interesting gadgets, use of the internet (which is cool), and a whole new sector of mid to low range service jobs. A very small percentage of people got rich. Most got poorer.

We obviously can't keep a perpetual motion machine of an economy going that consists of making each other drinks, waiting on each other's tables, and giving each other taxi rides (3 jobs that are nearly outsource-proof).

Feudalism is the likely outcome if trends continue.

[JanMichael]

9. This trend MUST be either stopped OR...

...accepted for a time then an uprising that...You know...

[Yupster]

29. Irony can be so ironic

The internet, which fed the boom of the 90's now allows workers in India and the Philippines to do informational and processing work for Americans in real time, thus enabling the jobs to be shipped overseas.

[Old and In the Way]

38. I totally agree.

I've been in manufacturing all my life (well 32 yers, anyway). In the very early 80's, I was a buyer for a machine tool manufacturer (built surface grinders, drill presses, and gear hobbing machines). One of the components we bought were industrial moters (5-40 HP range). Motors have a heavy labor component as a % of total cost. GE was a primary supplier. They were the one of 1st majors to outsource their motors to Mexico. I saw this trend ramp thru the 80's and 90's.

Now, I think it's too late.

Think about it. The world has moved on, developing countries now have an industrial infrstructure and that wouldn't change. The worldwide consumer is going to decide how the dollars/peso/pounds/Euros/yen/RMB he/she spends is allocated. If widget "A" is $10.00 and widget "B" is $1.00 for the same product value, it's a no brainer.

Get used to it. We either develop new markets and transform our economy or we ride the standard of living down to where we equalize with the rest of the world.

A Chinese factory work makes a $1.00/hour. There is no pressure to increase the wage because there are 20 workers ready to take the next available manufacturing job. While that sucks for us, that's good for him/her....beats starving in the countryside.

I read, with humor, about the so-called poor quality of non-American manufacturer's. Quality is a composite function of raw material specifications, manufacturing processes, management focus,internal quality systems, and product marketing price points. Manufacturing location doesn't enter into the equation anymore.

[JanMichael]

39. Great post...But it's late, I'm drunk, and I don't see any solutions!

Other than some worldwide Labor consolidation that changes the entire fucking system!

[Old and In the Way]

41. Well, I guess you could say the worldwide socialist revolution has

been successful.

A story. I was having a few bears with friends in China this summer. We were watching "The Last Waltz" on DVD. I mentioned to my friend....gee these guys were my musical hero's in the 70's...who were you listening to? He said, very calmly, "I had no heros in the 70s. My family and village were too busy trying to find enough food to eat to think about such things".

I guess the moral of the story is that few Americans were thinking about worldwide markets and the plight of 90% of the world's population. Now that we've been globalized (thank TV, IT, the internet) this is the raw reality of the world we reap.

The irony is that we spent the 60s/70s fighting communism in SE Asia. The bad news is we were successful.

[JanMichael]

42. I'm feeling 'bout half past dead.

Love the Band too.

And you're right, we'll reap the sad fortunes of our selfish intentional (Most times unintentional) obtuseness.

[Yupster]

54. You're drunk?

no wonder we're agreeing. We'll no doubt go back to disagreeing tomorrow.

[PsN2Wind]

52. Being in manufacturing also

although out on the shop floor as a diemaker rather than in an office, I can also comment on some of the imported tools we got from China to sell to those whose only criteria was price. Much of it was crap. We had a rate of rework of about 30% and scrapped about 5%. Some of the welds, supposedly TIG, looked like poor stick welds with a lot of porosity and blowholes. Some of the welds appeared to start with stainless rod and finish with a coat hanger.

[chaska]

8. A nation that makes nothing, unmakes itself.

Been saying it for many years. Nobody listens. Wake up, America!

[sweetheart]

10. deskilling

What is really spooky, is that as the jobs go offshore, the skills to teach the trade-arts will atrophy that the jobs may never return without subsidy and government support... actually not jobs, but manufacturing, same same in the way i'm speaking.

Britain has similarly destroyed its manufacturing while economists chant "free trade is good" and in a way, its a reverse colonialism where the old colony states get new rights and powers as they gain leverage and wealth from the old colonial powers... sorta reversing previous injustices done in an odd irony. (forgetting the domestic population)

Its all the bigger-is-better thinking in business schools and the accounting concept of mergers to create "more" value 1+1=3. Yet the result of the mergets is actually destruction of diversity and adapability, like a cancer that breaks down individual cells and their immune system to morph them in to a giant mega-malignance under the foot of wall street dominion.

All the while, the mechanism of economic growth of MEGA_BIG corporations is a fallacy. The emphasis de-emphasizes the real engine of growth... small and medium businesses... and every focus on big ones only undermines the already tenuous situation further.

I don't think the situtation will reverse, rather only through a much worse future than the great depression of the 1930's... the bush-depression... and only after such a mega-mess collapse could thinking re-form around an economic thinking that is symbiotic and not destructive.

[JanMichael]

11. Basically you're thinking along the lines of:

"It Can't Happen Here" of "Iron Heel"?

The "Bad" WILL happen and hopefully "WE" will emerge from the destruction and gather about the shattered remains of a exploded/exploitive system and land neatly into an Coopertaive Commonwealth...

We can only hope...Well no. "Hope" is the word used by those with no recourse/no power....We HAVE power, it's just diluted! We are the foundation.

[sweetheart]

16. Labour and socialism

We may indeed be the foundation, but the psychosis of american brainwashing is soooo reactive against socialist arguments for regulating business that i think indeed, it will take a total collapse... perhaps either from a weimar republic currency inflation AND/OR a war where millions die... The result of WW2 in britain, was a tremendous emergence of socialism, as the people who died defending the nation demanded their social rights... and if enough americans had that intense claim to their social rights, the current would shift.

Really big socialist changes have only been triggered by draconian draconian pressures... peasant revolt 1381; russian revolution; french revolution; chinese long march; WW2 in europe. Every notch they rein in the horse of the people's will, the more likely they are to produce a bucking bronco and be thrown.

History shows no other way.

[JanMichael]

19. BAD:GOOD.

I know the current idiocy in America is inpenaterable...Collapse will soften that attitude. Collapse is wanted by the Bushites, they WILL exert a weird sort of semi-violent Fascism. Corpo=Fuedalism...Or some other cute name for BAD people.

Then the "Personal Libertarians" will switch their team....

[tritsofme]

12. Arent 80% of all jobs in the service sector right now?

nt

[JanMichael]

13. I'm too lazy to look that up!

Stats????

[camero]

15. I did read that somewhere too

I think it was in Sunday's edition of the St. Pete times op/ed.

www.stpetetimes.com

[JanMichael]

17. I'm disturbed by your "Sunflower-Happy Face"!!!!!!!!

Ow, ow, ow!

Oil, yes, we can make oil...

[camero]

18. Sheeeite, not friday anymore.

I'll change it...lol

[camero]

20. better?

:P

[JanMichael]

23. Symbolic of the American zombies I see.

Bastard.

[camero]

26. LOL

Come on, were on the same side. Now that you mention it, it reminds me of the freeps too.

[JanMichael]

30. Bwah! I hope you realized that I was commenting on the microwave...

...suicidal freaks! Pop! PoP! pOOp! Sizzle...

Same team brother. No doubt in my mind.

[camero]

32. Yeah, I did

:)

[John_Shadows_1]

22. Manufacturing improved this month...

... but I basically agree - you can't overcome the trade deficit unless you make stuff to sell. But this decline in the dollar is helping exports, at least temporarily.

[JanMichael]

24. Seasonal at best.

Brass tacks? Regardlesss of Party?

We MUST start making our own clothes, cars, plastics, electronics, etfreakincetera!

Seriously.

It must happen or only the very rich in America will be ok...Oh wait, that's their plan...

[htuttle]

25. It's not going to help that much

That's the problem with so many of the components being made overseas.

Most of what passes for manufacturing in the US is made from parts made in other countries. These components much be purchased, of course, and the depressed dollar makes these parts more expensive. The same goes for most raw materials, and alarmingly, much of our food supply nowdays (unless you live in Ag country and buy local, which is still more expensive). Add in more expensive fuel and transportation...

About all they can save money on is US labor, ie., us.

[Yupster]

31. Economics will solve it for us

When our wages go down to the point where they meet the wages of India coming up, then there will be no reason to move jobs overseas anymore.

[JanMichael]

34. We all choose our "Gods", yes?

You're a believer in the benevolant hand of that fuzzy bitch "Economics/The MARKET", I'm not:-)

I prefer placing my "faith" in Humans...Not Capital.

[camero]

35. One thing they don't think of

That the "market" is run by humans. So as go the humans, so goes the "market".

[htuttle]

36. True, but it will take longer than that

Right around the time that India's wages start to move up, China will have successfully transitioned into a high tech labor farm.

At that point, both the US and India will have to start competing with China on more than just injected molded plastic goods and cheap textiles. Already there are movements in this direction. The only thing keeping a lot of things from moving to China now is low wages in India.

What crumbs do you expect that 'The Invisible Hand' will have left on our table at that point?

[Old and In the Way]

40. China is way ahead of India in technology manufacturing.

India's manufacturing is primarily "primitive" industrial metal work (castings, maachining, etc).....and software/IT. China dwarfs India in size and infrastructure capabilities for hi-tech manufacturing. Japan, So Korea, and Taiwan can't get into China fast enough........

[dpibel]

53. This is supposed to be reassuring?

Don't worry! As soon as we catch up to India on the race to the bottom, they'll stop exporting jobs!

Which is to say, as soon as Americans are ready to live at an Indian level of earnings/consumption, the capitalists stand ready to let them do it.

Did I miss something here?

[Yupster]

55. I didn't say this was a good solution,

but unless we come up with something better, that will be the outcome. It will be good for India though.

[JanMichael]

37. I figured that this would need a kick.

It's not a pretty, easy, thread. It's ugly, depressing, tiring....

[Spazito]

43. Just to add an iteresting comparison...

Canada just increased it's job growth by 57,000, 36,000 of those in full time positions and many of those in the manufacturing sector. Now, for the US to be comparable, it would have had to increase it's job growth by 570,000, 360,000 of those in full time positions, I didn't make note of the number or % of manufacturing jobs so can't do a comparison on that one.

One other interesting note, the Canadian dollar has risen the highest against the US dollar in 7 1/2 years, one would have thought that it would have depressed our exports and therefore reduced the need for to increased manufacturing jobs, but that is not so. It has astounded the experts in Canada.

Edited to correct spelling

[iverglas]

45. comparative job growth

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20031205.wbjobs21205/BNStory/Business/

The economy created 54,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate fell, ... .

The federal agency said that of the job growth, 36,100 were full time positions and pointed to the revival of manufacturing hiring and strong gains in Quebec. The unemployment rate fell to 7.5 per cent from 7.6 per cent a month ago.

Since September, the economy has created gangbuster growth, with 166,000 jobs created for the strongest stretch since early 2002. In the past two months alone, 120,000 positions were added.

... In the United States, meanwhile, non-farm payroll growth came in worse than expected as the nation created 57,000 jobs compared with forecasts of 150,000.

... In Friday's report, Statscan said a key to the growth in November was a bounce back in manufacturing sector employment, mostly in Quebec and Ontario, which added 24,000 jobs across several industries. ...

24,000 manufacturing jobs is roughtly equivalent (1:9 ratio) to 216,000 in the US.

.

[Spazito]

47. Thanks, iverglas

I didn't have all the figures on hand and the manufacturing # is important. I have to admit, I was blown away by the #s myself.

[iverglas]

48. me too

blown away by the numbers.

And I just wanted to fix that weirdness in the previous post. The population of Canada to population of the US ratio isn't 1:9, it's 1 to 9.

;)

.

[Yupster]

56. Didn't know Canadian unemployment

was that high. I'm kind of surprised.

[blm]

44. Kerry just brought this up at the Florida convention.

He has been pushing this for quite awhile.

www.johnkerry.com

[Redleg]

49. We are making lots of weapons, some are even WMDs!

I read somewhere that our recent ramp-up in manufacturing owes mainly to increased demand of defense (offense) related goods.

[priller]

51. In "Wealth and Democracy"

Kevin Phillips shows that, historically, the ascendancy of service and financial interests over manufacturing does indeed signal the start of the decline of the country. That doesn't necessarily mean it's true in our case, but the precedents aren't good.