The lack of manufacturing in this country will make the 2nd Great Depression worse than the first

[NickB79]

That's my fear right now. At least in the 30's, the US manufacturing industry was strong and employed a far greater proportion of the population than today. Now, with only 30% of our economy based on manufacturing, and the other 70% on the service sector, we've dug ourselves a deep, deep hole to climb out of. A second New Deal will be far harder to implement without a larger manufacturing sector.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

[JFN1]

1. Agreed. At least we still made stuff then.

What do we make now? Mocha lattes and debt. Not much to build a recovery on, that's for sure.

[FreakinDJ]

2. I have a machine shop / Job shop

People will still need things fixed and even more so since they won't ba able to go out and buy new

Just then I'll take food as payment

[CrispyQ]

6. We could not find one shop that would fix a small electrical applliance a few months ago.

Fortunately, one shop owner told us about an old German man who did repairs out of his garage, so we took our appliance there. His garage was full of lamps & small appliances. My husband really liked him & got him to talking. He said buisiness was pretty good - picking up, actually.

He's in his 70s, at least. Who will do this type of work when he's gone?

[NickB79]

12. Exactly. As a society, we throw away broken things and buy new, instead of getting them fixed

We've become so dependent on cheap consumer goods from other nations that there's no money in repairing perfectly serviceable goods. That, and we're always looking for the bigger, better, flashier thing out there at the store. We don't think if we NEED something, but if we WANT something. Then we look for any little excuse to justify that want, even if it makes no sense whatsoever. For example:

"What? This fridge is exactly like my old one, but has a built-in LCD TV?!?! Holy crap, I have to buy it!" I actually have a friend who's parents did exactly that this spring. Their fridge could have been repaired for under $100 and run for many more years, but they used it as an excuse to buy a new one that cost over $1000 because it had a friggin' TV built into it. WTF?

[barbtries]

27. maybe you could hook him up

with a young person who needs a job and wants to learn?

[Mariana]

34. I will.

I can fix appliances and small engines. I'm 42.

Lots of people have skills that aren't profitable now, but in a depression, the demand for those skills would increase. I'm thinking of things like fixing stuff, sewing, gardening, stuff like that.

If things get tough I won't hesitate to hang a shingle.

[FreakinDJ]

37. I'm worling on slightly larger items

[Mojorabbit]

16. My hubby is a physician

but we have both a home and office mortgage to pay plus employees. I am worried sick.

[Flarney]

3. Plus we were relatively debt free back then... n/t

[Vinca]

4. You're exactly right. In fact, during the last bad recession in the 1970's,

there were still plenty of manufacturing jobs to be had. Now we're a nation of burger flippers and no one will be able to afford the burgers.

[raccoon]

22. Were you here in the early 80's? THAT was a bad recession.

Even people who had been on jobs for years had their hours cut back.

[LonelyLRLiberal]

5. Am I crazy? I worry that the US could lose a war to China because we lack manufacturing and money.

Ok, time to take a chill pill. . . .

[PVnRT]

9. Shit, they make half of the electronics anyway

It's shocking how many little bits and pieces come from overseas.

[PVnRT]

7. Correct - service industries are mostly fueled by disposable income

Without disposable income, those jobs go away. This is the price of being dependent on imports instead of having a manufacturing economy at home.

[K Gardner]

8. Failure and buyout of family farms have set this up to be worse, as well.

[Raksha]

10. Is there some law that we have to keep outsourcing?

That we can't REBUILD our manufacturing base? Why should I have to feel Luddite and regressive even to think this, like I'm advocating going back to the stone age?

[Thothmes]

35. We need to look at U.S. Law and see if any of our laws

make it desirable to ship industrial jobs off shore.

[MelissaB]

11. I need valium.

[dixiegrrrrl]

29. It's made of Chinese ingredients.

[MelissaB]

32. I'll risk it.

:rofl:

[dixiegrrrrl]

30. It's made of Chinese ingredients.

[blues90]

13. this is the root of all of our problems today

Without jobs and with jobs without insurance and low pay how can we expect to ever get out of this.

Ruined unions and we make nothing so we have NOTHING!

Remember all the ad;s "buy american look for the union lable" well we should have stuck with this and not the box store abominations that have taken over everything we once made here and sold here through small companies who put their money back into their own community.

I can understand how this happened, people wanting low prices but in the end they cut their own throats.

Everyone thought it would not affect them. Now we see how much it has.

The old saying , they took the jobs from the blue collar worker , I was not blue collar so I said nothing and when they came for me no one was left to speak for me.

All in all we have no one to blame other than ourselves.

[femrap]

14. The fact that most people are no

longer farmers is the biggest threat to us. Entreprenuerial people will be able to start small manufacturing plants and employ people....but if you don't have food?????

[Batgirl]

15. And after they exported the jobs, they tore down the factories.

I feel physically ill every time I drive past the one that's been undergoing demolition all summer up here in lovely Flint. The place where my dad worked as a tool and die maker. They auctioned off the machines and everything of value on the inside, and are still in the process of tearing it all down. If manufacturing is to ever come back to the U.S. it seems like it will involve starting from scratch.

[NickB79]

17. And if you have to rebuild from scratch, you need investment and capital

But, if the government and the banks are close to bankruptcy, where do you get the millions of dollars in loans needed to build the factories, buy the equipment, source the raw materials, pay for the energy?

It's scary how much of a perfect storm this could shape up to be.

[barbtries]

18. look at it as an opportunity

we have 300 million people, a great resource. many other natural resources to draw upon. maybe it will signal a resurgence of manufacturing in this country. i hope so.

[NickB79]

20. But where do you get the loans to start the resurgence?

If Wall Street is going broke, banks are failing, and the government has blown it's wad on failed wars and failed bailouts, who pays for the initial investments to rebuild the manufacturing sector?

[barbtries]

25. i don't have the answers

all i know is that all we have to fear is fear itself. i've been through hard times, more than most people i suppose. i suppose that for most people they may be facing hard times for the first time, and i feel for all of us. i just don't see the upside to hanging around wringing our hands over this.

i'd start with ending the wars. get our troops back over here, and stop that particular money drain, and then take a look around. what needs to be done? i don't know. i really don't, but i do have hope and all of my surviving children and my grandchildren are still healthy and i will do what it takes to keep them that way.

[ContinentalOp]

38. I don't even eat chickens or cows...

I'm certainly not going to get any use out of that great resource of 300 million people. ;)

[raccoon]

19. e lack of small farmers in this country will make the 2nd Great Depression worse than the first.

In the Great Depression, many families (such as my mother's) could feed themselves, even if they couldn't buy much of anything.

Agribusiness won't be much help.

You have a good point--how many unemployed people can pay for Fido's bath, or their pedicures?

[NickB79]

23. Indeed. The rise of the corporate factory farm has destroyed the rural economy

Where 1,000 acres in the past would hold 4-8 farms, each with 5-6 people living there, and employing dozens more in the surrounding community as farm hands, grainery workers, school teachers, small store owners, priests and pastors, etc, current factory farms can be well over 1,000 acres EACH, and employ less than a dozen people in total. Supplies are shipped in from across the country or even from overseas, and the middlemen in the local small towns are cut out. My own hometown is dying a slow death because the old farmers nearby are dying or retiring while their children and grandchildren move to the cities for jobs, and their land is purchased by megafarms.

My father's family is still composed of small family farmers (my dad and his 6 brothers are all farmers, and each owns between 120-500 acres in central Minnesota). In addition, my 88-yr old grandmother who lived through the first Great Depression still lives on the original family farm, gardening, jarring, pickling, canning, raising chickens, making homemade soap, etc while her sons all cooperate to raise the crops and livestock there. If the crap really does hit the fan, my fiance and I could move in with my family and at least have a roof over our heads and food in our bellies, but the vast majority of Americans aren't so lucky. Personally, we might be able to let a few of our closest friends move with us, but not enough. It is heart-wrenching to think what might happen if this keeps playing out like it has so far.

[Spike from MN]

21. Well, $700B invested in manufacturing would be a lot better

then $700B spent letting Wall Street firms get rid of their toxic assets. How about another WPA like they had in the 30s? A program like that could put people to work and would go a helluva lot further than spending $700B to line the pockets of rich bastards.

[KillCapitalism]

24. I have to agree with the OP.

When and if we have another massive depression, unemployment could hit as high as 75%. The only people employed would be doctors and a few other in health care, firefights and police (maybe), oh and the military. It will be a bit like Mad Max.

[kenny blankenship]

26. In 1930 we had all the oil we would need for decades, we had abundant supplies of gold

which was the world's underlying currency, we had the largest most mobilized workforce in the world. We had the largest and most modern industrial plant. We grew all the food we needed - most people still lived on farms. Everything was on our side. The contrast with the present is chilling.

[clear eye]

28. Yes, but we will be better off if we don't get ourselves into such hock

trying to rescue the economy by "trickle down" than if we do and crash the dollar in addition to our other problems. We need to save some money for Obama to put in place real New Deal style economic programs.

[Dukkha]

31. i'll put a bullet in my mouth before I ever say "Welcome to Wal Mart"

there is nothing left but big box retail and restaurant franchises. the great economic collapse with only provide a boom to the anti-depressant and mortuary businesses.

[shadowknows69]

33. Yep, a retail economy where no one has any money to buy anything

Gonna get real fun this Xmas. Only the strong will survive (businesses).

[Dukkha]

36. I predict at least two will die this year

Toys R Us and Circuit City, the latter posting a big loss today.

[CrispyQ]

39. Americans traded in their citizenship to become consumers.

There's a great book called "Affluenza: The All Consuming Epidemic." In it the author points out how before WWII unions were starting to negotiate shorter work weeks - six hour days instead of eight. Americans were starting to define 'affluence' as more discretionary time, not more things. Then WWII hit, women went to work in the factories. After the war, we started building in the suburbs. More & more people bought televisions & Madison Avenue took off. The mythical Jones' were created & before you know it, we were more valuable as consumers than as citizens.

On that show, "Northern Exposure" the DJ character, Chris in the Morning, once stated: "It's not about the things you have, it's about the things you do." We've really lost sight of that in this country. We care more about our cheap trinkets from China than our next door neighbors.

The Trillion Dollar Wrong Thing
by Larry Beinhart

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/27-0

(Here's the best part of this article.)

snip...

The real problem is that we have moved from a production economy to a consumption economy. Even worse, a consumption economy that supports the production economy in other countries. When we start to consume more than we produce - which we have - we must borrow. That means we're selling off or mortgaging our assets. If we were to do that to create more production which would ultimately pay for the investment, that would be alright. But we're not, we're just consuming more.

You can't borrow your way out of too much debt. At least not without a plan to create more income.

You can't consume your way out of an over-consumption problem.

If we don't address the fundamentals now, we will have to do so later. At that time, they we will be worse. Both by themselves and with the addition of the new $700 billion debt.

The ultimate problem is remaking ourselves into a production economy.

Good thread.