Global economic meltdown, Part Deux: China?

You obviously don't live in one of the industrial states that have been ravaged by outsourcing and globalization policies over the last 15 years. It is true. I could take you on an extensive empty-factory tour attesting to its truth.

 

So in other words, no actual evidence, right?

I know manufacturing jobs have all disappeared. That's not the same as manufacturing disappearing.

 

Did some googling, here's a good site I found:

http://blog.american.com/?p=8593

Confirms what I've argued here before: While manufacturing jobs did plummet, they mostly didn't get overseas. That's the type of job loss that gets an emotional reaction, but most manufacturing job losses were due to improvements in technology that meant fewer people were needed to produce more stuff.

From the link:

"Amazingly, if the U.S. manufacturing sector were a separate country, it would be tied with Germany as the world’s third-largest economy. ... Despite declines in employment, the productivity of manufacturing workers has never been higher, and the United States is still the world’s largest manufacturer."

So yeah, we still make stuff.

Edit to add, here's a good visual on the subject:

 

Well, all I know is that the former factory workers I encounter did not lose their careers because the plant found better technology, they lost them because the plant shut its doors entirely and left the country for lands of cheaper labor.

I suggest you do some research into the percentage of the world's automobiles, electronics, textiles, steel, and virtually any other tangible consumer good, that were manufactured in the United States three decades ago, compared to what percentage are now. I'll concede I don't have the numbers before me right now, but I'm damn certain you'll find a drop off a cliff in nearly every category. And I'm hard-pressed to think of any substantial consumer good area where our domestic manufacturing share has increased over that period.

I dare you to tell former autoworkers in Michigan or textile workers in the South that "it's just a myth, we still manufacturer as much as we ever did." I'd enjoy watching the reaction.

 

If the manufacturing jobs have disappeared, it stands to reason that the associated manufacturing has also disappeared. At least, for anyone who understand the fundamental tenets of logic. But since you want actual numbers ...

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, manufacturing employment in the United States fell to 14.5 million in December 2003, at the time its lowest level in 45 years. That number peaked in 1979 at 19.5 million manufacturing jobs. By July 2009, according to researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, that statistic had dropped to 11.8 million, which is less than 9 percent of the total workforce in America.

But you think manufacturing is disappearing in America. Yeesh. Fine: According to the authors of the 2009 book Manufacturing a Better Future for America, about 40,000 manufacturing plants in the United States have closed since 2001. That addresses your particular claim.

 

The American Enterprise Institute blog? A good site? I guess it depends upon your orientation.

 

The *facts* listed on the blog were illuminating to this conversation. Unless you want to dispute them?

As far as their overall site, I have no idea who they are.

 

You name it. What did we make before that we don't make now?
As the information I've cited in this thread shows, we make more stuff than ever before. As a percentage of our GDP, manufacturing has never waivered.

 

No, it doesn't.

This isn't hard. It was already addressed in the links above your post as well.

Productivity went up. A lot. THAT's why the jobs were lost. "The furriners took mah job" is just the rhetoric that people have bought into without knowing the facts.

Manufacturing jobs do not equal manufacturing. Average productivity per worker X total jobs = manufacturing. If one part of the equation triples and the other part is cut in one-third, we end up exactly where we were. And that's exactly what happened:



The U.S. is still the No. 1 manufacturer in the world. As a percentage of our GDP, manufacturing has never waivered.

"We just don't make anything anymore" is part of the whole "everything was better in the good ol' days" mentality that people always have.

Well, perhaps you've found a small bubble of lost jobs to foreigners. That doesn't prove anything for the rest of the country.

And since you don't have the data, please don't be offended when I ignore your opinion until you do.

The fact that some people are ignorant and would react badly to having that pointed out is completely irrelevant.

 

Here's another one illustrating the same issue:

 

Sometimes it's kind of a good thing to understand the source of your "knowledge." Me, I don't believe very much put out by a conservative think tank.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Enterprise_Institute

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) is an extremely influential, pro-business, conservative think tank founded in 1943 by Lewis H. Brown. It promotes the advancement of free enterprise capitalism[1], and succeeds in placing its people in influential governmental positions. It is the center base for many neo-conservatives.

They don't believe in global warming at AEI, either, but I'm not prepared to take their word for it.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute

Who they are is a right wing conservative think tank, and one with very strong ties to the neo-conservative wing of the Republican party (Irving Kristol, the frickin FOUNDER of neo-conservativism, was their longtime senior fellow), whose sole purpose is to lobby for and advocate the economic beliefs of its members.

But, hey, as long as your source is unbiased....