Global economic meltdown, Part Deux: China?

A "large number" is a vague term, and certainly some have gone overseas, but the links posted by Stoney, for example, studied the problem pretty intensely and didn't find that to be a major factor.

I'm not disputing that manufacturing jobs have disappeared. I'm disputing that a large percentage of them went overseas. If you have 5 plants that employ 50 people each, and you close them all to replace them with a single, 30-person plant in Mexico that can make the same amount of stuff as the old five combined, were 250 jobs really lost to Mexico?

 

So you've provided a link that shows that at least 1,400 job losses can be attributed to "overseas or out of business." (Well, ignoring that Dobbins himself isn't going to be the most objective source for those. He's not going to just come out and say he closed plants because he didn't need them.)

That's a start, I guess, but I'll need a little more to call it proof of a larger trend.

 

Rick: You seem to be expending a lot of effort to prove your point.

Which is what, exactly?

 

That there are two common perceptions in America that are wildly wrong with regards to manufacturing:

1) That we don't manufacture very much anymore.

2) That the massive job loss in the manufacturing sector over the last half-century or so was mostly due to jobs moving overseas. That was a small factor, but technology was a much larger factor.

 

Again, Rick: Those points may very well be true... although there's been plenty of good arguments made on both sides on this thread. There are plenty of things we used to make here that are now made overseas. I think that's been shown.

But you're really just pissing in the wind. All your pie charts and graphs really don't do anything to dispel the perception that manufacturing is going bye-bye in this country. That perception has taken root, and it isn't going away any time soon. And chalking it up to "ignorance" isn't going to help matters any.

Especially for folks who have lost their manufacturing jobs and watched them being shipped overseas, or people who now have to work two $9 an hour jobs to make up for the good-paying $18 an hour job they used to have.

 

Thank you for posting something that attempts to draw actual conclusions from data rather than just says "everybody just knows." It's a study sponsored by American labor unions so I think it should their conclusions should be taken with a grain of salt. (And no, this is not at odds with what I said earlier about sourcing. There's a difference between data and conclusions). I have a specific problem with their methodology: They correlate the entire trade deficit with China with American job losses, which is silly because you can't assume that anything we bought from China we would have automatically bought from a U.S. company at a higher price. (I'd love to get into more specific analysis of how they came to their conclusions, rather than just note the source, but they don't seem to be posting the actual study on your links, just the press release about its conclusions, so there's no way to judge).

But for the sake of argument we'll take their conclusions completely at face value.

Now first, your own link also says:

"Nearly three-quarters of the jobs displaced were in manufacturing industries"

So we can chop that 2.3 million down to about 1.7 million manufacturing jobs lost to China from 2001 to 2007.

From its height in 1987 through 2007, America lost about 4.3 million manufacturing jobs. (http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet)

So even if we take the most optimistic assumption as truth, job losses to China after the opening of trade accounts for less than 1/3rd of lost U.S. manufacturing jobs.

 

Here's a link to the actual study:

http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/bp188/

And gee, only 1.7 million jobs lost to China, instead of 2.3 million? I feel SO much better now.

 

When shopping for anything (furniture, household goods, personal goods, computer gadgets), my wife always has the habit of checking where it was made. Just out of curiosity --- never really affects the purchase.

Two things we have noticed:

Only a tiny percentage is made in USA. And when something is, this fact is displayed with almost patronizing pride ("Proudly made in the USA!!").

 

You can even look at quality clothes. J-Crew, Gap, ect. all had shirts made in the USA. not any longer. There used to be a fine shirting/tailor shop in almost every town. Those are gone as well, not able to keep up with $5 and $10 dollar polos from Wal-Mart.

 

not to mention automobiles, steel, appliances, TVs ..hell virtually ANY electronic goods, toys, kitchen utensils, work equipment ...pretty much every tangible common consumer good a smaller percentage of the world's share is made in the U.S. than used to be.

Honest to god, I can't believe we have a seemingly-intelligent poster challenging the notion that our manufacturing base has declined. There is such thing as the common sense eye test. Do you know how I know? Because I remember the days when it was extremely common to see "made in the USA" imprinted on the back of what you bought at the store, now it is exceedingly rare. Because the same frickin factories that were constantly pumping smoke and full of busy people leading prosperous lives during my childhood are now wasting away in mothballs ...with no new plants to replace them ...and unfortunate results for the families that once earned their livings from them.

I don't give a shit what AEI's manipulated agenda-driven study says, THAT's how I know it's true.

 

I will point out that electronics are kind of deceiving in the sense that, a lot of the component parts (computer chips and the like) are made in the U.S. But then it's all assembled in Taiwan. Intel, for example, has plants in:Chandler, Ariz.; Santa Clara, Calif.; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Hudson, Mass.; Rio Rancho, N.M.; and Hillsboro, Ore. (Along with two in Israel).

 

Interestingly enough, while we're losing jobs to China and the like, US manufacturing isn't losing market share, according to the United Nations. Seems to be holding around 21% of worldwide manufacturing output. Go figure on that one.
(Japan on the other hand -- don't know how many manufacturing jobs they've lost, but they've definitely lost market share.)
(Note: Not saying your wrong, or arguing with anyone. Just throwing out tidbits I think are interesting).