Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> I don't have the time right now to research that, but I believe we  
> still have a huge manufacturing base. We sometimes think not because  
> of so many jobs lost in that sector, but that is often because of  
> technological advances.

I've heard that before, Gene.  When the hand is called, it turns out that all 
and sundry things are called manufacturing.  That's why morrgages, insurance 
policies, warranties, and the like  are now called 'products'.  Change the 
definition to tangible goods, and you see that we make nearly nothing in this 
country.

It's easily put to two tests:

One:  Where you are (you homesteaders out there) or where you are from, what 
manufacturig USED to be in your area that is no longer there.  What NEW 
manufacturing has come in in, say, the past 20 years.

Here in this sleepy burg of 40,000 people, there used to be two major steel 
fabricators, a casket company, a fiberglass fabricator, a computer maker 
(UNIVAC), two defense plants (Raytheon and Holston Ordinance), a thread mill, 
a 
weaving mill (Kloplan and then Volunteer Textiles), seven garment makers 
employing 
2000 people, three major printers, and Electrolux vacuum cleaner assembly 
plant, Monroe calulators, a Commodore (remember those) assembly plant (for 
calculators), a Westinghouse wire manufacturer, and a Sunstrand compressor 
assembly 
plant.  Out of those the fiberglass plant now employs fourty people where it 
once employed 110, the Univac plant which eimployed 1200 now houses Exide 
Battery which employs 35, and the compressor plant employs 50 where it once 
employed 500.  All the rest are closed and gone.  There has been no new 
manufacturing 
here employing more than 40 people in more than fifteen years.

Test two:  Go to a cothing store, hardware store, Mart, farm supply, and auto 
parts store.  Keep a running tab on any ramdom selection of merchandise as to 
whether it is USA made or not.  The ratio is more than 50 to 1.

   </HTML>