Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

homestead - Re: [Homestead] American manufacturing

homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Homestead mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] American manufacturing
  • Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:24:48 EDT


Are you referring to Bristol, TN/VA? Could it be that business owners
found other places in America where they could get a better deal from
the local and state government? Any other factors?


I am referring to same and absolutely 'no', not one of those companies
relocated anywhere in the USA. They ALL either relocated overseas or else
went out
of business due to overseas competition. All of them by actual count.
During
much of that time I had my shingle hung out as computer guru and I ran herd
over their records.

I am going to offer you some other cites that don't agree with your stats,
Gene, but I am also going to explain why the difference.

When I worked for the local government schools in my misspent youth, they
boasted that they only spent 3% of the budget on administrative costs.
Seemed
unlikely to me. The system of one high school, one jr. high school and seven
elementary schools had a principal and assistant principal in each elementary
school, six principals in the high school and four in the jr high school.
They
also had a special services coordinator, federal projects coordinator,
supervisor of instruction, super visor of this, coordinator of that, and
facilitator
of the other thing. There were in the central office building where they
never saw a student at one non-teacching personnel for each 2.3 teachers, and
this
didn't even include the inschool principals and assistant principals.

So how was it possible to report that only 3% of the budget went for
administrative costs? Simple. The superintendent and his secretary were
administrative but every other person, even if they never saw a student, were
officially
"instructional" personnel.

Very much like that, if you set up a company with 50 employees and all they
do is open the crates from China and distribute the goods, they are all
counted
as being empoyed in manufacturing. That's how you get that ridiculous stat
that the % of the GDP from manufacturing is the same as it was in the 1950's.

It's because the CEO of an import company making 35 million a year is
considered to be employed in manufacturing.



Keep that in mind, that even if you get a percent of the economy that is
still supposed to be manufacturing, very-very-very little of it involves
applying
tools and machines to material to produce tangible goods.



"The rising trade deficit in manufactured goods accounts for about 58% of the
decline in manufacturing employment between 1998 and 2003and 34% of the
decline from 2000 to 2003. This translates into about1.78 million jobs since
1998
and 935,000 jobs since 2000 that have been lost due to rising net
manufactured
imports.

The manufacturing sector lost more than three million jobs between1998 and
2003, with 2.7 million lost since the immediate pre-recessionyear of 2000."

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/briefingpapers_bp149



"Despite a steady decline in the employment share of manufacturingrelative to
total employment for decades – due to the highe rproductivity level of
manufacturing – the sector never experienced adecline in jobs that was as
long or as
large as the most recent drop,which cannot be explained by productivity gains
alone. From 1984through March 1998, manufacturing employment was
approximately steady around 17 million jobs, before it declined, first slowly
and then at
an accelerated pace, to 14.3 million jobs by January 2004, its lowest level
since July 1950. Back then, the U.S. economy had about one thirdof the jobs
it
has today."

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/02/b27975.html



Dozens and dozens more if we need them.



By the bye, the code phrase "higher productivity" most often means this. We
used to make everything here from native materials with native labor. Now
much of the work is farmed out overseas and only finished here. If you have
the socket, base, fittings, and switch of a light fixture manufactured in
China,
buy it from China for $10, add a $2 cover or shade made in the USA, and sell
it as a wholesale item for $15, it counts as a $15 item made in the USA ....
only made "more efficiently" than making al the parts here and employing many
more people.

Ask Bev about this. Her company turns out adhesives on this basis, materials
purchased from over seas but the final product (wholesale) is counted as
being made in the USA. </HTML>




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page