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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

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>