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  • From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] American manufacturing
  • Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:06:08 -0500


On Apr 19, 2008, at 7:24 PM, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:

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.

I think many reports are confusing for that reason, the method of counting has changed. Employment figures, production figures, family income figures, all have source data that has changed. The federal budget and spending have become essentially incomprehensible.

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

You found the same thing I found: there are few sources that are dated last year or this year. In one you cited, things got better in the next paragraph.

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.

Quite so. Our automotive manufacturing is still very large in spite of many problems, but many parts and pieces are made in Canada and sent here for assembly.

Considering the prices of the various metals I would expect that our mining sector is still strong. Hard to send that function overseas. Lots of coal coming out of the ground and being used. We may not find steel production figures; The US Steel Industry Outlook (2007) is 60 pages and costs $900.00. One item: amongst the Columbia trade agreement debate I learned that we manufacture and sell a lot of home appliances there. I know of only one company, in South Korea, that sells a lot of refrigerators and washers and dryers here. Name escapes me right now.

I'm beginning to feel that it is impossible to decipher the truth. And what truth do we want? What's most important? Jobs? Income? GDP? Balance of trade? Debt? I have read many articles stating that average income per capita has declined as many people are now doing service work who were once production workers.

Looks like in many regards we have priced ourselves out of competitiveness.




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