Crummy Economy Strengthens Calls to Return to Manufacturing Self-Sufficiency
By Bill Visnic September 13, 2010
Although the recession hasn't been kind to most manufacturers, there may be a silver lining: the nation's inability to rebound is providing new ammunition to critics of the U.S.'s manufacturing policies - and now even macroeconomically ignorant politicians may have no choice but to listen.
With the failure to resolutely emerge from the recession, there are almost daily calls to reexamine and reverse the nation's manufacturing strategy of the past several decades, as many new and longtime critics believe the situation validates years' worth of warnings about the dangers of virtually dismantling entire manufacturing sectors such as the steel production and the concordant acceleration of off-shoring all manner of manufacturing jobs.
In a recent opinion piece for the Washington Post, Harold Meyerson, editor at large for American Prospect and the L.A. Weekly, wrote a concise and incisive analysis of why two nations seemingly on opposite ends of the manufacturing spectrum, Germany and China, are emerging from the global recession as comparative "winners:" both countries are deeply committed to cultivating, their manufacturing bases.
"Germany and China don't have a lot in common," Meyerson writes. "Germany has a mature economy and is a stultifyingly stable democracy. China has a rising economy and remains disturbingly authoritarian. What sets them apart from the world's other major powers, purely and simply, is manufacturing. Their predominantly industrial economies meet their own needs and those of other nations, and have made them flourish while others flounder."
Noting that many economic experts, business tycoons and Wall Street soothsayers insisted the nation's move to a post-industrial economy was inevitable and healthy, he argues that the transition in fact has not made the country financially secure and it is not low-skilled positions but the U.S.'s most-productive jobs that are being off-shored.
After his editorial ran in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, one letter writer acutely summarized what seems to be a growing populist opinion:
"Although Mr. Meyerson refrains from actually accusing our business leaders of being unpatriotic or worse, their bad choices do have the ironic capacity to destroy what surely they would wish to prosper. It is inconceivable that borrowing from China to buy Arab oil can lead to anything good for the United States. How can a great power sustain itself by its citizens selling each other hamburgers and insurance policies?"
Meanwhile, in an opinion blog, "Metal Benders Given One-Way Ticket Out of U.S.," last week for Bloomberg News, Caroline Baum reminded that since 1993, Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all have used the Labor Day holiday to profess a new commitment to "restoring American manufacturing to its former glory."
But she cites opinions from several economics experts as disagreeing about how valuable it is for government to enact policies to "retain" manufacturing capacity, particularly when it is for low-tech items or low-productivity jobs.
"Creative design" from government usually does not solve the problems of a progressing economy, Baum declares.
There was a certain irony, then, to last week's report that Ford Motor Co. has killed a plan to shift production of the European Kuga compact crossover from a plant in Germany to the company's assembly plant in Louisville, KY.
Ford has been quietly but resolutely tussling with the United Auto Workers union after the UAW cut off Ford's request for labor-contract concessions similar to those the UAW granted to the recently bankrupted General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC. A year ago, when Ford first acknowledged the plan to shift Kuga production to the U.S., German workers were making about 20 percent more than their U.S. counterparts. The ongoing strengthening of the dollar and decline in the value of the Euro now has leveled that disparity, however.
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Its funny how all the experts don't even see the problem in the USA, and just miss the main reason why there is no production in America, and the reason is COMPETITIVENESS.
Why we can not compete with Germany or China ?
In the USA we mostly live in standalone houses which spread through vast distances. Affective public transport, affective environmental protection and affordable housing are all impossible. The need of Americans are huge compare to Chinese or Indian, for example, and there is no cheaper way, because Coop or Condo are just a corporation that pass the over head to you. Americans needs are bigger than thier means. The obligations are greater then one can bear.
When I was young I thought it was greed that drive people in this country, but now I know, its need, and too much of it.
As long as we don't change the American dream, it will stay the American nightmare, and no amount of manipulation with money exchange rate or stimulus packages will solve that. Americans great ingenuity, new ideas and innovation would not help this country until the American dream is abolished, and Chinese style high rise apartment buildings, should be the housing norm in America.
The only thing Mr Myerson was wrong about is "Although Mr. Meyerson refrains from actually accusing our business leaders of being unpatriotic or worse". He should have flatly stated they are worse than unpatriotic.
The easiest way for a quick increase in profits ....and so high CEO compensation / bonuses ...is to cut short-term costs: to offshore, something Germany would never allow
Public school system in US is probably the worst in the world. May be better than in some African countries but behind of Europe and Asia. American school system rather brainwash young people than teach them useful skills, science or history. Learn about German educational system and then you will understand why German workers, managers and CEOs are superior to American counterparts. America was prospering mostly because constant flow of immigrants who were educated in Europe or Asia.
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