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Makin' Stuff (photo: dziner)
An article published in today’s NY Times Magazine section asks the global question, “Does America Need Manufacturing?”
Now, for purposes of discussion here, I’d like to ask some slightly different questions, some of which we have discussed numerous times here, but which I think is far more important than the specific item discussed in the NY Times Magazine. That article discusses the money which was put out by you and me through the federal government which went to companies developing lithium batteries, mostly in Michigan. It also discusses whether or not this investment was ‘worth it’ or a complete waste of money; whether it was the cutting edge of a renewal of manufacturing in this country or another bone-headed mistake which will end up creating over-capacity.
Personally, I think that’s moot entirely and the more important questions deal with the following:
– If we can all agree that as a business activity, a country’s involvement in manufacturing is ‘a good thing,’ ‘an important thing,’ ‘has value in terms of national knowledge assets,’ and so on, that leads us down a certain path. This path as far back as Ronald Reagan has been degraded and ignored; not only at the governmental level, but also at the financial level, as investment money went to companies such as Google and Facebook. These are not companies which ‘make stuff.’ So, the question is – if the so-called smart money is not going to companies ‘making stuff,’ how do we get financial support for stuff making entities?
– If we can all agree that as a business activity, manufacturing actually does a far more efficient and effective job of creating jobs for people than companies such as Google and Facebook do; then given the situation we are currently in, encouraging companies that do the stuff that Google and Facebook do appears to be not the path that we as a country should be traveling. In my little place, IBM used to make stuff – it made computers and it made printers. And because they also used local sourcing, we had probably 20-30 companies locally that did everything from populating circuit boards to making the metal cabinets, to making plastic housings, and so on… for IBM. When IBM decided they no longer wanted to make stuff in our little place, they not only threw several thousand people out of work (and actually they had been reducing their workforce locally for years), they also harmed a lot of small local businesses which were tied to IBM. IBM sold their personal computer product lines to Legend Holdings of China. That’s right. The American engineers and scientists who worked for IBM (and whose patents were therefore owned by IBM) – their work was sold to the Chinese who renamed the computers Lenovo.
– If we can all agree that manufacturing is a good thing and that we want to encourage it – is it best to encourage manufacturing across the board? Or only high tech stuff like lithium batteries or solar or wind turbines? The reason I ask that is because there is a growing movement in the US to actually make stuff here that people think is no longer made here. My two examples are Texas Jeans and Allen Edmonds Shoes, which is expanding their factory in Wisconsin. Even under regular pricing, Texas Jeans competes very aggressively with Levi’s and Wranglers, which are no longer made in the US.
– If we can agree that it is important for US taxpayer dollars, through such agencies as the National Science Foundation, to support scientific, engineering and commercial research to encourage the development of competitive American products, can we also agree that it is time to change national industrial policy (which is no policy at all) away from ‘let the market take care of it’ to ‘anything that is developed with US dollars is a national asset and must stay here and not be sold to foreign entities’? If this policy had been in place, perhaps the technology which had been developed at MIT and used to start the Evergreen Solar Company in Devan, MA (the massive amounts of Massachusetts government support) would not have been transferred to a Wuhan, China plant. This plant was built precisely by the Chinese government to attract Evergreen Solar. The management of Evergreen Solar transferred much of the manufacturing to this new plant, took the Massachusetts-based company into bankruptcy, and fired the 800 local workers. This is wrong. The Chinese were not interested in Evergreen Solar merely because they were producing solar PV – they have their own solar PV technology. The Chinese government did this to make sure they got the absolutely cutting edge solar technology – something referred to as ‘string ribbon.’ This move by the Chinese is consistent with their moves in aluminum, carbon fiber, and other high tech manufacturing. If we want stuff that we pay to get developed here, stay here, we need to do something about how federal R&D dollars are handled.
So – what are we going to do about this? We need jobs and we need lots of them. We need jobs and we need training to make sure that the people out there can do the work that needs doing.
Sure seems like we need a whole heckuva lot of investment to make that happen. Ideas, people?
(photo courtesy of dziner)
80 Comments
We’ve gone beyond manufacturing jobs tied to geography. For better or worse, except for basic services, the jobs of the future are jobs that can be performed anywhere. For America, that means a steadily shrinking demand for labor, more permanent unemployment and under-employment, more people living their lives out at a subsistence level, and steadily increasing incomes and consumption for people who make the transition to the international workforce. We should have kept our eyes on the pea while there was still time.
Well, I have to say that I disagree with you. There is still a tremendous amount of ‘clustering’ going on in the US, whether it’s about natural resource availability or skills and subcontractor availability. And areas which have held onto their manufacturing base and which did not go through a big housing bubble, seem to be hanging on and doing reasonably. But you are saying something that is pretty clear here – you are saying that no matter what, we must compete with people who live in countries where the governments are more aggressive about industrial policy and pay far closer attention to full employment than has been done in the US. I think you are saying that the people who will succeed are the ones who can make the transition to competing internationally and the rest of us will basically spiral down into living hand to mouth. That’s a possibility – I believe that Americans are waking up and want something different. And I believe what they want is a healthy manufacturing industry here.
Billy Glad – Are you advising permanent despair for most Americans? What is this “international workforce” that’s to come out on top, in the scenario you sketch?
Aunt Toby, you’re a font of common sense, as usual. Thanks for the information about Texas Jeans.
There is also Peter Atwood’s Prybaby one-piece keychain tool, made in the Connecticut River valley of Massachusetts. Full disclosure: Peter did some wallpapering for me, and did it very well, before the Prybaby took off. The Valley used to have a great machine tool industry. This little bit is left, or, recreated. Every bit helps. Mods, I hope that it’s OK to say this!
Well, as they say, from your mouth to God’s ears. But I think you hit the nail on the head with the phrase “closer attention to full employment,” because that is precisely the meme that is missing from American politics. I can’t remember the last time I heard a politician or a columnist use the phrase. I’m afraid it’s an idea that’s seen it’s day. Nobody cares anymore. The concentration of income and wealth is taken for granted by everyone except a few bloggers and defeated politicians. A permanent unemployment and under-employment rate above 16% is a big yawn politically. How could Obama be re-elected if people gave a shit about unemployment? And who doubts he has a good chance to be re-elected? Obama’s re-election will be the last nail in the coffin of the unemployed, the under-employed and the under-educated in this country.
Despair for most Americans? Far from it. Not even for the 16% permanently unemployed and underemployed. Adaptation,
Pleased to hear it. This doesn’t mean that I have answers. I am certain that Americans can create answers.
I’m with you on that. I think what happened is the corporations grabbed the economic progress meme for business. Truth is, of course, it’s technological innovation drives economic progress. Cf your guy Atwood. Biz just rides the horse in the direction it’s going. Govt money is prolly more imp than venture cap. Defense has been and continues to be a big creator of tech and tech fortunes. For the people who can’t get up the tech gravity well, maybe they need to develop some political clout as a class. Latch on to some kind of historical trend. With the demise of the labor unions, human rights is up for grabs.
Gotta disagree with you Toby. The U.S. is a rich country that is being looted by the top 1%. Not sure how long it will take, but prolly decades. U.S. doesn’t need to do anything economically to make rich richer for decades to come.
Your frame and Toby’s is all wrong. You & she actually think anyone in top 1% is the slightest bit interested in the economic future of the U.S. except for how they can raid it.
Back when I was a kid growing up there were always tool and die factories and equipment maker factories that employed lots of machinists. All the small cities had these until the migration southward began to exploit cheaper labor in other states. Now those jobs are offshore. Now there’s no manufacturing jobs for the stuff that makes other stuff. Germany has high wages but leads in machine tool exporting. We should compete instead of importing their stuff.
There is a fundamental fallacy in ‘we have to make stuff.’ Let’s go back a little more than a hundred years ago. At that time the equivalent statement would have been ‘we have to grow stuff.’ Growth in productivity has caused the share of people growing stuff to fall from around 35 percent in 1900 to two to three percent today. But the economy hasn’t suffered from it. The same is true of manufacturing. Productivity growth in manufacturing means we make stuff, but we don’t need all that many people to make it. That’s all to the good. People can be doing more useful things for other people than sweating it out in a factory.
What went wrong? Too many people released from farming and factories were sucked into retailing, selling stuff. Way more than are needed. John Kenneth Galbraith got it right 60 years ago in The Affluent Society (much less affluent than today’s). Where people ought to work is in the ‘caring industries’. Health, education, training. psychiatry. There’s a whole list. There is nothing that prevents this other than the prejudice against public finance. Most of these services have characteristics that make them difficult to supply privately. But if we were to supply them efficiently and publicly, we would have an economy that worked, and worked for people, rather than for the top half of one percent.
This isn’t rocket science. If it were, it wouldn’t require so much propaganda to suppress i8t.
Paying attention to full employment is critical,IMO. Think about the lost goods and services that are lost with 26 million people unemployed. That easily adds to what over the next 10 years? But our nobles would rather pay close attention to debt and deficit.Meanwhile our friends in the emerging countries are putting people to work. Warren Mosler says we should give everyone a job who wants one. Sounds right to me.
Someday years from now, maybe someone will say, you know what we need to think about our future, things like education, new sources of energy, lower health care costs, better technoloogy and more research and development, improved infrastructure and better cities. But not now. Now we have to lower the deficit, maybe fight a war or six.
A problem with the caring industries is that the US government goes out of its way to import cheap foreign labor to perform those duties whether it be doctors, nurses, or other disciplines.
We are always hearing about the “nursing shortage” but have our schools expanded to meet the need? No! It’s cheaper to import and the Chamber of Commerce rules on issues like that.
Adam Smith, the “father of capitalism” taught us that for a country to develop wealth, it has to do domestic manufacturing, not import the goods it needs.
Sadly, the GOP has decided their allegiance is to corporation who will ship production and jobs overseas despite how it diminishes our nation’s wealth.
http://rjw-progressive.blogspot.com/2011/06/economic-wrong-turn.html
“But the economy hasn’t suffered from it.”
Have you tracked how farmers fared and how other segments of U.S. pop, like top 1% benefited?
You’re making the same mistake that I made during my economics career, namely to look at how the aggregates behaved, not how individual groups within the economy benefited & suffered.
Working in the “caring industries” is complete gag-producing garbage, and a perfect example of my point. The only money making opportunities in these industries is big PhRMA and insurance corps while their employees will be treated like dirt.
Me Johnny-one-note.
PTB are thinking about the distant future & have been for decades. They’ve been planning on how to get back to the Gilded Age ever since FDR derailed them. They are very long planners.
Oh really. Adam Smith lived hundreds of years ago. Some of his principles are long-lived; conveniently the ones like characteristics of atomistic competition, that are now ignored. Others, like choosing industries to support, change with time.
BTW, the behavior link bet U.S. manufacturing & prosperity of the middle class is that mfg was one of the heavily unionized sectors of the economy and unionization activity, mainly strikes, raised the wages of their own industries, but also spread throughout the economy more broadly.
Private sector unions have now been completely castrated.
Just increasing mfg domestically without increasing the power of unions will do nothing to increase the prosperity of the U.S. middle class.
Don’t worry. Soon none of us will have any money to buy the stuff that is made elsewhere and the PTB won’t have any income. Then we will see real panic.
Except that employing some of the 26 million unemployed will increase our general prosperity.
I agree – the studies show that even inefficient steel making continues to produce jobs in the country where the plant was built if trade policy allows it to – economists free trade policies be damned. Indeed free trade efficiencies always flow to the very rich and corporate – never to the middle class – in our current world of rich and corporate control of the governments around the world.
You still don’t get it. Looting just means taking everything that’s left for themselves. It took me a long time to realize that it doesn’t matter if anything is made or sold. Look at the housing industry. In deepest depression for years. Did that prevent vultures from making huge profits? Not in the slightest.
you pose some great questions Toby
the R&D is particularly vexing
German’s excel at ‘making stuff’ but that isn’t going to save them from their bankers.
The key question: What is globalised human society going to do with the mass of under-employed or unemployed human beings that are rendered irrelevant or redundant by the fast approaching Super Convergence of the Bio-Info-Nano Singularity?
THAT is the question none of the governments are asking. And until that question is adequately answered, other questions are just postponing the inevitable.
Not even close to being on the agenda of top 1%. They do not care about general prosperity in the slightest.
What is it you suggest other than just watch them make slaves of us all?
I agree as to manufacturing being a nice but not necessary
Indeed Great Britain lived for decades quite well as its manufacturing went to hell in a hand basket prior to 1930 but it make money from “services” to other countries – including financial services of the day –
The current account trumps the trade deficit.
But the fastest way to restore the middle class is via manufacturing jobs – IMHO.
Ya know, for a curmudgeonly pessimist you sure lay out the true history, agregate and actual group realities, elite “planning” (me thinks as do you that it is pre-WW II) and possible solutions purty danged well, eCAHN.
And I reckon you is old enough to remember that makin’ what we need is rather fundamental?
But how, given that the “Vile Maxim” got pulled from Smith’s long-range concerns by the Chicago School, do we move past vulture capitalism to a sustainable and humane world?
I know ya spend more than a little time musing about that despite your protestations to the contrarian cantankerousness.
;~DW
A little like Qaddafi and Mubarek?
I agree the continued government controlled by the rich and corporate – the GOP’s job producers pretend – means looting by the rich and corporate goes on until we are at 3rd – no – 4th world status.
But I have a dream …. – wish MLK were still alive.
Er, I knew several in the international workforce in the private sector. They were ushered out of their jobs when Shrub took office. I’d say the international force has shrunk due in part to automation (robots!) and another part offshore privatization.
There’s not a lot of point in US taxpayer developed and supported R&D that gets given to the ChineseG and the stuff gets made in workflow systems redesigned for slave labor. So who has the top R&D piece of the R&D that isn’t the slave labor part?
What I am seeing here is absolutely sad.
You people fail to understand that you have been brainwashed into believing that this country should live with 10-16% unemployment, this would be acceptable. You fail to understand, all the media and huge think tanks are being used to get the population to accept the fact that jobs are not coming back. The problem is that the wealthy have captured the political class, and are whipping around the rest of the country. They don’t care where their money comes from. They are going to make their money through their daddy’s connections, just like Neil Bush. But the concept is complete nonsense. Is China become wealthy on the back of services? No. They are becoming rich on manufacturing. They are sucking the wealth out of the rest of the world, by working with our oligarchs. People like Huntsman made their fortunes in China, and still are. In the meantime we are becoming impoverished because we let manufacturing leave this country. Anyway, most of the populace is not rocket scientists, they need the kind of jobs manufacturing offers, which is suitable to their mentality. How are these people be able to maintain themselves? We are going to back to the 19th century as our standard of living is concerned.
We can solve this problem very quickly if we are willing to slap huge duties on imported products. But no, Obama is about to present another trade deal to Congress.
But it all comes to back to control of politics: as long as we allow our oligarchs to control our politicians by bribing them, this is not going to be possible. We need a constitutional amendment to have publicly financed elections. We have got to cut the trough at which the pigs feed. The wealthy have cut their welfare from the rest of us through corruption. Their welfare must be made dependent on the welfare of the rest of us.
So the message is just grin and bear it and dont bother to vote? What are we doing here?
Oh for shits sake, somebody wants to fight the bastards. Hard to believe.
Some problems have no solutions, and solutions are certainly not my balliwick. Hard-headed forecasting, rubbing people’s noses in what is rather than what they would like it to be, is more along the lines of what I do better.
I linked to a W.E.B. Dubois quote in an earlier thread, about how he tired everything, unsuccessfully. I think it’s in his wiki. I’ll see if I can find it.
As a curious aside, W.E.B. Dubois is prolly distantly related to the builder of my house, Methusalem Dubois. W.E.B.’s grand or great-grand father was a Huguenot of Poughkeepsie origin. My house was built by a Huguenot on the west side of the Hudson from Pough. W.E.B.’s ancestor went somewhere, prolly Haiti given the French connection, and had children with black slaves. Brought 2 of them back to U.S. and the rest is history.
Another one of those Qs sloshing around in the back of my brain which I didn’t get around to even wiki-ing until yesterday.
Which is why I’m reading Zinn.
So far (only up to civil war), the A seems to be organization & militization, necessary but far from sufficient conditions.
Turns out that strikes & unionization started in the 1820s. I had no idea.
And it was far from an upward trend for labor after that.
The one thing that always had my head screwed on straight was that I always recognized the power discrepancy betw capital & labor. I even got my Wall St employer to allocate $10,000 to experimental economics in that end right before I lost the internal political battle. But I was too unedumacated about experimental economics in 1999 to assert myself with my collaborators at UAZ in Tucson.
Of well…
First analyze the problem correctly, then solve it.
Obama’s reelection a mandate on indifference? Cynical nonsense. BTW, the “16%” don’t suffer alone … and the majority realize it.
No one here is accepting what is going on, cv.
Until both a lever and a fulcrum are devised to move Congress, the Congress you mentioned, off the bribery teat, tain’t much that can be done except gaining the trust of the people and beginning to DO what must be done.
Look to the narratives that describe a bettr world that will reach past and beyond the general “belief” in capitalim which too many Americans hold dear, to the EXAMPLE of sustainable, humane and reasonable endeavors NOW being fashioned all over this land.
Ultimately civil society cannot tolerate concentrations of wealth and power – if history is to be any reliable guide.
An entirely new world must be both imagined and built, the power and money structures extant will do everything they can to undermine and destroy both … so the real revolution, the “turning” of power and wealth must come from the people, somehow, some way … and likely, that cannot and will not happen until what IS has failed … completely.
Such gain as may eventually be realized will come ONLY with great pain and thereby the education of the many.
DW
Ah, the people’s history.
Good on ya, eCAHN.
;~DW
Governments don’t give a FF about those peeps. They are NOT asking the Q you suggest.
They might ask the Q if strikes and militant labor arises but more likely they’ll just call out, like Lincoln did, the U.S. military (posse comitatus being a joke) to arrest & imprison strikers.
Suggesting you actually, like ya know, READ, what’s been typed prior to your comment.
Cannot find the W.E.B. Dubois quote easily. Sorry.
A flattering interpretation. Rather, he concedes to the primacy of financial interest – which prefers slavery. A “healthy economy” is in no wise assured by manufacturing alone. Moreover, financialization is a national weapon and a matter of national security.
Killing is an American way of life.
“You people”
BTW, just for future ref, nothing stops rational discussion and raised the red flag for the bull than this phrase. Perhaps you intended it, but if you didn’t u might consider different phraseology.
Since beginning of time money has ruled humanity. What we are trying to do is to control greed. We can find ways to use greed as a horse which will pull the rest of the country to prosperity, or greed can destroy a country, which is where we are heading. Historically, 2 things can happen: either we adjust, or everything is take away by force. Witness revolutions. But Utopia ain’t coming. It never did. Each of us can possibly change ourselves, but not humanity. So stop dreaming.
Angela Merkel is making sure to dismantle German social structure as is Sarkozy in France. Without any real left left, the rush to the right occurs at warp speed.
I agree with your last statement, but as far as Great Britain faring so well, have you seen their economy lately? And the news reports out of the Isles for 40 years and more have indicated a society slowly spiraling into decay. Not everyone needs a white-collar job. Not everyone can hold one. White collar jobs are in fact, bad for many people. Many people, maybe a plurality, need to work with their hands. A society that does not create manual labor (in the most general way) will ultimately wind up poor and violent.
Just out of curiosity how do you imagine that ANY change occurs?
Call me a dreamer if you wish, but I shall continue to suggest that human beings must realize that they and they alone can make of THEIR time and THEIR world what they will.
You accuse us of acquiessing to a destructive meme, how is your assertion, which incidentally, whether you realize it or not, postualtes a “human nature”, which if it is so, precludes ANY sustainable “advance” or consistent improvement, any different?
Economics is a “game” and can and WILL be changed.
Since the beginning of time? Do you have no knowledge of other cultural traditions and possibilities, cv?
DW
Technological innovation drives profit. It also makes killing more efficient.
That, for one, is not “economic progress”.
People trapped in the tech well should “latch on to some kind of historical trend.” Ho ho. Insight. Have you any “trend” in mind, hmm?
Uh huh.
But a large part of our exports still consists now of stuff we grow. The agricultural industries are always going to be important because people need to eat (or they die, duh). Our current agricultural paradigm is unsustainable, and along with re-fostering manufacturing, we need to change the way we produce food.
I am sure that I am repeating the silly idea of some extinct economist, but it seems to me that unless we create new items of value, then all we do is recirculate the existing value within the economy. And on every circulation cycle a little bit leaks out into various offshore accounts, mansions and luxury birthday parties. Like a swimming pool with a leaky filter system, the water level gradually goes down and down. Those in the deep end can still have a good time swimming, but those of us at the shallow end are left high and dry.
We need to start gathering up our resources, raw material and creative ingenuity and start creating value in our own country.
Ah, PR, you speak to the actual production of wealth which ONLY comes from “resources” and what people do with them.
A quaint, very OLD idea.
Also the truth, from time immemorial, about human society, even at the most primative level.
Resources, land-based, or water-based allowed our species to survive and … to thrive.
Our “genius”, as a species, was to recognize “resources” and to “develop” them …
DW
DW
Yes, and now your conclusion … about “economics”?
“We need to start gathering up our resources, raw material creative ingenuity and start creating value in our own country”
Like maybe putting some of those unemployed back to work, just for starters?
Excellent comments, scritch, spot on!
And much appreciated.
DW
Reaping your rewards?
Yes, some extinct economist would have you believe that it is all your fault why only a few peeps are rich and most are in dire straights.
That is, it is easy to find a whole bevy of economists who are willing to take on the discussion on honest grounds.
But that would be a mistake.
This is NOT and honest discussion. It is a stacked one.
I no longer feel obliged to discus matters on their merits. That is only one of the many distractions that the PTB use to distract the hoi peloi.
The trouble is, nobody in a position of influence is willing to admit that we have a new class of people in the world. These people have no interest in nationality, ideology, the environment, or humanity. They exist outside the influence of these things, because they have billions of dollars.
A billion is one thousand million. The median income in the USA is what, $30 grand? So a billionaire is, financially speaking, worth annual the income of 33,300 average Americans. In other words, each billionaire makes as much money as the entire population of a medium-sized city.
Nobody has that much money and sees things on a human scale any longer. They don’t see corporations for what they produce, or businesses for what they do. They see only the amount of money that can be soaked out of things. And now they’ve discovered they can soak entire nations — the USA, for example — and even entire continents, in the case of Europe.
This is a new class of people. They’re not the ownership class, they’re beyond that. We mockingly call them the ‘MOTU,’ Masters of the Universe, but there’s nothing funny about it. Our politicians have a few million bucks each. They take orders from billionaires.
So — to return to the topic at hand — nobody cares about manufacturing in the US any more, because the top tier of people are no longer linked to anything real, like products or services. They simply make money with money, and never touch the ground. They don’t need manufacturing. They don’t need the little people to have jobs.
And until we get serious about the threat posed by this new class, we won’t have either.
Almost everything our government has done in the last 30 years has been wrong. Why change now?
Indeed reason fled this “discussion” rather long ago,
And yet actual reason, is precisely what we hoi paloi must re-engage among ourselves, as I’m quiter certain you agree, eCAHN.
DW
Trickle down … how shameless the vultures were and how stupefied their prey!
Once in a while they have to resort to primitive accumulation. But don’t worry … it’s all for the good.
Say, vultures eat carrion, right? Somebody’s got to keep the place clean.
This is not a new class of people but the sasa PTB regaining their complete control over the rest of us.
Sociopaths are not a “new class”, rather an old one, but one that must not be allowed power or suasion, else the “disease” will become even worse for the only “class” with even less conscience are the psychopathic “elites” …
It is too bad that psychology has stooped to joining with those who torture and murder, as it might have made a critical difference, had it not turned tail and sucked-up to power and to the easy money of manipulation and deceit, melvoid.
DW
We are on a roll … for certain skepticdog, being rolled right out of our minds and the future which rightfully belongs to all of us.
Frankly. I’d say a good deal longer than 30 years, closer to 70, truth be told …
DW
I can’t tell if you think what I say is valid or not. :(
All I know is that it I am broke and unemployed and unemployable, I can go up on the hill and cut down a tree and sell it for firewood. (Lots of guys around here do that.) Or I can get some tools and saw up the tree for lumber and sell that. Or I can get some more tools and make wooden toys to sell at Christmas. I can plant a garden and raise some vegetables or raise a hog. It would be like the Waltons, only a lot more poor than they were on TV.
Or I can gather up my books, take advantage of my nearly free college education (gained from 1968-1975) and teach a college class part time to students who are borrowing money to listen to me talk about philosophy and religion in the vain hope that they will get a job that pays enough for the to repay their loans. I feel guilty taking advantage of them. I should go cut down a tree.
Turn this
http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GGGE_enUS395US395&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=taken+for+a+ride
into a double edged sword and leap frog to flexible, IT-advantaged
mass transit / balanced transit.
mis-edumacated. But what good would experimental economics have done in the iron cage you see now?
Sadly, if you read that article it points out that when you move the manufacturing out of the country other jobs, the business and the businesses that support that business go with it. But our masters are too focused on eliminating to unions to noticing they are dooming their businesses.
Yes, I do think the reason that industry, industrial, and manufacturing are the ‘kiss of death’ in DC, hell the entire Beltway, is because the people who finance the campaigns have made it clear that until the Unions are destroyed they will cut off anyone who really supports an industrial policy and supplements in this country. Seriously, we have corporate welfare all over the place – most notably in agriculture and in the financial sector, but we don’t support business. Nah, we don’t support business with union workers.
And for those who think that manufacturing shouldn’t return to America…um unless we (meaning man in general) invent a real means to transport things without oil – it is going to happen or we will do without.
Ho ho … the original sin of greed must be controlled! We can change ourselves but not “humanity”.
Ooh, that pragmatic ideological filth stinks!
But wait a minute … aren’t games about competition, comrade?
Sociopaths will always find someone to turn tail.
Watch for an epidemic!
Welcome to the meritocracy.
Trying to get into the street in the hope that if enough get into the street, one of those in the street will become a leader that we get behind to change things.
I thought we had that in Hillary in 08 based on her positions and actions since I first heard of her in the 70′s my interaction in 93 when she was the only person with clout to push for single payer (and despite her acquiescence to “defense” wars). Instead we got the fraud who sold us on his being someone to the left of Hillary.
We need someone that like Hillary who can get 18 million votes in a primary – and since there is no way in hell she will go through that process again, we need a new face. So I await what shows up in the street.
Wall Street and complex economic models don’t rule the world, even it seems that way.
The timeless and universal ful
kendavis4, 3:35 a.m. Aug.29, 2011
Of course we need to make stuff so America doesn’t have to borrow money abroad to pay for the flood imports coming in. And there’s
a way to make that happen without government funding. Just pass a
law requiring that total imports each year can’t exceed our exports.
Warren Buffett proposed this plan a few years ago, but our leaders
in big business and Washington ignored him. Now our domestic plants
are going out of business and taking their good jobs with them.
Wake up, America,we’re in deep trouble and need to act now!
Yeah. Human rights needs a champion now that the labor movement is history. But I already said that, didn’t I?
Get the federal govt out of the way.
Too many environmental and safety regulation, and what is really wrong with child labor.
Any other business?
1. Money
A clear stream of sparkling nourishing revenue can be generated by the stroke of a pen. With a bloated Wall Street nervously sitting on mountains of cash, awaiting outcomes, the time is perfect for a say 1% (one per cent) tax on all financial transactions. Gordon Brown’s Tobin Tax would make a good start.
2. Jobs
America’s creaking decrepit infrastructure of roads, bridges, tunnels, sewers, piping needs to be replaced and very soon.
The workforce is waiting in large numbers and is currently very cheaply available, as are construction materials.
Rescuing and patching America’s neglected infrastructure will provide very large numbers of jobs for those sections of the population that most need it.
3. Debt
Among the most valuable gifts of God are intelligent women.
Ellen Brown is an attorney and president of the Public Banking Institute, http://PublicBankingInstitute.org Her websites are webofdebt.com andellenbrown.com.
Her article on the national debt, http://wahyusamputra.blogspot.com/2011/04/cheneygotsomethingright.html shows how the national debt can be treated as a public utility, reversing the thrust of the debt, and producing a simple straightforward solution to the entire “debt crisis” and the kabuki (Symbolic Japanese drama) of the debt ceiling battle. Make it a public utility!
Any other business?
Any questions?
There being none….