More American Factories Closing

hvactec

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Jan 17, 2010
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Many of those factories, with the help of America’s lackadaisical free trade policy, have relocated to China, Mexico or India, where labor is cheap and environmental regulations are almost non-existent.

America has been losing manufacturing capacity, jobs and precious technology for decades as the nation transitions to a more service-centric economy, but the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression has only hastened the transition, causing factories across the nation to permanently close their doors.

Others are simply shutting down factories and consolidating production in a move to cut costs and remain competitive with multinational companies with large, cheap Third World workforces.

Full story More American Factories Closing | Economy In Crisis
 
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Many of those factories, with the help of America’s lackadaisical free trade policy, have relocated to China, Mexico or India, where labor is cheap and environmental regulations are almost non-existent.

America has been losing manufacturing capacity, jobs and precious technology for decades as the nation transitions to a more service-centric economy, but the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression has only hastened the transition, causing factories across the nation to permanently close their doors.

Others are simply shutting down factories and consolidating production in a move to cut costs and remain competitive with multinational companies with large, cheap Third World workforces.

Full story More American Factories Closing | Economy In Crisis

I see the problem that you are addressing, ...but the days of this nation aren't quite numbered yet:

1. The US is the 3rd largest exporter of goods (8.3%) , after Germany ( 9.5) and China (8.7)
2. The US is the largest exporter of services (13.9 %) followed by UK (8.3) and Germany ( 6.6)
3. Taken as a total of goods and services, the US is more than twice as prolific as the next nearest nation.
About the International Trade Administration


This may be a bit out of date, but not useless.
 
I see the problem that you are addressing, ...but the days of this nation aren't quite numbered yet:

1. The US is the 3rd largest exporter of goods (8.3%) , after Germany ( 9.5) and China (8.7)
2. The US is the largest exporter of services (13.9 %) followed by UK (8.3) and Germany ( 6.6)
3. Taken as a total of goods and services, the US is more than twice as prolific as the next nearest nation.
About the International Trade Administration


This may be a bit out of date, but not useless.

From a standpoint of being twice as productive as Communist China, we are doing very, very well. Consider they have four times out population with which to produce product and are only half as good as we are.
 
I suspect that many of those factories weren't operating at less than a profit.

But when one moves to China and then floods our markets with cheap goods, suddenly the others can't compete. That's what we have"government" for.

Destroy the American Middle Class and watch the economic disaster 'TRICKLE UP".
 
I suspect that many of those factories weren't operating at less than a profit.

But when one moves to China and then floods our markets with cheap goods, suddenly the others can't compete. That's what we have"government" for.

Destroy the American Middle Class and watch the economic disaster 'TRICKLE UP".

The business models to keep the stock gamblers happy is that profit must keep increasing.
In a pretty much saturated market the only way to do that is cut costs. Or find a way to access tax dollars.
 
I suspect that many of those factories weren't operating at less than a profit.

But when one moves to China and then floods our markets with cheap goods, suddenly the others can't compete. That's what we have"government" for.

Destroy the American Middle Class and watch the economic disaster 'TRICKLE UP".

The business models to keep the stock gamblers happy is that profit must keep increasing.
In a pretty much saturated market the only way to do that is cut costs. Or find a way to access tax dollars.

That's the job of "government". To "manage" things which are in the best interest of the country.

When Bush and the Republicans replaced EPA and OSHA regulations with "Volentary Compliance" early in his first term, there with an immediate jump of hundreds of billions in corporate profits.

However, the cost of safety was transferred to tax payers because of an increase in injuries. Paying off the dead and damaged was cheaper. But who wants to be one of the dead or damaged?

And if that was such a good philosophy, then why not make "speed limits" voluntary compliance? Or "baby food"? Let the "market" sort it out. When you start putting it into those "real" terms, suddenly, you want regulation and safety that makes sense.
 
I see the problem that you are addressing, ...but the days of this nation aren't quite numbered yet:

1. The US is the 3rd largest exporter of goods (8.3%) , after Germany ( 9.5) and China (8.7)
2. The US is the largest exporter of services (13.9 %) followed by UK (8.3) and Germany ( 6.6)
3. Taken as a total of goods and services, the US is more than twice as prolific as the next nearest nation.
About the International Trade Administration


This may be a bit out of date, but not useless.

From a standpoint of being twice as productive as Communist China, we are doing very, very well. Consider they have four times out population with which to produce product and are only half as good as we are.

And, it's all about the service sectors:

Germany's primary economic problem isn't that they country exports too little, but that its own consumers don't spend enough, which holds back its domestic service sectors, many economists say.
"Service sectors are more important for jobs that export industries, which tend to be very capital-intensive," says Elga Bartsch, an economist at Morgan Stanley in London.
—Brian Blackstone and Andrew Batson contributed to this article
China Dethrones Germany as Top Goods Exporter - WSJ.com
 
I suspect that this kind of thread will continue for quite a while but the big problem is the speed with which manufacturing and to a lesser degree service jobs are being automated out of existence. One really strange progress report on the manufacture of robot-whores I saw on a NZ site brought this home. Turns out the inspiration for this research is that the porn industry and high-tech industry hold their conventions in Vegas at the same time. The idea is to automate prostitution the ultimate low skill service industry job.

This stuck out in my mind because of ads about the development of bipedal manufacturing on Minyanville. The automation of all low skill service jobs such as flipping burgers and collecting garbage will not be too far behind the development of low cost robo-whores and that will end out-sourcing. It will also do other strange things to the economy.
 
Perhaps it's time to innovate something new, something that moves beyond the model of production as defined in the last century.

Or we can just clamor for protectionist policies to keep the declining jobs here. :cool:
 

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