19 Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America That Will Make You Weep

[NYC_SKP]

Source: Business Insider

19 Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America That Will Make You Weep
Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse | Sep. 27, 2010, 9:55 AM | 649,455 | 127

The United States is rapidly becoming the very first "post-industrial" nation on the globe. All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing. It was America that was at the forefront of the industrial revolution.

It was America that showed the world how to mass produce everything from automobiles to televisions to airplanes. It was the great American manufacturing base that crushed Germany and Japan in World War II. But now we are witnessing the deindustrialization of America. Tens of thousands of factories have left the United States in the past decade alone. Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost in the same time period. The United States has become a nation that consumes everything in sight and yet produces increasingly little. Do you know what our biggest export is today?

Waste paper. Yes, trash is the number one thing that we ship out to the rest of the world as we voraciously blow our money on whatever the rest of the world wants to sell to us. The United States has become bloated and spoiled and our economy is now just a shadow of what it once was. Once upon a time America could literally outproduce the rest of the world combined. Today that is no longer true, but Americans sure do consume more than anyone else in the world. If the deindustrialization of America continues at this current pace, what possible kind of a future are we going to be leaving to our children?

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/deindustrialization-factory-closing-2010-9#the-united-states-has-lost-a-whopping-32-percent-of-its-manufacturing-jobs-since-the-year-2000-13#ixzz1ipWCcyGf


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/deindustrialization-factory-closing-2010-9#the-united-states-has-lost-a-whopping-32-percent-of-its-manufacturing-jobs-since-the-year-2000-13#ixzz1ipSup6o5

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Good read.

Our number one export: trash to be recycled.

We are a nation of consumers, with no respect for craftsmanship, for arts, for simplicity, for local goods, for homemade goods, all we want is tons of cheap stuff made, and we don't seem to care where it comes from or the impact on people or environment.

Shame on us.

[lbrtbell]

1. The reason we're no longer producing? Outsourcing.

It's not our fault that corporations have been shipping our jobs overseas.

It's not shame on us...it's shame on them.

Shame on them for making us unable to afford anything besides cheap crap.

[No Elephants]

2. And here I thought our number one export was instruments of war and death, like

guns and fighter planes.

Good to know it's only waste paper.


I don't remember lobbying for policies that crushed American manufaceturing, or legislating them.

And I've voted for nothing but Democrats my whole life, in the belief that they were for the American worker.

I am happy to take responsiblity for what I have actually done and left undone, though.

[KoKo]

3. "Trash to be Recyled"...kind of says it all. K&R...A good article!

and when you say:

"We are a nation of consumers, with no respect for craftsmanship, for arts, for simplicity, for local goods, for homemade goods, all we want is tons of cheap stuff made, and we don't seem to care where it comes from or the impact on people or environment."

We had that in the late 60's thru 70's. Craft Fairs, Hand Made Toys, Move for more Natural Foods and LL Bean and Lands End who used to sell goods made in Maine or in Lands End's catalogs...knitted sweaters from Ireland/Scotland. Natural Fibers ruled and "wood toys for kids." Children's Television (before it was corrupted) tried to focus on learning and making learning fun and the FCC had madated that a certain number of hours a day were to focus on childrens programming that was educational.

That's all gone today.

[dtexdem]

4. Any one of them would make me weep. They all do.

And a variety of Asian countries, not just China, have been building strong economies by having strong emphases on manufacturing.

[freshwest]

5. My union was educating people on this through all of the Reagan years. It kept on going.