I think we should offer incentives to those who want to start making stuff in the U.S. again.

[gauguin57]

We need to start making stuff here again. Maybe someone who wants to start a factory to manufacture something here (and employ a couple hundred workers) should get tax breaks, special loans, something ... It disturbs me that so much of what we buy is made overseas ... and there are no jobs for American workers. It seems insane when you think about it.

Maybe this is a good time to make some changes to the way America does business.

[napi21]

1. We have to break the downward spiral first!

There are already lots of companies that make things in the US, butfew have any $$ to buy their products, and those that do aren't spending any $$!

The economic climate still looks very bleak to me and I can't imagine any business that would or even COULD start up now without pretty strong consumer demand. They'd never be able to get funding.

[gauguin57]

4. Maybe that's what I'm saying ... start some gov't program that helps them GET funding.

Regardless of PRESENT consumer demand. I find it interesting that some companies are right now planning new strip malls in my area (where there are lots of empty stores), because they realize that, by the time all the zoning approvals are finished, road improvements made, and the places are actually built, the economy will be starting to come back (and they'll be ready for when the consumers come back).

And if we make so much stuff in the U.S., why is it I so seldom see a "made in USA" label on anything as I shop? I do try to buy local, but not everything I need is made in my town, state or region. Not by a longshot.

[ThomWV]

2. Now, that is what they used to call a "Capital" good idea back in the old days.

[treestar]

3. We do make stuff

We make guns, I'm pretty sure.

We still publish books and we make movies.

Why assume we make nothing just because the Chinese make the little physical items now and the Vietnamese and others sew the clothes. We still may be designing the clothes and distributing and marketing them. Somebody works in the clothing stores and might not have their job without the cheaper Chinese labor.

We make computer software and do design and marketing.

It is not as if we have zero exports.

We worry too much about destroying the Chinese rather than building up what we already have here. We're barking up the wrong tree here.

[gauguin57]

5. I'm not talking about destroying anyone ... I'm just trying to figure out where all these people

who have lost their jobs are going to work. Maybe helping get some factories started will employ some of these people, and put money in their pockets so they'll go out and stimulate the economy.

[treestar]

9. Exactly, it is just a matter of finding out where the jobs are

Or stimulating them if they are in short supply.

We're stuck on the material things that we can see as if they are the only way to make a living, yet we have probably the most advanced economy, with many jobs the Chinese don't have, and those jobs are even better paying or more comfortable.

[anonymous171]

6. Protectionism+Tax breaks=More jobs in America. nt

[old mark]

7. I used to be a factory designer many years ago here in the USA,

and one of the last long term jobs I had in that field was assisting in the design of an extremely efficient clean room to produce relatively simple chips (electronic, not potato). It was at the time the most efficient chip producer in the world, and when it was perfected after several years of development, it was packed up and sent to Singapore. The company I worked for is out of business for many years now.

I would love to see more industry here, but the companies DO NOT want to spend money on research and design, and do not want to make things here because US workers cost more in wages and benefits than workers in non US plants.

The last 20 years of my working life, I was in social work of one sort or another, and never made the money I made back in the early 1980's, but at least I had a job.

mark

[keith the dem]

8. UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE!

If I'm going to make something and I have a choice between building a factory in a place where the government provides the health care or where I have to pay a ransom for the health care of my employees, where do you think I'll go?

Just make a trip from the depressed post-industrial Buffalo New York to Toronto Canada. As soon as you cross that Canadian Border, You see nothing but factories that make stuff.

It reminds me of how it was where I grew up in eastern PA. Now that area has mostly large distribution centers that store and ship stuff made in those other countries where they have universal health care.

[pampango]

11. Great point. I read a post yesterday that wanted tariffs against Canada because of their advantage

of having national health care. It would make more sense for the US to adopt national health care, thus eliminating Canada's advantage, with the added benefit that it would make us a healthier nation, not just a more prosperous one. :)

[keith the dem]

12. With the harm that our health care system does to most all big

business (besides the health care industry), I don't know why this is not a Republican position. I guess it makes as much sense as wanting tax breaks for big businesses that are losing money and don't pay any taxes anyway.

Most of those "evil union demands" that are supposedly ruining our industry are demands for decent health care. Why do so few, other than Krugman, see the whole picture?

[Coyote_Bandit]

10. We will not be able to create enough jobs anytime

in the near future to replace the jobs that have disappeared.

The single best economic stimulus we could enact would (1) make capital available to new business startups and (2) make Medicare coverage available to all new or small business owners, employees and their families.

Lots of jobless folks are going to be scrambling to find a way to being in some $$$$$. And a lot of them are going to try to start their own business.

[Poiuyt]

13. Tax incentives for companies bringing jobs back to the US, tax penalties for companies that

send jobs overseas. Large corporations wouldn't send jobs out of the country if it weren't profitable for them. Let's try to level the playing field a bit.

[Greyhound]

14. Reformation of the SBA. Change it from the corporate welfare program it has been turned

into, and make direct, no interest loans to start ups and guarantee financing for existing small businesses to get them back into business, before it is really too late.

We need to get the private firms that are in charge of our currency, and therefore manipulate it to their benefit, out of the picture and take back the power of our economy for ourselves. This is what is so frustrating with the situation and the way we are dealing with it now. We're essentially pouring incomprehensible amounts of money into a system that exists to take as much money as possible out for themselves, and hoping that they will recycle it back into the economy. They won't, they have no reason to, it is against the nature of that industry.