The manufacturing days of the US is over...

[cynatnite]

We'll always have some manufacturing, but the threads I've seen wanting to get those jobs that have been outsourced back here just strikes me as unrealistic. I honestly don't believe they will ever come back. We live in an age of a global economy and our thinking has to change with it.

People need to face the fact that the US is not a manufacturing giant anymore and it never will be again. The best thing for the US is to evolve to a green country, grow a strong infrastructure, develop technology, elevate education and advance health care. That's the future.

[OhioChick]

1. Evolving "green" is going to take time....

Same with the technology. People need jobs yesterday......

[cynatnite]

3. Totally agree, but I think this needs said n/t

[regnaD kciN]

2. Is they...?

Then we is in deep sh*t.

[rwheeler31]

4. You are too pessimistic.

[cynatnite]

Actually, I thought I was being very optimistic n/t

[Waiting For Everyman]

5. Why? Factories can't be built anymore?

Who knew? :shrug:

[stillcool]

6. We still make bombs!

I wonder if the Pentagon will follow the Corporations and re-locate to Dubai or somewhere.

[cynatnite]

7. Excellent point. n/t

[defendandprotect]

8. We can always restart what we really need -- and slam doors on those who left--!!!

Government can "raise" a corporation to perform any job we require to be necessary.

And government can also fold any corporation which is no longer needed or doing

unsatisfactory job!

[OmahaBlueDog]

9. Sorta yes, sorta no

I've had this argument here before.

The days of plentiful, high paying manufacturing jobs are over. We can still manufacture with the best of them, but todays CNC machining centers can take bar stock or castings; mill them, drill them, tap them; work into tolerances of the tens of thousands of inches; and do in 20 minutes or so what used to be some master machinist's entire day just 15-20 years ago. The same thing is true in die making, tool making, sheet metal, and plastic work.

China is good for large quantites and cheap prices. However, if you need shafting replaced on a machine on which your factory depends, or new gears cut, or pretty much anything done quickly and with a high degree of precision -- you have it done here.

The difference being that todays machinist more resembles yesterdays engineer. Nowadays, it's more about programming machines than operating them. Tomorrow's manufacturing jobs won't resemble the jobs we've come to know. Modern machining, stamping, and punching shops will be more about programming and ensuring that machines run correctly than actually operating a mill, lathe, or press.

We make cars well, but we have 3 car companies with badly outdated business models. GM, especially, is a trainwreck. Toyota (their nearest competitor) has two (OK if you count Scion, three) lines: Toyota, Scion, and Lexus. GM continued to badge engineer across Chevy, Buick, Olds, Pontiac, GMC truck, and Caddy for years. In the 90's, they made a good attempt with Saturn that they didn't follow through with, and a half assed attempt with Olds that failed miserably. The American car companies need a leaner line -- like Nissan/Infinity or Honda/Acura. They also need to bring executive pay into line with what execs make in Japan and Europe.

Evolving into a green country doesn't equate to not being a strong manufacturer. Take a drive on I-80 or I-29 near my house, and watch the wind turbine components roll to wind projects throughout the region. Someone has to make these parts (I've visited some of the plants that make structural pieces for the towers). Someone has to make the spare parts. Someone has to make the components for the smart power grid. There's no reason that "someone" can't be us.

However, you're not wrong about healthcare. My advice to anyone who's unemployed who has access to educational resources would be to see what kind of health care positions you can train for -- CNA, respiratory therapist, lab aide, medication aide, nurse's aide, medical coder, transcriiptionist, etc. I've also seen a proliferation in companies that sell and service DME (durable medical equipment). Those scooters you see people running around on need service. With the baby boomers hitting the big 65, this will be well-paid, necessary work for years to come.

[cynatnite]

10. Thanks for the explanation...

BTW, I'm studying to be a transcriptionist and medical coder.

[OmahaBlueDog]

11. My wife is still kicking herself for not letting unemployument pay for that training in '01

She lost her job in the post 9-11 downturn. Instead of racing to find another, we should have taken advantage of the retraining opportunities.

Good luck.

[catnhatnh]

13. Actually I've been wondering about the possibility of Retro/Green manufacturing...

Something I saw in the scrap business in the early 90's was a weak, but viable market in recycled plastics....We would receive plastic regrind in large skid/corrugated cardboard box combinations (called gaylords) weighing several hundred pounds for literally less than a penny a pound and often free. It was held for weeks or months on a highly volatile Asian spot market.

A plastics manufacturing plant is simple older technology...all it takes is the ability to heat this cheap recycled material and machines to pour of extrude or to blow it into molds. Take 1 or 2 mold designers, a couple of machinist with the new multi-axis cnc machines, a material handler (fork truck driver) and a half dozen operators and an actual manufacturing plant could be operating in just weeks in a common Butler-type building....Think of it-simple manufactured plastic items 100% recycled and made in the USA. And I believe it could support a living wage...and almost guarantee it with single payer health care...

[OmahaBlueDog]

16. Forget a dead Butler building. Go to most small towns with a WalMart Super Store, and

..you'll find a dead, empty former Wal-Mart.

Heck... that could be like a national contest. Can you create a Green manufacturing concept that will fit in a dead Wal Mart store? The possibilities are virtually limitless, and building products in the USA would be the best revenge.

[catnhatnh]

18. A space like that you could Condo out to small manufacturing...

And almost "boutique" out support services...Think maybe a half dozen small enterprises and along one side a series of small shops..."Ye Olde Engineerery", "The Merry Millwrights", "The Olde Maintenance Shoppe" etc,etc. Add an industrial supply house, a small cafe, and perhaps an office suite to handle all clerical/administrative tasks and you might find a viable symbiosis...

It sure is fun to skylark these type ideas.

[cynatnite]

19. They finally tore down the old Walmart here...now it's just an empty lot. n/t

[Ghost Dog]

20. You should be setting up this business right now.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/09/recycling-global-recession-china

What's more, if you could design a small basic, scalable turnkey recycled plastics production facility, you could sell the same surely all over the world.

[catnhatnh]

21. Actually I already own a small maufacturing plant...

according to G.W.Bush
<a href="" target="_blank"><img src="" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
This is where I manufacture Chili-Dogs.

But I came out of industry and think options exist to revitalize it here. How can it be cheaper to send a resource that cost so little halfway around the world to be used on easily produced consumer goods and then ship them half way around the world back? Anyhow I enjoy brainstorming...

[Ghost Dog]

22. Heh heh. What I just said here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3720170&mesg_id=3720390

The ease and relatively incredibly low cost of shipping goods of all sorts by land, sea and air is at the heart of our economic problems, I reckon. Shipping carries additional very large environmental costs which are not charged for under current pricing arrangements, and also is fundamental to the pattern of loss of viable local economies, of local production and supply chains and jobs, and the social disintegration that is caused. Shipping costs should make moving much more than essential raw materials great distances prohibitively expensive. Were the true costs of shipping goods across the world taken into account, much more economic activity would instead grow up locally to serve local consumers' needs and demands.

[FredStembottom]

12. Policy decisions made globalization happen.

Policy decisions can reverse it.
There are no trolls pulling levers of history underground somewhere.
We dropped our tariffs, we can raise them again. Then manufacturing would have to happen here.
China would then manufacture for China.
Billions of Chinese just needing wage increases to create internal demand.
Huge energy savings, too as we stop boating crap all over the globe just to take advantage of near-slave labor (a type of "extraordinary rendition" of labor).

[TwixVoy]

14. Then we are fucked

Game over.

[ColbertWatcher]

15. Dirty manufacturing has seen it's last days in America. n/t

[taught_me_patience]

17. Total manufacturing output in america is highest ever

perception does not meet reality in this case. Manufacturing jobs are gone because of technology. Machines can do the work that humans once did. It has little to do with "globalization".

[acmavm]

23. And base economic growth on what? The perennial joke 'service'?

NO economy can survive, no economy can grow unless they have something to SELL. You have to generate an income before. Or are you just fond of repeating that tired old shit from the dot.com era?

Do you not think there's a reason why China is booming? Or any other country that still has manufacturing?

[Postman]

24. Amen.

If you don't produce anything of value you're not creating any wealth...or a middle class.

All the US creates is (props to Marc Maron) appetite.....(want fries with that?)

[HughBeaumont]

25. The "Service" economy . . . unbelievable.

Remember when David Dreier had a speech praising this as a "viable option" to manufacturing and defending Bewsh's economic lackey when he made his "burger flipper = manufacturing" statement? Is there no end to how absolutely out of touch the average Repuke politician is with the needs of the American economy?

It's all junk food. No meat and potatoes. Nothing but floating paper.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/HughBeaumont/62

[acmavm]

26. There's a lot of DUers who think the 'service based' economy

is a real possibility as well.

[Romulox]

27. I say they are not, and that you've provided no evidence to back up this point.

[raccoon]

28. I agree, they sure is. :silly:

But seriously, I agree.