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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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 Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 11:37 pm Post subject: Turns out manufacturing in the USA is not being hollowed out |
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Pop quiz. Who is losing more manufacturing jobs, China or the USA?
Turns out it's China.
http://curiouscatlinks.blogspot.com/2005/11/manufacturing-job-losses-usa-2-million.html
America lost 3 million manufacturing jobs yaddie yaddie. So does that mean American manufacturing also lost output? No. American manufacturing output gains year over year.
http://evop.blogspot.com/2006/02/global-manufacturing-data-by-country_22.html
What's happening? Efficiency (in the USA and China). Just as a dairy farm can produce more milk with only a couple people and machines vs an army of milk maids, American manufacturers are simply able to produce more with less people, year after year.
America is not losing manufacturing jobs to China. It's losing them to American efficiency. And that's a good thing.
Anyway, next time a politician tries to get votes by screaming about the loss of manufacturing jobs, ask yourself why we're losing those jobs. When your nation can produce more wealth with fewer people, that's not a bad thing at all. |
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regicide
Joined: 01 Sep 2006
Location: United States
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| Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 1:53 am Post subject: Re: Turns out manufacturing in the USA is not being hollowed |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
Pop quiz. Who is losing more manufacturing jobs, China or the USA?
Turns out it's China.
http://curiouscatlinks.blogspot.com/2005/11/manufacturing-job-losses-usa-2-million.html
America lost 3 million manufacturing jobs yaddie yaddie. So does that mean American manufacturing also lost output? No. American manufacturing output gains year over year.
http://evop.blogspot.com/2006/02/global-manufacturing-data-by-country_22.html
What's happening? Efficiency (in the USA and China). Just as a dairy farm can produce more milk with only a couple people and machines vs an army of milk maids, American manufacturers are simply able to produce more with less people, year after year.
America is not losing manufacturing jobs to China. It's losing them to American efficiency. And that's a good thing.
Anyway, next time a politician tries to get votes by screaming about the loss of manufacturing jobs, ask yourself why we're losing those jobs. When your nation can produce more wealth with fewer people, that's not a bad thing at all. |
Good post. |
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inukshuk
Joined: 27 Jan 2008
Location: korea
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| Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 2:31 am Post subject: credible sources |
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Sorry but you haven't provided a credible source. You've provided a blog which references 1 one study.
You need something from the major media, academic journal, or such.
I can provide 10 studies that concludes global warming isn't a threat to humans - doesn't make it true.
e |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 4:58 am Post subject: Re: credible sources |
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| inukshuk wrote: |
Sorry but you haven't provided a credible source. You've provided a blog which references 1 one study.
You need something from the major media, academic journal, or such.
I can provide 10 studies that concludes global warming isn't a threat to humans - doesn't make it true.
e |
Actually the blog links to the sources. In the case of china losing more manufacturing jobs, it links to PBS. However, a simple google shows many academic sources and think tanks report the same thing.
In the second case of increases in US manufacturing output, it comes from UN stats. You're free to check them out here:
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/dnllist.asp
Check out the UN stats for Canada. Between 1983 and 1993 Canada's manufacturing grew 26%. After NAFTA for the next 10 year period, (1993-2003) Canada's manufacturing output grew by 61%. Go free trade! |
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djsmnc
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Dave's ESL Cafe
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| Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:14 am Post subject: |
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| More reassurance that I was born in the best country ever |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:26 am Post subject: |
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Jobs being lost to mechanization. No wonder China would be losing more of those jobs. I'm sure the Chinese manufacturing core, until recently relied SOLELY on manpower to get the job done.
| Quote: |
| America is not losing manufacturing jobs to China. It's losing them to American efficiency. And that's a good thing. |
Perhaps, but I think it'd be pretty tough to make a case with someone who lost their livelihood, that it's a great thing that a computer replaced them. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 3:02 pm Post subject: |
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| khyber wrote: |
Jobs being lost to mechanization. No wonder China would be losing more of those jobs. I'm sure the Chinese manufacturing core, until recently relied SOLELY on manpower to get the job done.
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| America is not losing manufacturing jobs to China. It's losing them to American efficiency. And that's a good thing. |
Perhaps, but I think it'd be pretty tough to make a case with someone who lost their livelihood, that it's a great thing that a computer replaced them. |
I started off as a desktop publisher. Word made DTP really easy to do. I do not decry MS. I became a technical writer. The web and help files made paper manuals nearly pointless. So I learned those skills. And so on. I knew a lot of former web developers after the dot.com bust that became chefs, real estate agents, etc.
Remember, trade and efficiency created your job. And they will create the next one. If no one teaches the factory worker to be prepared for change, that he doesn't have a job for life, then society has certainly failed there. Or he's not been paying much attention. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 4:07 pm Post subject: |
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| djsmnc wrote: |
| More reassurance that I was born in the best country ever |
As a Canadian it pains me to agree  . The Canadian dollar is now worth more than the greenback and we're still paying more for our imported electronics. |
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tfunk
Joined: 12 Aug 2006
Location: Dublin, Ireland
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| Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 4:24 pm Post subject: |
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| I don't think those figures account for the fact that Chinas population is a lot larger than Americas. Percentage rates per population would be different. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 6:13 pm Post subject: |
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MM2,
Thanks for the thread. China has actually been losing manufacturing jobs since 2003. Chinese monetary policy is geared towards pumping out exports, but Taiwanese investment is flying to Vietnam and Indonesia.
The Chinese stock market looks like the American stock market in 1928. Everyone making money the cities is in the markets betting on stocks as if they were race-horses. The Chinese are sitting on top of $700 billion worth of non-performing loans, and three or four times that value of loans for enterprises making negligable profits (less than 5-6%, not enough to recoup investment). When you go to Beijing, you'll find many commercial high-rise complexes only two-thirds occupied years after they were built.
The American recession is going to look like a cake-walk next to the Chinese crash, and the Chinese crash will affect markets from New York to London to Berlin. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:57 pm Post subject: |
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| tfunk wrote: |
| I don't think those figures account for the fact that Chinas population is a lot larger than Americas. Percentage rates per population would be different. |
Of course. But so what?
1) As a percentage of China's manufacturing economy, it's much larger. America has a bigger manufacturing economy than China and it is losing less jobs.
2) Job loss means little unless your manufacturing output is also shrinking. The job losses are due to increasing efficiency. The USA (and Canada) has shown year on year growth in output. Think about the huge job loss America has suffered in agriculture. At the start of the 20th century about 30% of jobs were in agriculture. Now only about 2% of America's jobs are in agriculture. But America produces more food today than ever before. With only 2% of the population. Hrm. Where'd all those farmers go? I don't recall this having a terrible effect on the economy. What happened is the sons of farmers went to school and became doctors and computer programmers and engineers and factory workers. The sons of factory workers are becoming doctors and computer programmers and engineers and chefs and travel agents and dental assistants. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| The American recession is going to look like a cake-walk next to the Chinese crash, and the Chinese crash will affect markets from New York to London to Berlin. |
I totally agree, and I think the American recession is going to be quite deep and painful. But you are right about the parallels between Chinese markets and 1928. The Shanghai index is up massively in the last 18-20 months. All speculation.
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:27 pm Post subject: |
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Related to this,
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| What really frustrates economists is the debate over trade and national policy is always framed as �exports are good, imports are bad�; the best policy is the one that allows Americans to dump as much of their production on foreigners as possible, while keeping as much of those foreigners� things out of our country as possible. That is called mercantilism, and it doesn�t work. As you know, healthy exports are only half the equation. Imports provide much of trade�s benefit � which is, indeed, why people import things. If you think buying from China is bad for our economy, ask yourself how many people your company would have to lay off if it had to pay twice as much for every piece of electronic gear in the office�all those computers, fax machines, copiers, telephones�because they were Made In The U.S.A. |
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2008/01/traders_by_nature.cfm
Opposition to free trade is typically based on perfection of losses and not a full examination of the picture. This dude explains it very well:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html
It is easy to see the jobs that head overseas. It is less easy to see the new jobs that are created. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:54 pm Post subject: |
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| thepeel wrote: |
Related to this,
| Quote: |
| What really frustrates economists is the debate over trade and national policy is always framed as �exports are good, imports are bad�; the best policy is the one that allows Americans to dump as much of their production on foreigners as possible, while keeping as much of those foreigners� things out of our country as possible. That is called mercantilism, and it doesn�t work. As you know, healthy exports are only half the equation. Imports provide much of trade�s benefit � which is, indeed, why people import things. If you think buying from China is bad for our economy, ask yourself how many people your company would have to lay off if it had to pay twice as much for every piece of electronic gear in the office�all those computers, fax machines, copiers, telephones�because they were Made In The U.S.A. |
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2008/01/traders_by_nature.cfm
Opposition to free trade is typically based on perfection of losses and not a full examination of the picture. This dude explains it very well:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html
It is easy to see the jobs that head overseas. It is less easy to see the new jobs that are created. |
I agree with you there. But I don't share your pessimism about the future. Having lived through the 1981 recession. The 1991 recession. And the 2001 recession. And having been affected by all three recessions, I oddly don't have such fears about the next recession. And aren't we about 3 years short of the next xxx1 recession? |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:56 am Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
I don't share your pessimism about the future. Having lived through the 1981 recession. The 1991 recession. And the 2001 recession. And having been affected by all three recessions, I oddly don't have such fears about the next recession. And aren't we about 3 years short of the next xxx1 recession? |
I don't think people will be wearing burlap sacks dude. But this one is going to be very painful, for a variety of reasons. Mainly, because the last couple recessions have been so painless. |
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