How do we bring manufacturing back to the US?

[Vic Vega]

One thing I see stated over and over on these forums is about the "growing wealth gap" in the US. If this is true or not, I don't know. A perhaps obvious issue is that the retail service industry pays very little which could be to blame as more people are employed in the retail service industry than just about anything else.

An obvious solution to this is to bring back the middle class manufacturing jobs which we have lost over the last 40 years.

The question is, how do we do this? What would it take to bring companies back to the US, or even North America.

Do we start teaching manufacturing in high school again? Do we run US made marketing campaigns and try and drive it from the consumer side? Do we offer incentives for companies to relocate? What can be done?

I know plenty of out of work business school grads who would gladly work for $30/hour in a factory with unlimited overtime potential.

 

[IronWing]

Protectionism works. Free trade works as well, but the benefits accrue to different folks. If we want decent paying manufacturing jobs and our own industrial base then we need to re-implement tariffs on manufacted goods from low wage countries. At this point, tariffs on outgoing raw materials might also be a good idea.

 

[Strk]

Wow, business grads would gladly work for 62k+ a year? That's generous.

 

[Vic Vega]

Protectionism works. Free trade works as well, but the benefits accrue to different folks. If we want decent paying manufacturing jobs and our own industrial base then we need to re-implement tariffs on manufacted goods from low wage countries. At this point, tariffs on outgoing raw materials might also be a good idea.

Pretty sure there are constitutional protections against this presently so to do that, assuming it would be the right course of action, would require an amendment. I could be wrong on this.

 

[Atreus21]

One thing I see stated over and over on these forums is about the "growing wealth gap" in the US. If this is true or not, I don't know. A perhaps obvious issue is that the retail service industry pays very little which could be to blame as more people are employed in the retail service industry than just about anything else.

An obvious solution to this is to bring back the middle class manufacturing jobs which we have lost over the last 40 years.

The question is, how do we do this? What would it take to bring companies back to the US, or even North America.

Do we start teaching manufacturing in high school again? Do we run US made marketing campaigns and try and drive it from the consumer side? Do we offer incentives for companies to relocate? What can be done?

I know plenty of out of work business school grads who would gladly work for $30/hour in a factory with unlimited overtime potential.

$30 an hour? How spartan and austere of them.

That statement in itself illustrates a large part of the problem. American labor is expensive.

 

[KB]

We can devalue our currency so low that US employees are cheaper. This hurts us in the pocket book as the price of energy/goods rises.

We can make US workers cheaper by eliminating social security and/or providing universal health care. This would add greatly to the debt of the nation or will result in increased taxes, also hurting us in the pocket book.

We can add tariffs to goods as someone said, this will make our local goods cheaper compared to foriegn goods, but it will result in almost all goods going up in price as other countries retaliate.

We can add incentives for companies to move manufacturing here; however those incentives have to be enormous to convince them to stay. Local companies will also want those incentives in order to compete and you will greatly reduce the revenue you take in from businesses.

 

[crashtestdummy]

One thing I see stated over and over on these forums is about the "growing wealth gap" in the US. If this is true or not, I don't know. A perhaps obvious issue is that the retail service industry pays very little which could be to blame as more people are employed in the retail service industry than just about anything else.

An obvious solution to this is to bring back the middle class manufacturing jobs which we have lost over the last 40 years.

The question is, how do we do this? What would it take to bring companies back to the US, or even North America.

Do we start teaching manufacturing in high school again? Do we run US made marketing campaigns and try and drive it from the consumer side? Do we offer incentives for companies to relocate? What can be done?

I know plenty of out of work business school grads who would gladly work for $30/hour in a factory with unlimited overtime potential.

The real solution is that people would have to be willing to get paid a lot less than $30/hr to make manufacturing jobs come back. US manufacturing output is still very high, but the jobs aren't there. The reasons are twofold: the labor intensive manufacturing is much cheaper in countries with lower wage expectations, and automation has taken over for everything else. Notice that nobody is emigrating to China to work in factories, and there's no way humans are going to compete with machines in an assembly line.

There is a demand for people who can service, maintain, and create manufacturing setups, but these jobs require training and a very different skill set than the old jobs.

 

[Vic Vega]

$30 an hour? How spartan and austere of them.

That statement in itself illustrates a large part of the problem. American labor is expensive.

Relative to existing manufacturing jobs $30/hour is a reasonable target, if not low. There are plenty of $10/hour jobs in the existing retail service industry. I'm not sure what your expectation is.

 

[MomentsofSanity]

Relative to existing manufacturing jobs $30/hour is a reasonable target, if not low. There are plenty of $10/hour jobs in the existing retail service industry. I'm not sure what your expectation is.

We might have differet ideas of what constitutes manufacturing (perhaps you are looking at long-term employees in automotive plants only a few years ago) but the currently starting wage for manufacturing jobs is about half of that on average. The average overall hourly wage in manufacturing is closer to $20 an hour.

www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2011/tables/11s1013.pdf

 

[Macamus Prime]

It's simple.

Example: the job creators would have to be OK with taking a $15 profit instead of a $35 profit off of product X. This path of squeezing costs isn't sustainable - it's hurting the American economy. How much more profits do the already rich need to make?

Now, I know what you are going to tell me; "demanding a rich person limits his/her wealth growth is COMMUNISM!!!shift+1!!!" Ok, so you are adamant about NOT supporting communism, but you are OK for a rich person to send his/her business,.... to a communist country, in order for their wealth to grow.

Filthy fingerman pigs. The God damn swine of these forums make me sick to my stomach. These enemies of the American worker, and America itself, CONSTANTLY vilify and paint the hard working American as the scumbag and real problem. The real problem are these delusional bufoons who allow the rich to use their faces as toilets. They accept and at most times BEG they are soiled on by the rich.

It's down right disturbing how most of these pathetic sacks of dirt and steaming shit gladly take on the "voice" of the job creators. It's disgusting on so many levels.

Do they hope to get something from master? Something more than the food that's passed through master's body?

/spit

 

[dank69]

One thing I see stated over and over on these forums is about the "growing wealth gap" in the US. If this is true or not, I don't know. A perhaps obvious issue is that the retail service industry pays very little which could be to blame as more people are employed in the retail service industry than just about anything else.

An obvious solution to this is to bring back the middle class manufacturing jobs which we have lost over the last 40 years.

The question is, how do we do this? What would it take to bring companies back to the US, or even North America.

Do we start teaching manufacturing in high school again? Do we run US made marketing campaigns and try and drive it from the consumer side? Do we offer incentives for companies to relocate? What can be done?

I know plenty of out of work business school grads who would gladly work for $30/hour in a factory with unlimited overtime potential.

Why would you want to teach kids how to do a job that is not in demand?

What would it take to bring manufacturing back to the US? Well, to start with, 3rd world countries would have to start paying their workers $30/h instead of $1/day.

 

[QuantumPion]

The biggest impediment to US manufacturing is government red tape and bogus environmental regulations.

When every puddle in the mud is considered a wetland and microscopic organisms are considered endangered species, what do you expect to happen?

 

[William Gaatjes]

Protectionism works. Free trade works as well, but the benefits accrue to different folks. If we want decent paying manufacturing jobs and our own industrial base then we need to re-implement tariffs on manufacted goods from low wage countries. At this point, tariffs on outgoing raw materials might also be a good idea.

A modest amount of protectionism is alright. There are enough services needed to provide jobs. Tariffs can be created with the environment in mind. But if you want to prevent consumer products from low wage countries where there is no pollution regulation what so ever and employee abuse , you must first look at what is happening in your own country. If you set tariffs this way, automatically the products will rise in price and local manufacturing will be more desirable. In the end, quality will mean more then quantity and then you are automatically entering the rhineland model. Your workers feel an obligation towards the company as if it was their own company. And when the country is seen as part of the company, pollution is also automatically not desirable. What politics and economy misses in the world, is the scientific method. There is no feedback to perform corrective measures. There is none to hold responsible. A CEO and his or hers managers can bankrupt a company but cannot be held responsible. A politician can endanger lives of people but cannot be held responsible. For me personally it is fine if a CEO or a president earn tens to hundreds of million of dollars or euro's a year. But the other side of the coin should then be that they can be held responsible in the case of of negligence. If someone creates long term stability then it is fine with me if that ceo receives a billion dollars or euro's over the course of a decade. But only if it means that a lot of people will have a living and an earning for that same decade and decades to come.

Intermezzo :
An electronic circuit called integrator is able when placed in a feedback loop to perform corrective measures when the measured output is not equal to the desired output.

One could argue that a manager in a company is such a feedback instrument. But that is not always the case because more then often, a career manager only looks at his or hers own career. A company does not benefit from people who only plan to enrich themselves at the costs of others. Interim ceo's and manager that are pulled in externally from other companies do not want the best result for the company. They want the best for themselves. By nature they will reduce efficiency because of the greed they have. A real manager is as much interested in the work that the employees perform as the employees themselves. Only then optimizations can be made.

The basic flaw in politics and economics is that there is no true corrective measure, no true feedback. The most basic electronic circuits are circuits that perform a feedback function to minimize any errors that may occur. But these circuits need a reference and what is the reference needed for politics and economic policies ?
End intermezzo.

When economic policies are created, then automatically the policy makers must ensure that the economy works as a giant flywheel. Stability and minor upsets do not cause massive failures. Integration and differentiation. I cannot find it in politics and economics. But it must become part of it. theoretical math models are of no use. The scientific method is all that counts.

 

[Vic Vega]

Why would you want to teach kids how to do a job that is not in demand?

What would it take to bring manufacturing back to the US? Well, to start with, 3rd world countries would have to start paying their workers $30/h instead of $1/day.

So you don't think there is anything we can do proactively to bring these jobs back and increase the middle class?

 

[William Gaatjes]

I copied this from another forum and user but you will get the idea.

The Rhineland Model (can be found in countries like Austria, Belgium France, Germany and Luxembourg)

The idea behind the Rhineland model is that it poses a balance between free market-forces and social and environmental responsibility. Social justice cannot be attained through market forces only, but must be guaranteed by society. Cooperation rather than competition is the keyword. Economic security before economic flexibility. The model has basicly four elements;

The market economy
Market economy is the preferred economic system due to it`s ability to assign resources efficiently and creating wealth. It also offers a general social justice that is based on hard work and thriftiness. But the free market cannot be trusted to provide perfect social justice or assign resources optimally in all cases. Therefor:

Interventions by the state
State intervention can be in order to prevent massive social injustices in the wake of an economic shock. It can also be used to preserve productive companies, factories and sectors during times of trouble. The state finances are affected by the performance and the direction of the economy, therefor the state also have stakes in the economy and should be expected to take it`s responsibility. By encouraging long-term investments and technological improvements, the state can increase the long term performance of the economy, while share-holder companies only seek short-term profits that may endanger the long term performance. Infrastructure investments, city.planning and even subsidies and taxes are tools to be utilized in order to achieve optimal economic performance.

Interventions on the labour market is also necessary to create just working conditions for workers. It is also a tool to decrease costly unemployment figures as well as encourage highly productive enterprises and discourage low productive enterprises.


A social security system
Society has a social responsibility towards it`s populace and should honour this responsibility through ensuring that it`s citizens are protected from the worst aspects of predatory-capitalism. Unemployment benefits and welfare payments to the poor and destitute should be a responsibility shouldered by all, hence the mandatory payment of social insurance. This security will also make individuals more willing to take risks, to invest and to better themselves. After all, they know that if they fall, society will be there to catch them. But there is one thing that must be ensured, and that is that from the beginning at school the mentality must be created that one must act in an responsible manner financially and that one desires to work when one can work. And that receiving social security is a temporary measure to correct oneself and put one in a position to find work once again. Adding a positive contribution to society. This also means that immigrants need to be drilled in order to have the same mentality if needed. But most immigrants are happy to finally have peace and having a chance to have a normal positive productive life and to create a future for the children.

Active government policies designed to increase matching processes between unemployed and employers are to be construed. As are reeducation- and relocation programs.

Consultation between employers and employees.
In the Anglo-Saxon model, companies are run by “shareholders”. In the Rhineland model, companies should be run by “stakeholders”, such as the owners, government, employees and customers. By encouraging influence from every party involved, one can achieve a better situation for everyone. By working together, instead of against each other, costly boycots, strikes and lockouts can be avoided.

A bit shorter than the Anglo-Saxon model, but I think you get the drift (I had to piece together information from many various websites in order to explain the Rhineland model). And just like in my thread on the Anglo-Saxon model, I ask you to discuss the accuracy of the model and wether you agree with it`s views or not. I`ll probably add a third model soon, the nordic model.

Link to the Anglo-Saxon model thread. Feel free to quote things from that one as well (ie; considers these two threads one and the same)

This name is interesting : Jan Pen.

http://www.brelson.com/2011/01/jan-pens-striking-method-for-picturing-us-income-inequality/

And this is what he once wrote :

Imagine people’s height being proportional to their income, so that someone with an average income is of average height. Now imagine that the entire adult population of America is walking past you in a single hour, in ascending order of income.

The first passers-by, the owners of loss-making businesses, are invisible: their heads are below ground. Then come the jobless and the working poor, who are midgets. After half an hour the strollers are still only waist-high, since America’s median income is only half the mean. It takes nearly 45 minutes before normal-sized people appear. But then, in the final minutes, giants thunder by. With six minutes to go they are 12 feet tall. When the 400 highest earners walk by, right at the end, each is more than two miles tall.

 

[dank69]

So you don't think there is anything we can do proactively to bring these jobs back and increase the middle class?

No. No I don't. Short of conquering the world of course.

 

[Vic Vega]

No. No I don't. Short of conquering the world of course.

It sounds more like you aren't willing to make changes to support something you don't believe in. That's fine, but why not just say that?

 

[crownjules]

Now, I know what you are going to tell me; "demanding a rich person limits his/her wealth growth is COMMUNISM!!!shift+1!!!" Ok, so you are adamant about NOT supporting communism, but you are OK for a rich person to send his/her business,.... to a communist country, in order for their wealth to grow.

The funny thing is, it's barely communist when it comes to business. China is a prime example of unbridled capitalism running amok. No regulation means heavy industy dumping toxic byproducts into their environment with no regard for the consequences. Both the Yangtze and Yellow rivers are deemed too polluted even to be used for farm irrigation.

But part of the onus lies on the American consumer as well. The average consumer is concerned so greatly with finding the lowest costs goods even if those goods are of questionable quality. Not only has this driven manufacturing jobs overseas but has also allowed big corporations like Wal-Mart to flourish. The latter of which drives local businesses out of business and contributes to the concentration of wealth. Rather than purchases being made in thousands of local shops each owned by a different person, we're all shopping at the same store owned by the same few people.

Of course, it's near impossible to find made in the USA goods these days. So yes, it will require government forcing the hand at first in concert with increasing consumer's awareness of the harm they're doing to themselves by mostly purchasing foreign made goods.

 

[bruceb]

The only way is for the US to revoke all the tax benefits companies save by going overseas or to Mexico. And they should put an Import Tariff on any goods made overseas by a US company which are brought back here to sell. That would stop this nonsense quick and bring jobs back here. It would also prevent a lot of goods being counterfeited by the Chinese factories.

 

[dank69]

It sounds more like you aren't willing to make changes to support something you don't believe in. That's fine, but why not just say that?

Perhaps. I just tend to be a realist. I'd say I can't believe that people actually think taxes/regulation has anything to do with the mass exodus of manufacturing jobs, but I lost faith in humanity long ago, so nothing surprises me anymore.

Millions of people fucked off in HS and even college and now expect to make $20/hr to push a button on an assembly line? 'Hi, I just got my GED, $20 per hour please.' or 'Just graduated with a 3.5 in basket weaving, 100k per year please.'

It's up to each and every single person to figure out what they are good at, and then figure out how they can make money. And guess what, a skill that was in demand last year, might not be next year or ever again. It is up to the individual to adapt.

So yes, maybe I don't see bringing manufacturng jobs back as a good idea. Maybe I want the human race to evolve. Maybe I want intellect to be rewarded. But regardless of what I think should happen, I don't believe anything can be done realistically to fix the problem even if I wanted to.

 

[Genx87]

30/hour is the problem. The honest truth is our cost of labor is too high. Our cost of regulation is too high. We can talk about tariff's and creating an atmosphere for forcing business to keep manufacturing here. But that is only masking the problem and it will be doomed to failure in the long term.

 

[Vic Vega]

30/hour is the problem. The honest truth is our cost of labor is too high. Our cost of regulation is too high. We can talk about tariff's and creating an atmosphere for forcing business to keep manufacturing here. But that is only masking the problem and it will be doomed to failure in the long term.

So, can you explain a little about your background in manufacturing and each specific type that makes you think $30/hour is not a reasonable wage for skilled labor?

I'm sorry if that sounds blunt, just trying to make a point. I don't think most people know what this skilled labor should or should not cost, and with the varying degree of skill set required in different aspects of manufacturing, I don't think you can broadly say it's good or bad.

 

[Genx87]

So, can you explain a little about your background in manufacturing and each specific type that makes you think $30/hour is not a reasonable wage for skilled labor?

I'm sorry if that sounds blunt, just trying to make a point. I don't think most people know what this skilled labor should or should not cost, and with the varying degree of skill set required in different aspects of manufacturing, I don't think you can broadly say it's good or bad.

Your premise for this topic is bringing back manufacturing to the US is it not? Why did it leave in the first place?

I dont need a background in manufacturing to know 30/hour is too much when manufacturing is going to other countries due to cost.

 

[theevilsharpie]

So you don't think there is anything we can do proactively to bring these jobs back and increase the middle class?

No, the wage disparity between American and Chinese workers is too great. Nothing short of a world war, massive increase in fuel costs, or global political instability (think on the same scale as the communist revolutions of the 20th century) will bring labor-intensive manufacturing back to the US.

Realistically, if we want to bring more manufacturing back to the US, we need to boost our investments in industrial automation and energy production. Highly automated manufacturing is still an area where the US is very competitive.

 

[kage69]

I'm not sure you can with so many repubs trying to keep it offshore...