US manufacturing in decline

[charrison]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: TheSlamma

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: conjur
Geez...you're really pushing it now.

First, it's an Op/Ed article.

Second, it only says the average expansion rate since 1991 is 4%. What it doesn't state is how that expansion is distributed over the last 14 years. Was most of it in the early 90s? Mid 90s? Last 5 years? When was it?

For the last several years manufacturing output has been growing quite well.

In what states?

Over most of the US.

Do you plan on providing proof of this sometime this decade?

start here...

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: TheSlamma

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: conjur
Geez...you're really pushing it now.

First, it's an Op/Ed article.

Second, it only says the average expansion rate since 1991 is 4%. What it doesn't state is how that expansion is distributed over the last 14 years. Was most of it in the early 90s? Mid 90s? Last 5 years? When was it?

For the last several years manufacturing output has been growing quite well.

In what states?

Over most of the US.

Do you plan on providing proof of this sometime this decade?

start here...

Yes, you could. So...why don't you?

 

[Whitecloak]

US Manufacturing? What's that?

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: TheSlamma

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: conjur
Geez...you're really pushing it now.

First, it's an Op/Ed article.

Second, it only says the average expansion rate since 1991 is 4%. What it doesn't state is how that expansion is distributed over the last 14 years. Was most of it in the early 90s? Mid 90s? Last 5 years? When was it?

For the last several years manufacturing output has been growing quite well.

In what states?

Over most of the US.

Do you plan on providing proof of this sometime this decade?

start here...

Yes, you could. So...why don't you?

past 2 years of data not enough?

 

[conjur]

I saw a page with tons of links. I'm not doing your research for you. Your claim was:

"For the last several years manufacturing output has been growing quite well."

Several replies later you've still not supported that claim.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: conjur
I saw a page with tons of links. I'm not doing your research for you. Your claim was:

"For the last several years manufacturing output has been growing quite well."

Several replies later you've still not supported that claim.

Too difficult to click on the monthy data and read a report. The page contains the links to the last 24 months of manufacting data. What we see here is conjur running from reality.

 

[TNM93]

Sure, certain industries are growing, but the overall trend is employment is falling in manufacturing as more and more companies expand in foreign markets. Here is employment trend.

 

[nergee]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: conjur
I saw a page with tons of links. I'm not doing your research for you. Your claim was:

"For the last several years manufacturing output has been growing quite well."

Several replies later you've still not supported that claim.

Too difficult to click on the monthy data and read a report. The page contains the links to the last 24 months of manufacting data. What we see here is conjur running from reality.

Here is a short term graphic for those that don't bother to read......Short term

.......and a long term graphic again for those who don't want to read........long term

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: charrison
It appears the death of US manufactuing is greatly exagerated and that worker are adapting to the change by find better jobs.

I have two advanced degrees. Now where is my better job in the field that requires a combination of both degress? Oh, that's right. There's an oversupply of people with the same combination of 2 (!!!) advanced degrees.

All sorts of people were laid off in my professional field during the recession and entry-level jobs became scarcer than usual. I'm under the impression that lots of MBAs were laid off too. So were a great many computer programmers and information technology people.

Where are these wonderful "better jobs" that you keep talking about? Where? According to some commentators, if you look at the monthly jobs reports data, few of the new jobs are high-value-added college-education-requiring knowledge-based jobs. (With almost no new jobs or a loss of jobs in import-export sensitive areas.) In fact, I've read that seven of the ten areas where the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects the most job growth in the futrue do not require a college degree.

Also, those low-wage service jobs (poverty wage jobs) are horrible for a grown adult and the people doing them would very likely much prefer to earn lower middle class wages working in factories. You're also assuming that manufacturing is necessarily low tech and low-value-added. That is not necessarily true.

Could you provide some stats or links to studies that show that people who lost their job replaced them with jobs that pay as much as the lost jobs? All of the news articles and reports I've read has said that most people who lost the jobs in the past couple of years were unable to find anything that paid close to what they had earned before.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: Genx87
I have never believed our manufacturing sector was in danger. However I do believe the manufacturing worker is.

With automation the human aspect of the equation will keep getting pushed out to drive down costs and increase productivity.

Think about it. Would you rather own a factory that works 3 shifts, costing 3 times the wages, 3 times the admin costs, 3 times healthcare, 3 times the pensions? Or would you rather run a factory with automation where robots do most of the work and are doing it 24 hours a day with a skeleton crew?

This is where education and retraining needs to be focused to help manufacturing workers to move into other careers.

True, but our problem isn't caused by technological advance or a real prodcutivity increase (innovation). If it were, the benefits of the innovation would cycle back into the economy, leading to the creation of new jobs in other sectors, which is what the original poster suggested.

Sadly, our problem is caused by global labor wage arbitrage, which is merely a dramatic increase in the supply of labor available in the market. The big problem is that even high-value-added knowledge-based jobs are susceptible. For example, the laid-off factory worker whose job was sent to China might retrain to become a computer programmer only to find that the computer programming work was sent to Bangalore.

Don't succumb to the politicians' and the media's opiate of the masses--the claim that we need more and better education. We already have too many people with advanced degrees (including high-fallutin' science Ph.D. degrees and computer science degrees) who are unemployed and underemployed. Producing more college degrees when the jobs don't exist for them won't help us.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: nergee

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: conjur
I saw a page with tons of links. I'm not doing your research for you. Your claim was:

"For the last several years manufacturing output has been growing quite well."

Several replies later you've still not supported that claim.

Too difficult to click on the monthy data and read a report. The page contains the links to the last 24 months of manufacting data. What we see here is conjur running from reality.

Here is a short term graphic for those that don't bother to read......Short term

.......and a long term graphic again for those who don't want to read........long term

Thank you, nergee, for doing charrison's work.

But, that doesn't show "For the last several years manufacturing output has been growing quite well."

It only shows about 2 years' of good growth. 2 <> several

 

[Jhhnn]

Unfortunately, I'm forced to agree with WhipperSnapper.

The good news is that manufacturing is improving as a source of wealth and income for the ownership class.

The bad news is that it's going to hell in a handbasket as a source of decent paying jobs for Americans...

And, as the workforce becomes more educated, employers will just raise qualifications. college degree? check. perfect credit? check. excellent employment history? check. churchgoer? check. proper political affiliation? check. Welcome to the Wal Mart Family!

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper

Originally posted by: charrison
It appears the death of US manufactuing is greatly exagerated and that worker are adapting to the change by find better jobs.

I have two advanced degrees. Now where is my better job in the field that requires a combination of both degress? Oh, that's right. There's an oversupply of people with the same combination of 2 (!!!) advanced degrees.

All sorts of people were laid off in my professional field during the recession and entry-level jobs became scarcer than usual. I'm under the impression that lots of MBAs were laid off too. So were a great many computer programmers and information technology people.

Where are these wonderful "better jobs" that you keep talking about? Where? According to some commentators, if you look at the monthly jobs reports data, few of the new jobs are high-value-added college-education-requiring knowledge-based jobs. (With almost no new jobs or a loss of jobs in import-export sensitive areas.) In fact, I've read that seven of the ten areas where the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects the most job growth in the futrue do not require a college degree.

Also, those low-wage service jobs (poverty wage jobs) are horrible for a grown adult and the people doing them would very likely much prefer to earn lower middle class wages working in factories. You're also assuming that manufacturing is necessarily low tech and low-value-added. That is not necessarily true.

Could you provide some stats or links to studies that show that people who lost their job replaced them with jobs that pay as much as the lost jobs? All of the news articles and reports I've read has said that most people who lost the jobs in the past couple of years were unable to find anything that paid close to what they had earned before.

The fact remains that average wage continues to rise. So that alone makes it obvious that the jobs that are lost are not being replaced with lesser paying jobs.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: nergee

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: conjur
I saw a page with tons of links. I'm not doing your research for you. Your claim was:

"For the last several years manufacturing output has been growing quite well."

Several replies later you've still not supported that claim.

Too difficult to click on the monthy data and read a report. The page contains the links to the last 24 months of manufacting data. What we see here is conjur running from reality.

Here is a short term graphic for those that don't bother to read......Short term

.......and a long term graphic again for those who don't want to read........long term

Thank you, nergee, for doing charrison's work.

But, that doesn't show "For the last several years manufacturing output has been growing quite well."

It only shows about 2 years' of good growth. 2 <> several

So you are now too stupid to read and want any future links to be provided in easily digestable graphs. You are becoming more foolish as time passes.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper

Originally posted by: charrison
It appears the death of US manufactuing is greatly exagerated and that worker are adapting to the change by find better jobs.

I have two advanced degrees. Now where is my better job in the field that requires a combination of both degress? Oh, that's right. There's an oversupply of people with the same combination of 2 (!!!) advanced degrees.

All sorts of people were laid off in my professional field during the recession and entry-level jobs became scarcer than usual. I'm under the impression that lots of MBAs were laid off too. So were a great many computer programmers and information technology people.

Where are these wonderful "better jobs" that you keep talking about? Where? According to some commentators, if you look at the monthly jobs reports data, few of the new jobs are high-value-added college-education-requiring knowledge-based jobs. (With almost no new jobs or a loss of jobs in import-export sensitive areas.) In fact, I've read that seven of the ten areas where the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects the most job growth in the futrue do not require a college degree.

Also, those low-wage service jobs (poverty wage jobs) are horrible for a grown adult and the people doing them would very likely much prefer to earn lower middle class wages working in factories. You're also assuming that manufacturing is necessarily low tech and low-value-added. That is not necessarily true.

Could you provide some stats or links to studies that show that people who lost their job replaced them with jobs that pay as much as the lost jobs?

All of the news articles and reports I've read has said that most people who lost the jobs in the past couple of years were unable to find anything that paid close to what they had earned before.

Don't hold your breath.

 

[Jhhnn]

"The fact remains that average wage continues to rise. So that alone makes it obvious that the jobs that are lost are not being replaced with lesser paying jobs."

Actually, the fact that maintained jobs are paying a little higher, and that top slot jobs are paying a lot better skews the curve... "average" is also deceptive- "median" is more like the truth, and even that can be off base, given the number of folks who've recently fallen below the poverty line. Other than the late 90's, any credible source will tell you that real wages have been quite stagnant since the early 70's.

Even those who seek to pooh-pooh the current situation are couching thie prognostications in terms like "should", and were blaming high energy prices on the poor wage improvement, even before Katrina and Rita...

It's really about how income distribution is changing, more and more of it going to the very top, outpacing growth and even deficits... which is a natural consequence of reduced taxrates and increased ability to export capital, much to the detriment of the vast majority of American workers. Yeh, sure, stuff is cheap, but it's only a temporary side effect of a self defeating cycle...

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
"The fact remains that average wage continues to rise. So that alone makes it obvious that the jobs that are lost are not being replaced with lesser paying jobs."

Actually, the fact that maintained jobs are paying a little higher, and that top slot jobs are paying a lot better skews the curve... "average" is also deceptive- "median" is more like the truth, and even that can be off base, given the number of folks who've recently fallen below the poverty line. Other than the late 90's, any credible source will tell you that real wages have been quite stagnant since the early 70's.

Even those who seek to pooh-pooh the current situation are couching thie prognostications in terms like "should", and were blaming high energy prices on the poor wage improvement, even before Katrina and Rita...

It's really about how income distribution is changing, more and more of it going to the very top, outpacing growth and even deficits... which is a natural consequence of reduced taxrates and increased ability to export capital, much to the detriment of the vast majority of American workers. Yeh, sure, stuff is cheap, but it's only a temporary side effect of a self defeating cycle...

:thumbsup:

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
"The fact remains that average wage continues to rise. So that alone makes it obvious that the jobs that are lost are not being replaced with lesser paying jobs."

Actually, the fact that maintained jobs are paying a little higher, and that top slot jobs are paying a lot better skews the curve... "average" is also deceptive- "median" is more like the truth, and even that can be off base, given the number of folks who've recently fallen below the poverty line. Other than the late 90's, any credible source will tell you that real wages have been quite stagnant since the early 70's.

Even those who seek to pooh-pooh the current situation are couching thie prognostications in terms like "should", and were blaming high energy prices on the poor wage improvement, even before Katrina and Rita...

It's really about how income distribution is changing, more and more of it going to the very top, outpacing growth and even deficits... which is a natural consequence of reduced taxrates and increased ability to export capital, much to the detriment of the vast majority of American workers. Yeh, sure, stuff is cheap, but it's only a temporary side effect of a self defeating cycle...

Of course you offer no proof to of the elite scewing the average.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: charrison
Of course you offer no proof to of the elite scewing the average.

People at the top growing much faster than at bottom...

According to Business Week, the average CEO of a major corporation made 42 times the average hourly worker's pay in 1980. By 1990 that had almost doubled to 85 times. In 2000, the average CEO salary reached an unbelievable 531 times that of the average hourly worker.

From here

The average worker, on the other hand, earns just under $30,000 per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

IIRC, the average in the US (everyone) is mid 40's thousands in income. Average worker = 30,000. Sounds to me like the average is indeed being skewed higher and higher by the top portion.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Engineer

Originally posted by: charrison
Of course you offer no proof to of the elite scewing the average.

People at the top growing much faster than at bottom...

According to Business Week, the average CEO of a major corporation made 42 times the average hourly worker's pay in 1980. By 1990 that had almost doubled to 85 times. In 2000, the average CEO salary reached an unbelievable 531 times that of the average hourly worker.

From here

The average worker, on the other hand, earns just under $30,000 per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

IIRC, the average in the US (everyone) is mid 40's thousands in income. Average worker = 30,000. Sounds to me like the average is indeed being skewed higher and higher by the top portion.

But is this any different from 10, 20, 30, 100 years ago? How old is the chorus " the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer". Yet it appears this chorus has yet to pass because it appears the poor are getting richer, but just at a slower rate than the rich.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: charrison

But is this any different from 10, 20, 30, 100 years ago? How old is the chorus " the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer". Yet it appears this chorus has yet to pass because it appears the poor are getting richer, but just at a slower rate than the rich.

Since the average is skewed, does anyone have the numbers (%) of growth vs inflation that the middle /lower middle/lower class people are growing?

I don't know, but my wages haven't kept up with inflation (especially if you throw in the huge increase in medical coverage), even with the tax cuts (of course, wage freeze this year didn't help). I make "more money" on avearge because I work more hours. If I didn't, I would have been in a hole for the last few years (regardless of what the "average" numbers people throw out say).

 

[Jhhnn]

Thank you, Engineer, for posting those links, again. They and many others like them have been posted here many times, but it's apparently necessary to reiterate, to start from square one over and over again...

like I've said many times, this whole bit about how the Rightwing creates their own reality pretty much requires regular doses of ordinary reality to counter the effect... but that's temporary, at best. I don't blame people for wanting to believe in something, anything, but this whole defense of those who are destroying the middle class is akin to mass hypnosis, or rapture, or whatever else you'd care to call something that's as exploitational as what's been coming out of rightwing thinktanks for the last 30 years...

 

[nergee]

Isn't CEO pay comprised more of them exercising stock options than actual salary? If their company stock is rising, I guess I can't
blame them for cashing in.................

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: charrison
The fact remains that average wage continues to rise. So that alone makes it obvious that the jobs that are lost are not being replaced with lesser paying jobs.

Fact? Why is it a fact? Because you say so?

You have developed a VERY bad habit of citing "fact" with no proof or basis for that "fact". One of your "facts" was already disproven by nergee.

As for the average wage continuing to rise, sure, it's rising but is it outpacing inflation? Is it increasing enough to cover increasing medical costs?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37628-2004Dec30.html

... If she can't stay on her husband's health plan, her costs for health insurance offered by the hospital will be $200 a month, more than five times as much as at the airline. There are no pension benefits beyond the option for a 401(k) savings plan and few job protections. She makes $2 an hour less than before; to have a chance at higher pay, she will need to continually train herself in new areas.

Geerling is at the leading edge of changes that herald a new era for millions of people earning around the national average, $17 an hour.

This new era requires that workers shoulder more responsibility and risk on the way to financial security, economists say. It also demands that they be nimble in an increasingly fluid job market. Those who don't obtain some combination of specialized skills, higher education and professional status that can be constantly adapted will be in danger of sliding down the economic ladder to low-paying service jobs, usually without benefits.

Meanwhile, those who secure the middle-class jobs of the 21st century will have to make $17 an hour stretch further than ever as they pay more for health care or risk doing without insurance and assume much or all of the burden for their retirement....

This report backs up Kerry's claims last year of a "shrinking middle class"
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www...ses/archives/income_wealth/002484.html

Consumer Prices Increase, Outstrip Wages
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co...rticle/2005/08/16/AR2005081600411.html

Slower wage growth (Chart)
(more like negative wage growth)

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: charrison
The fact remains that average wage continues to rise. So that alone makes it obvious that the jobs that are lost are not being replaced with lesser paying jobs.

Fact? Why is it a fact? Because you say so?

You have developed a VERY bad habit of citing "fact" with no proof or basis for that "fact". One of your "facts" was already disproven by nergee.

As for the average wage continuing to rise, sure, it's rising but is it outpacing inflation? Is it increasing enough to cover increasing medical costs?

And you are just getting in a very bad habit of being stupid as of late. You are quoting a report based on 2-3 year old data that says at the very least wages are at least keeping up with inflation. So it still appears wages are not falling, even according to you own links.

This report backs up Kerry's claims last year of a "shrinking middle class"
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www...ses/archives/income_wealth/002484.html

Consumer Prices Increase, Outstrip Wages
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co...rticle/2005/08/16/AR2005081600411.html

Slower wage growth (Chart)
(more like negative wage growth)

And why should I bother posting anything to back up my claims, you would not bother to read them anyway, because after all if it is not a digestable graph it is too difficult for you. It appears you did not even read the wapo article as it is not nearly as gloomy as you would like it to be.