Manufacturing in America - Recent History

I just read an article by Gwynn Guilford for qz.com entitled "The epic mistake about manufacturing that's cost Americans millions of jobs". The title is too long, but the article is easy to read and full of interesting stuff about the manufacturing sector in America and how we lost a lot of jobs.

https://qz.com/1269172/the-epic-mistake-about-manufacturing-thats-cost-americans-millions-of-jobs/

"The subsequent increase in foreign imports and diminished demand for American exports resulted in a loss of around 1.5 million manufacturing jobs between 1995 and 2008."

Unlike a lot of right-wing party-line stuff, this seems to be based a lot more on technical analysis, some which hasn't been available to the public. It will require more review by the public, but if it's correct our manufacturing of computers has hidden from view, from those who read statistics and charts, a big change in the micro-picture of what was happening. It's as though someone today finally realized the rich have been getting richer for decades while nobody else is getting ahead. In this case, it's strictly about the manufacturing sector of the economy.

"Then there's the fact that there simply aren't that many robots in US factories, compared with other advanced economies."

Of course the robots which manufactured the computers were overwhelming.

"American leaders tended to dismiss the threat of foreign competition to a thriving manufacturing industry and minimize its importance to the overall health of the US economy."

Pointing a finger at the politicians ignores two other crucial factors: bringing China into the capitalist world meant we had less to fear from a Communist China and there were some very rich American corporations doing business with Chinese firms and making a lot of money from it. This was the decline leading to the complete fall of Eastern Communism. We even do business with Vietnam today because of these policies. It also ignores several other societal factors: more women in the workplace, Republican party policies to destroy unions (which they are still doing today), and more part-time jobs. The rich have taken advantage of the shifting landscape and have done very well.

"The lessons of the populist backlash during the 2016 presidential election didn't seem to take. As the US gears up for mid-term elections this year, the Democrats have no vision for how to reverse the industrial backslide."

That isn't true, but it does make clear more people must understand the situation and work together to solve the problems. Pres. Obama and Democrats began trying to improve manufacturing in America and it's up to Pres. Trump and Republicans to continue that. Unfortunately, Pres. Trump doesn't seem to understand international diplomacy or trade.

The article is well worth reading.