America-Is There Any Manufacturing Here Anymore?

As our economy continues down the tubes, jobs in manufacturing across the US have sharply declined. Many of the big time, journalists have refused to see the decline. Several articles I have read in the last week have exclaimed that manufacturing is not in decline. They state that America still manufactures things. They say that even though thousands of jobs no longer exist, we are still in good shape in the manufacturing fields.

My answer to that would be, get off the desk and go out into the towns and cities where people are out of work, because of the lack of manufacturing jobs out here. Go into the schools and see who is enrolled in manufacturing technologies or machining technologies. The schools are scrapping these classes right and left. There are few students to support these classes anymore. Why? The lack of potential jobs would probably be the best reason. However, we do understand that in this country, anyone under 30 wants to be a rock star, reality TV star or famous athlete. And with the sharp decline in jobs, nobody wants to get into these fields anymore.

We do still manufacture some things here, but not nearly the volume as a few years ago. From an article in MSN Money, Michael Brush appeared to be one of those that think we still do a lot of manufacturing here. My belief is the news and the writers who profit from positive news, are going to dress up the bad as much as possible, like this excerpt.

According to Michael Brush of MSN Money, Here's other evidence of the strength of the U.S. manufacturing base:

• During the previous economic boom, manufacturing contributed more to U.S. growth than any other sector, Huether says.

• Though lots of factory workers have lost their jobs in the recession, U.S. manufacturing still employed 12.1 million people as of the end of April.

• Factory workers' daily toil contributed to 11.5% of the United States' product last year.

• Many U.S. factory employees are big earners, which lets them consume more, contributing more to growth. They made an average of $71,000 in 2007, counting wages and benefits, or 20% more than the average of all other workers combined. States with the most factory jobs are California, Texas and New York.

This sounds promising, however, it is not. If you read these statistics, you can see the flaws in them. The 12.1 million people working in manufacturing at the end of April is only a percentage of the number working in manufacturing 10 years ago. That 11.5 % is down from 22% 10 years ago. So manufacturing is leaving America. The numbers don't lie. The Unemployment Rolls don't lie.

If we are shipping all the manufacturing to Mexico or China, who is going to supply us in case of problems with China? If they decide to call in their notes or put our government in choke hold over the economy, who is going to supply us with goods? Metal goods? Our country used to be the strongest in the World. Part of that was due to manufacturing. Now we are pitiful. We aren't training anyone anymore. Anyone under 25 don't even know what a machinist is. The colleges aren't training blue collar workers, they are training stars.

What happens in case of a fall out with China or other countries? Will America be stuck out? Yes it will.
And how is it cheaper to send the work to these other countries? Even though the wages are low, the shipping is necessary and more often than not, these countries use inferior materials to do the jobs. Is this productive for us?

Donald Trump was on a show the other day. As much as he is not my favorite person, he is very rich. He is a self made billionaire. His opinion was the same as mine. We don't hardly make anything anymore. Our greed has sent our jobs overseas and our money. We have lowered our standards to accept whatever they send our way, harmful, unsafe or whatever. We accept it. We don't tax them, yet the government will tax us to death. They are taxing us on sodas and other luxury items. They tax unemployment. Yea, unemployment isn't bad enough, they take an ungodly amount of income tax from the unemployment. Yet, we don't put one dime of tariff on incoming manufactured goods. Why? We just continue to let them ship any and every type of product here. No tax...How is that even right?

Why does OUR government prefer to TAX us to death, let greedy business owners send manufacturing overseas with penalties or taxes and now, they want step up to the plate and even try to fix the problem. They just want to keep on taxing us and letting the manufacturing dwindle to nothing.

What happens if we become a country of services only? Can we survive? Probably not very well. A country of service is pretty much a lame duck country. They don't have the power to participate in the World economy. We can't ship many services out of the country. We can't sell SERVICES in other countries to any great extent.

President Obama talked about this recently. In the middle of the Health Care Debate, he said, his next focus would be on jobs. He said we needed to penalize companies for sending jobs out of the country. He said we needed to tax incoming goods from China and the others. It seems however, the health care issue is going to dominate his Presidency. Will he ever get around to addressing the manufacturing and jobs issues?

If someone doesn't pay attention to this subject, America will be in trouble far more than she is now. If we don't have skilled minds coming, to have the knowledge to build America and to secure our defenses, as well as maintain our infrastructure, we are going to lose our place in the world as a Superpower country.

If we can't sustain our country with our own workforce, it is similar to the oil situation. We are at the mercy of other countries who can turn on a dime and destroy us. A country of service is not a strong country, it is a footstool to the World.

America needs reuniting. It needs to stop catering to the needs of the World and gather the wagons to recoup our country. We can't continue to be the answer to the World's problems and let our own world collapse. Letting manufacturing go and the great skilled minds of these trades just vanish without passing on their skills in very sad for America. It is sad that American Idol is more important, than American manufacturing.

We hope than in the course of President Obama's employment, that he will do what he said should be done. Bring manufacturing BACK to America. Bring the jobs back. Teach the coming generations that supplying America with it's own goods, within our borders is an honorable thing. Being a blue collar worker is an honorable thing. A self sustaining America is an honorable thing.

Are you a manufacturing person? Have you lost your job? Write your Congress people, your Senators. Also, your local officials. Tell them how YOU feel about manufacturing leaving. How you feel about the constant influx of defective products from other countries. Manufacturing is NOT doing good here anymore. It HAS left in mobs.

America is losing its manufacturing force. These are the realities. No matter how the media puts a spin on it, those are the facts. Call someone today or send an email or write a snail mail letter. Tell them you want America to be self sustaining and productive. Not dependent of foreign countries for our basic needs. This is our country and if we don't protect it and the people here from ALL types of invasion, including the invasion of our manufacturing, we will not maintain our strong reputation much longer.