Former fast food CEO says raising the minimum wage will spur robot use
- Thread starter Legion Troll
- Start date
You certainly implied it by suggesting that our manufacturing sector was just more efficient now and that was the reason it required less workers. You simply ignored the fact that the trade policies of the 1990's could have anything to do with it. And that sounds like corporate talking points to me, most likely out of some corporate rag selling you a distorted analysis.
My counter argument is the trade policies of the 1990's how far more to do with our manufacturing sector having less workers than any so-called efficiencies. There are so many factories in China right now they can't even breathe over there. And a lot of those factories used to be here in America. And that's the real problem.
You can't accept what wasn't offered, Fale.
But you did offer it, you just don't realize it.
That's what you did when you resorted to trolling and personally attacking me over your belief that I didn't attend school or whatever. I call that concession by insult. Which is fairly typic on forums these days.
cawacko
Well-known member
A pretty solid article as to why your hoped for factory/manufacturing resurgence will never occur Dale:
Manufacturing Jobs Are Never Coming Back
A plea to presidential candidates: Stop talking about bringing manufacturing jobs back from China. In fact, talk a lot less about manufacturing, period.
It’s understandable that voters are angry about trade. The U.S. has lost more than 4.5 million manufacturing jobs since NAFTA took effect in 1994. And as Eduardo Porter wrote this week, there’s mounting evidence that U.S. trade policy, particularly with China, has caused lasting harm to many American workers. But rather than play to that anger, candidates ought to be talking about ways to ensure that the service sector can fill manufacturing’s former role as a provider of dependable, decent-paying jobs.
Here’s the problem: Whether or not those manufacturing jobs could have been saved, they aren’t coming back, at least not most of them. How do we know? Because in recent years, factories have been coming back, but the jobs haven’t. Because of rising wages in China, the need for shorter supply chains and other factors, a small but growing group of companies are shifting production back to the U.S. But the factories they build here are heavily automated, employing a small fraction of the workers they would have a generation ago.
Look at the chart below: Since the recession ended in 2009, manufacturing output — the value of all the goods that U.S. factories produce, adjusted for inflation — has risen by more than 20 percent, because of a combination of “reshoring” and increased domestic demand. But manufacturing employment is up just 5 percent. And much of that job growth represents a rebound from the recession, not a sustainable trend. (The Washington Post’s Abha Bhattarai had a great story this week on what the much-touted “manufacturing renaissance” really looks like through the eyes of one Georgia town.)
casselman-irt_0318-1
None of that, though, stops Donald Trump from promising at every debate and campaign stop to “take our jobs back from China and all these other countries.” Nor does it stop the other candidates from visiting factories in Southern and Midwestern towns and promising — albeit in less grandiose terms — to restore the lost luster of American manufacturing. “I’m tired of seeing them creating jobs all over the world while they’re laying off American workers,” Bernie Sanders told a crowd in Youngstown, Ohio, last weekend. “Not acceptable. That is going to end.”
There’s no mystery why candidates love to focus on manufacturing and trade. The U.S. economy faces deep structural challenges — stagnant wages, rising inequality, falling employment rates among men and other groups — and China presents an easy scapegoat. (Wall Street often plays a similar role, especially on the Democratic side.) And manufacturing in particular embodies something that seems to be disappearing in today’s economy: jobs with decent pay and benefits available to workers without a college degree. The average factory worker earns more than $25 an hour before overtime; the typical retail worker makes less than $18 an hour.
But those factory photo ops ignore an important reality: In 1994 there were 3.5 million more Americans working in manufacturing than in retail. Today, those numbers have almost exactly reversed, and the gap is widening. More than 80 percent of all private jobs are now in the service sector.
casselman-irt_0318-2
There is nothing wrong with politicians’ trying to save what remains of U.S. manufacturing, nor with trying to avoid repeating old mistakes on trade. But like it or not, the U.S. is now a service-based economy. It’s time candidates started talking about making that economy work for workers, rather than pining for one that’s never coming back.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/manufacturing-jobs-are-never-coming-back/
Manufacturing Jobs Are Never Coming Back
A plea to presidential candidates: Stop talking about bringing manufacturing jobs back from China. In fact, talk a lot less about manufacturing, period.
It’s understandable that voters are angry about trade. The U.S. has lost more than 4.5 million manufacturing jobs since NAFTA took effect in 1994. And as Eduardo Porter wrote this week, there’s mounting evidence that U.S. trade policy, particularly with China, has caused lasting harm to many American workers. But rather than play to that anger, candidates ought to be talking about ways to ensure that the service sector can fill manufacturing’s former role as a provider of dependable, decent-paying jobs.
Here’s the problem: Whether or not those manufacturing jobs could have been saved, they aren’t coming back, at least not most of them. How do we know? Because in recent years, factories have been coming back, but the jobs haven’t. Because of rising wages in China, the need for shorter supply chains and other factors, a small but growing group of companies are shifting production back to the U.S. But the factories they build here are heavily automated, employing a small fraction of the workers they would have a generation ago.
Look at the chart below: Since the recession ended in 2009, manufacturing output — the value of all the goods that U.S. factories produce, adjusted for inflation — has risen by more than 20 percent, because of a combination of “reshoring” and increased domestic demand. But manufacturing employment is up just 5 percent. And much of that job growth represents a rebound from the recession, not a sustainable trend. (The Washington Post’s Abha Bhattarai had a great story this week on what the much-touted “manufacturing renaissance” really looks like through the eyes of one Georgia town.)
casselman-irt_0318-1
None of that, though, stops Donald Trump from promising at every debate and campaign stop to “take our jobs back from China and all these other countries.” Nor does it stop the other candidates from visiting factories in Southern and Midwestern towns and promising — albeit in less grandiose terms — to restore the lost luster of American manufacturing. “I’m tired of seeing them creating jobs all over the world while they’re laying off American workers,” Bernie Sanders told a crowd in Youngstown, Ohio, last weekend. “Not acceptable. That is going to end.”
There’s no mystery why candidates love to focus on manufacturing and trade. The U.S. economy faces deep structural challenges — stagnant wages, rising inequality, falling employment rates among men and other groups — and China presents an easy scapegoat. (Wall Street often plays a similar role, especially on the Democratic side.) And manufacturing in particular embodies something that seems to be disappearing in today’s economy: jobs with decent pay and benefits available to workers without a college degree. The average factory worker earns more than $25 an hour before overtime; the typical retail worker makes less than $18 an hour.
But those factory photo ops ignore an important reality: In 1994 there were 3.5 million more Americans working in manufacturing than in retail. Today, those numbers have almost exactly reversed, and the gap is widening. More than 80 percent of all private jobs are now in the service sector.
casselman-irt_0318-2
There is nothing wrong with politicians’ trying to save what remains of U.S. manufacturing, nor with trying to avoid repeating old mistakes on trade. But like it or not, the U.S. is now a service-based economy. It’s time candidates started talking about making that economy work for workers, rather than pining for one that’s never coming back.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/manufacturing-jobs-are-never-coming-back/
Legion Troll
A fine upstanding poster
I just don't agree with the analysis.
Manufacturing jobs still exists, they are just being outsourced to foreign countries for cheap labor. There is no logical reason why these jobs can't be brought back to America.
If Chinese people can manufacture IPhones - so can Americans. It just requires the right kind of policy that makes it competitive to build them here instead of China.
A service economy cannot sustain our Government. We either bring out manufacturing sector back - or we go bankrupt. Our debt has already reached 100% of our GDP.
Legion Troll
A fine upstanding poster
cawacko
Well-known member
They said it right here:
""Here’s the problem: Whether or not those manufacturing jobs could have been saved, they aren’t coming back, at least not most of them. How do we know? Because in recent years, factories have been coming back, but the jobs haven’t. Because of rising wages in China, the need for shorter supply chains and other factors, a small but growing group of companies are shifting production back to the U.S. But the factories they build here are heavily automated, employing a small fraction of the workers they would have a generation ago.""
You're free to fight for what you want but you are fighting a losing battle and essentially you're putting all your hope into one man and setting yourself up for a very big disappointment.
I think you are being overly-dramatic. "Putting all my hopes on one man?"
That is assuredly not what I am doing. This is a stance I've had long before Mr. Trump entered the political arena and will likely have long after.
That paragraph is inaccurate and fails to grasp the entirety of the problem. Factories that attempt to manufacture here in America are at a decided disadvantage because they must compete with businesses who do manufacture abroad using cheap labor at pennies an hour. So you cannot compare what current manufacturers attempt here now as if it that would still be the case should the kind of policy I am advocating for be implemented. It would create an entirely different environment for manufactures here and would allow them to be more successful and competitive.
Almost all factories are heavily automated anyway. They always have been (always in this context meaning my life time, not ancient history of course such as in the 1700's lol). So that is nothing new either. What's changed is the addition of cheap foreign labor into the equation.
For example: there is a continental plant here. It's state of the art - lots of automation. It still employs hundreds of people. It's set to move to Mexico in 2020. Why? Because the labor there is cheaper. They even bring the future Mexican workers inside the plant to watch so they can learn to do what American workers are already doing. The right policies could change that.
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Legion Troll
A fine upstanding poster
cawacko
Well-known member
You're obviously free to advocate for what you want, we all do it. What you're wishing for is like a lot of what Sanders supporters want and that's a pipe dream. Just as we're not going to have "free" education for everyone nor "free" healthcare we aren't turning back our economy 60 years. Technology is moving us forward not backwards.
It's not a pipe dream though. It was the reality not 30 years ago back in the 1980's when our manufacturing sector was roaring. What changed that was the trade policies of the 1990's. And those policies can be corrected. It just requires the political will to stand up to the corporate interests in Washington and get it done.
As far as government-payed higher education and healthcare - that's not a pipe dream either. Many modern democracies already do this. We could do it here too - though not currently with our debt and unfunded liabilities. We do need to get our house in order and grow our economy to an acceptable rate that can sustain such programs first. On that we agree.
Legion Troll
A fine upstanding poster
By shutting off the advantage of cheap labor.
If you implement policies that punish businesses who move abroad to manufacture then you take away the competitive edge that practice gives you. Then businesses could manufacture here and remain competitive. For example: it's no coincidence Wal Mart quickly became one of the richest corporations in the world and put nearly all rural small businesses in America out of business after we let China into the WTO.
You have to even the odds. There is no way you can compete in America if you are up against a business that uses Asian workers making less than 35 cents an hour to manufacture their products. It's just impossible.
By the way - your reliance on correcting spelling errors makes you look incredibly petty and desperate. You should really stop doing that. Because believe me, it doesn't impress anyone.
cancel2 2022
Canceled
Mindfuckery is his speciality, he is just a sad git with no life.
cawacko
Well-known member
And that's never going to happen.
cancel2 2022
Canceled
Even China is getting expensive these days, so jobs are going to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Burma.
Legion Troll
A fine upstanding poster
How much would products made in America by workers earning your long-lamented "middle-class" wage cost?
There are plenty of products being made domestically, BTW...using automation.
I don't see why it can't happen.
In fact, me and my ilk are making some pretty good progress at seeing it happen. So we'll see.