Is Manufacturing the Answer to America’s Economic Crisis?

Are they implying that creating a value might be the basis of having a value to trade with?

Impossible.

Here is a reply letter from my Professor the world renowned Austrian school economist Dr. Donald J. Boudreaux.

“A prominent group of 18th century economic thinkers – the Physiocrats – argued that the ultimate source of all wealth is agriculture. They regarded the then-just-emerging industrial sector to be sterile.

Harold Meyerson is a member of a group that we might call the “Factoryocrats.” Just as the Physiocrats misread the once-dominant role of agriculture as proof that the only truly productive activity is farming, Mr. Meyerson’s histrionic fear about the decline of manufacturing employment in America suggests that he misreads the once-dominant role of factory work as proof that the only truly productive activity is manufacturing (“In recession battle, Germany and China are winners,” July 1).

The Physiocrats would be astonished to learn that Americans today are very well fed (and otherwise provided for) even though a mere 2 percent of the work force is in agriculture. Similarly, if Mr. Meyerson weren’t blinded by Factoryocratic myths, he’d see that Americans today are very well supplied with manufactured goods (and food and services) even though a mere 10 percent of the work force is in manufacturing.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux”

http://cafehayek.com/2010/07/factoryocracy.html

So basically if we weren’t a bunch of lazy assholes we’d be okay? Gee thanks for the answer!

The only things we manufacture these days are false crises and speculative bubbles.

Yeah, Germany and China have, in the past, killed off a lot of their people that disagree with the way their government should be ran. That mindset is probably still prevalent today in their workers, in one form or another.

Industrial planning? Sounds dangerously Socialist to me! However, it can be done – because advanced economies generally have better infrastructure, and comparatively lower transport costs – it can be cheaper. I heard that it is cheaper for Hyundai to make cars in the UK than in Korea. And ‘Runson’ is right, far too much of the capital of workers hard labour is going to pay the vast wages of bloated numbers of managers and executives.

Seth Godin’s newest book “LINCHPIN” provides some very interesting perspectives on this subject.

The UAW is a prime example of our problems.
Overpaid, Over-benefitted, Overstaffed, ‘Featherbedded’, Over-regulating toward the carcos they’re staffed in (the rulebook weighs ~22 pounds), Disincentivized toward productivity, self-improvement and collective improvement. +AND on top of that they make unreliable crap that’s ugly inside and out.

We ~may have the Capability to make something almost as well-engineered as a German car (the reliability would be similar though, hehe!) but almost everything about US car companies, especially GM, and their culture is broken.

It’s a shame that the big 2.5 still deal with them, and that they haven’t gone through the proper bankruptcy proceedings to give all the bolt-tighteners a ‘thank you for your service’ check and then just move on without them. Sadly, because of the Ford Family, Ford never will. GM will probably go BK 2x more before it’s gone.

If you want to see what awesome US-based manufacturing can do, go have a look at Hyundai’s plant in Alabama. They are probably the best.

Any comment about US manufacturing would probably be lacking if it didn’t include a link to one of the best screeds on it, and the companies involved, The GM Deathwatch Series at TTAC: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/category/editorials/gm-death-watch/