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Nickelless
Administrator
USA
5580 Posts |
 Posted - 02/17/2009 : 16:11:14
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Associated Press
By STEPHEN MANNING
It may seem like the country that used to make everything is on the brink of making nothing.
In January, 207,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs vanished in the largest one-month drop since October 1982. Factory activity is hovering at a 28-year low. Even before the recession, plants were hemorrhaging work to foreign competitors with cheap labor. And some companies were moving production overseas.
But manufacturing in the United States isn't dead or even dying. It's moving upscale, following the biggest profits, and becoming more efficient, just like Henry Ford did when he created the assembly line to make the Model T.
The U.S. by far remains the world's leading manufacturer by value of goods produced. It hit a record $1.6 trillion in 2007 - nearly double the $811 billion in 1987. For every $1 of value produced in China's factories, America generates $2.50.
So what's made in the USA these days?
The U.S. sold more than $200 billion worth of aircraft, missiles and space-related equipment in 2007. And $80 billion worth of autos and auto parts. Deere & Co., best known for its bright green and yellow tractors, sold $16.5 billion worth of farming equipment last year, much of it to the rest of the world. Then there's energy products like gas turbines for power plants made by General Electric, computer chips from Intel and fighter jets from Lockheed Martin. Household names like GE, General Motors, IBM, Boeing, Hewlett-Packard are among the largest manufacturers by revenue.
Several trends have emerged over the decades:
_ America makes things that other countries can't. Today, "Made in USA" is more likely to be stamped on heavy equipment or the circuits that go inside other products than the TVs, toys, clothes and other items found on store shelves.
_ U.S. companies have shifted toward high-end manufacturing as the production of low-value goods moves overseas. This has resulted in lower prices for shoppers and higher profits for companies.
_ When demand slumps, all types of manufacturing jobs are lost. Some higher-end jobs - but not all - return with good times. Workers who make goods more cheaply produced overseas suffer.
Once this recession runs its course, surviving manufacturers will emerge more efficient and profitable, economists say. More valuable products will be made using fewer people. Products will be made where labor and other costs are cheaper. And manufacturers will focus on the most lucrative products.
Aircraft maker Boeing announced last month it was cutting about 10,000 jobs. At the same time, workers are streamlining the wing assembly for the 737, the company's best-selling commercial plane, said Richard McCabe, a wing line mechanic for 10 years and former Machinists union shop steward.
He and his co-workers at the factory in suburban Renton, Wash., were asked about 3 1/2 years ago to figure out how to switch from building wings in massive stationary jigs mounted vertically, "the way things have been done here forever," to "one-piece flow," assembling them horizontally on a moving line similar to automobiles. The new process is set to begin by the end of the year.
"I won't go to the wing. The wing will come to me," McCabe said. "It's going to save them millions in scrap and rework."
McCabe said there was a lot of initial resistance on the shop floor, but Boeing's increased outsourcing - including wing production for the new 787 to Japan - helped change workers' minds.
"I told the guys, it's development or die," McCabe said. "If we can get this done, it assures us the future."
About 12.7 million Americans, or 8 percent of the labor force, still held manufacturing jobs as of last month. Fifty years ago, 14.6 million people, or 28 percent of all workers, toiled in factories. The numbers - though painful to those who lost jobs - show how companies are making more with less.
Still, the perception of decline is likely to grow as factories and jobs vanish, and imports rise for most goods we buy at stores.
Thirty years ago, U.S. producers made 80 percent of what the country consumed, according to the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, an industry trade group. Now it's around 65 percent.
American factories still provide much of the processed food that Americans buy, everything from frozen fish sticks to cans of beer. And U.S. companies make a considerable share of the personal hygiene products like soap and shampoo, cleaning supplies, and prescription drugs that are sold in pharmacies. But many other consumer goods now come from overseas.
In the 1960s, America made 98 percent of its shoes. It now imports more than 90 percent of its footwear. The iconic red Radio Flyer wagons for kids are now made in China. Even Apple Inc.'s iPod comes in box that says it was made in China but "designed in California."
"Some people lament the loss of manufacturing jobs we could have had making iPods. So what?" said Dan Ikenson, associate director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute. "The imports of iPods support U.S. jobs," including engineers, marketers and advertisers.
Some U.S.-made products are hiding in plain sight.
Berner International Corp., based outside Pittsburgh, doesn't make the clothes, dishes or sponges sold at Wal-Mart, but its products hang above shoppers' heads as soon they come through the sliding doors.
The company's 60 employees make air curtains - rectangular blowers mounted to the ceiling that keep out hot or chilly air, insects and dust while keeping in A/C and heat. Also called air doors, they hang from ceilings at Wal-Marts, Whole Foods, and Starbucks, and above the big factory doors at Ford and Toyota car plants.
Chief executive Georgia Berner keeps her company in the United States because she relies on her staff's deep knowledge of air blowers, which are custom made for clients using metal plates, fans, motors and electronic parts assembled at the company's 60,000-square-foot factory. Each box requires specific voltages and sizing, she says.
"I have a crew here (with) much of the product knowledge in (their) heads," she said.
To deal with the recession, her production manager is making the factory more efficient by move shelves of parts closer to workers.
She's also banking on a new line of air curtains for fast food drive through windows, noting that fast food demand is on the rise while other restaurants decline.
Other companies saddled with high labor costs - sometimes called legacy costs that insured workers high wages, pensions and handsome benefits - can struggle to survive.
In the early 1980s, the U.S. steel industry faced such pressure. Today, it's the auto industry, which is pressuring its unions to agree to deep reductions in pay and generous benefits. In fact, it's a condition of the $17.4 billion in emergency loans from the government to keep the industry in business.
But other American manufacturers - and workers - have adapted.
Judy Horkman, 47, was devastated when she was laid off after 13 years of attaching handles to saute pans on the Mirro Cookware plant assembly line. But two years ago, Horkman took a job making industrial light fixtures for office buildings and warehouses at Orion Energy Systems Inc. She makes $12.50 per hour - not quite the $13.80 she earned at Mirro, but Horkman says she is fine with that.
Horkman said she takes tremendous pride in her work. When she assembled cookware she imagined that she would personally use the final product. When she switched to making lighting, she was driven by the same Golden Rule.
"Regardless of my product I'd put my heart into it. I put my hard work, my dedication, my quality into whatever I make," she said. "I just imagine someone out there really needs this, and I think about how good I'd want it to be if it was for me."
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keys
Penny Collector Member
383 Posts |
Posted - 02/17/2009 : 20:46:18
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| I had heard somewhere that the government now counts a burger flipper job as a manufacturing job. So much for manufacturing numbers not really falling. |
I change with the times-
but like silver coins found in your change
I stay the same.
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The United States of America started out as the new Republic of Rome.
Will The United States of America end up as the New Imperial Rome? |
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Delawhere Jack
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
1680 Posts |
Posted - 02/17/2009 : 21:00:28
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| How much actual production do IBM and Hewlett Packard actually do in the states? Everything I've seen from either of them in the past 5+ years has been from China. |
"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." Thomas Jefferson
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Nickelless
Administrator
USA
5580 Posts |
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Delawhere Jack
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
1680 Posts |
Posted - 02/17/2009 : 21:47:44
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quote:
Originally posted by Nickelless
quote:
Originally posted by keys
I had heard somewhere that the government now counts a burger flipper job as a manufacturing job. So much for manufacturing numbers not really falling.
I'd love to know where you heard that. Post a link on here if you remember.
Why would you doubt it? They count consumer spending as "GDP". They convienently add or remove energy prices from CPI calculations, as it fits their whim....
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"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." Thomas Jefferson
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redneck
1000+ Penny Miser Member
1273 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2009 : 04:59:40
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quote:
Judy Horkman, 47, was devastated when she was laid off after 13 years of attaching handles to saute pans on the Mirro Cookware plant assembly line. But two years ago, Horkman took a job making industrial light fixtures for office buildings and warehouses at Orion Energy Systems Inc. She makes $12.50 per hour - not quite the $13.80 she earned at Mirro, but Horkman says she is fine with that.
Another stupid American who makes less and pays more now to live.
10% paycut and 15% inflation = 25% less in the pocket. (not to mention, inflation is compounded constantly)
She's obviously a product of our current propaganda system,were we are told
to do with less,
not be greedy
and to be thankful for what they allow us to have.
You asked "Does the United States make anything anymore?"
Yup...
War,
dumbed down serfs
and plenty of debt....
>
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TenBears
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
1021 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2009 : 05:11:37
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The article was actually encouraging to me. My initial reaction as that all we made were computer games.
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"Rich," the Old Man said dreamily, "is not baying after what you can't have. Rich is having the time to do what you want to do. Rich is a little whiskey to drink and some food to eat and a roof over your head and a fish pole and a boat and a gun and a dollar for a box of shells. Rich is not owing any money to anybody, and not spending what you haven't got." Robert Ruark
there are too wild Indians...
there are too wild Indians...
there are too wild Indians...-----still taunted
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Tourney64
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
1035 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2009 : 16:10:34
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| Something that the US is #1 in manufacturing......... Debt! |
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Nickelless
Administrator
USA
5580 Posts |
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keys
Penny Collector Member
383 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2009 : 17:33:43
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It seems like the only thing the US makes is trouble
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Burger flipper job...as manufacturing
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Building Blue-Collar … Burgers?
Manufacturing jobs making things like airplane engines, cars and farm equipment are disappearing from the American economy.
Or are they? According to a White House report, new manufacturing jobs might be as close as your nearest drive-thru.
The annual Economic Report of the President has already stirred controversy by suggesting the loss of U.S. jobs overseas might be beneficial, and predicting that a whopping 2.6 million jobs will be created in the country this year.
As first reported by The New York Times, the fast food issue is taken up on page 73 of the lengthy report in a special box headlined "What is manufacturing?"
"The definition of a manufactured product," the box reads, "is not straightforward."
"When a fast-food restaurant sells a hamburger, for example, is it providing a 'service' or is it combining inputs to 'manufacture' a product?" it asks.
Manufacturing is defined by the Census Bureau as work involving employees who are "engaged in the mechanical, physical, or chemical transformation of materials, substances, or components into new products."
But, the president's report notes, even the Census Bureau has acknowledged that its definition "can be somewhat blurry," with bakeries, candy stores, custom tailors and tire retreading services considered manufacturing.
(Figures don't lie but liars can figure, and the lies neatly figures into the government's spin on things.)
Alittle more on the burger flipping as manufacturing
(I'm having trouble getting the story to load, though the comments left by readers are worth a look.)
You must be logged in to see this link.
I am not sure if the burger flipper reclassified as manufacturing job ever took place but with the gub'ment, you never can tell....
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This part of the story does bother me,
"Some people lament the loss of manufacturing jobs we could have had making iPods. So what?" said Dan Ikenson, associate director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute.
It is more than a So What when you or a family member lose their manufacturing job and have to take a new job with lower pay, fewer benefits, less ecurity, no gaurantees of a future, etc.
I guess it is no big deal to Mr. Ikenson since HIS job isn't the one on the line nor is he facing a future job loss (just as bad as Keynseian e-con-omists, they think they know all when in fact they know little.) |
I change with the times-
but like silver coins found in your change
I stay the same.
*****************
The United States of America started out as the new Republic of Rome.
Will The United States of America end up as the New Imperial Rome? |
Edited by - keys on 02/18/2009 17:40:04 |
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Does the United States make anything anymore?
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