GM is slashing 14,700 factory and white collar jobs in North America; may close five factories

[Born Free]

“If I am elected you won’t lose one plant. You’ll have plants coming into this country, you’re going to have jobs again. You won’t lose one plant I promise you, I promise you!” – Donald Trump, Warren, Michigan, 10/31/16. Guess what just happened in Warren, MI?

Where have you been, we do have jobs again, Christ the unemployment rate is at 3.7 percent, and along with that 400,000 of those are factory jobs. Obamafail said those jobs were never coming back. Obamafail bailed out GM losing 10.5 billion, I take it your happy about that. GM went bankrupt and was bailed out, instead of being allowed to fail. We have GM doing it all over again. It makes cars people don't want and it's heavily loaded with overhead, and extreme out of control Union Pension plans.

No more plants and jobs, instead they're leaving the U.S.,

No more plants and jobs, what planet are you living on. Read a little history

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckd...-10-times-obamas-over-21-months/#47795f895850

no wall that Mexico’s paying for,

What the hell are you talking about, you don't want a wall.

Muslims are still allowed to live and travel here,

I take it you want all Muslims to leave this country. Trump never said to deport all Muslims from this country. You need to tone down on the smoking.

no cheaper healthcare that’s better and covers everyone….

Are you complaining about Obamafail. He promised you,you can keep your Dr., you can keep your insurance, and you will save $2,000 per year per family on your healthcare plan. Instead of those promises under Obamacare prices skyrocketed.

Right-wing nut trump supporters have got to be the most ignorant and gullible people in the world.

Yeah we don't fall for Obamafail lies. Your in the dumpster for Obamafail.

Yeah, we taxpayers lost 10.5 billion on Obamafail's bailout of GM. I take it you would like Trump to bail them out again with another 10 billion. And now they are heading for bankruptcy again.

 

[lurchadams]

LOL, except we understand campaign rhetoric, something you guys on the left don't. Better double check on that cheaper healthcare - it's here.

Ah, so once again trump gets a pass. Gotchya!

 

[Born Free]

Ooooh, that hurts.

Look, Trump started a trade war with China and Canada

NO but hell no, that trade imbalance and stealing intellectual property was started by China years ago, and Obamafail did not do a damn thing. Same with NAFTA was a bad deal for the US. And once again your guy did nothing.

He was elected on the promise of bringing jobs BACK to America, instead he is driving them offshore,

Obamafail said those jobs were never coming back, and you are dead wrong Manufacturing jobs have increased by 400,000. And our unemployment rate is at a low 3.7%

You remind me of the Obamabots who complained bitterly there was "too much" posting about "you can keep your plan".

That was your guy, Obamafail that pumped out that song you can keep your Dr., you can keep your insurance and you will save $2,000 per yr per family. Instead you could not do any of those things and with Obamacare premiums skyrocketed.

Just wait till GM's real plans emerge. Bail out anyone? Trump's gonna give them a few billion to keep the plants open. Wait and see...

You mean like Obamafail did by him giving GM 10.5 billion he lost of taxpayer money. Yeah your guy was all for picking and choosing who he bailed out.

 

[Bullseye]

Ah, so once again trump gets a pass. Gotchya!

No pass. He's doing what he can. All most of us ever expected.

 

[Taylor]

“If I am elected you won’t lose one plant. You’ll have plants coming into this country, you’re going to have jobs again. You won’t lose one plant I promise you, I promise you!” – Donald Trump, Warren, Michigan, 10/31/16. Guess what just happened in Warren, MI?

No more plants and jobs, instead they're leaving the U.S., no wall that Mexico’s paying for, Muslims are still allowed to live and travel here, no cheaper healthcare that’s better and covers everyone….

Right-wing nut trump supporters have got to be the most ignorant and gullible people in the world.

I'd respond, but I have an appointment with my doctor that I got to keep for a prescription medicine that I plan to import from Canada before heading to my shovel-ready job as part of the green energy economy that protected manufacturing and brought down the deficit. Then I'm off to catch a plane to Guantanamo to do a little sight-seeing at the closed facility there.

Lots to do before I head to the Moon in 2020.

 

[Conservative]

“If I am elected you won’t lose one plant. You’ll have plants coming into this country, you’re going to have jobs again. You won’t lose one plant I promise you, I promise you!” – Donald Trump, Warren, Michigan, 10/31/16. Guess what just happened in Warren, MI?

No more plants and jobs, instead they're leaving the U.S., no wall that Mexico’s paying for, Muslims are still allowed to live and travel here, no cheaper healthcare that’s better and covers everyone….

Right-wing nut trump supporters have got to be the most ignorant and gullible people in the world.

Obviously you don't understand campaign rhetoric nor do you understand the laws of this country. Trump does not have the authority and no president has the authority to tell a private-sector company not to lay off employees are close plants. It does appear that the radical left is very poorly informed and easily manipulated by rhetoric for after all you believed Obama for 8 years and what he said.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

 

[BrainNebula]

This year's cuts, most of which appear to be permanent, is 10 times bigger than last year's temporary cut.

And again, GM is basically saying "no more sedans in the US." That is not normal.

If this is "routine," then GM will have no US employees in about 10 years.



Really? Then why did Ford announce it would stop making almost every passenger car in the US in April? Why did GM lay off 600 workers last May? Why did GM start talking about this layoff in August? Why didn't GM have any layoffs between 2010 and November 2016?

The only thing "normal" about this is that they waited until after the midterms to make an official announcement. That's not "seasonal," that's political.



I did not say "GM should not restructure." My point is that discontinuing all sedans, closing 5 plants and firing 14,000 employees is not normal, and not seasonal.



lol... Try again, please.

<Snip>

Those white collar workers aren't "bloat" -- and their job ranks have also shrank as their productivity rises. This includes functions varied as secretaries and receptionists (almost completely gone), auto designs (CAD makes it possible to design a car with a fraction of the engineering staff compared to the past), 3d print staff, software programming, IT infrastructure, accounting, human resources, marketing, advertising and so on. The idea that "white collar workers do nothing" shows a total lack of understanding of the modern corporation.



I am considering it. White collar workers are better educated, but that education and experience tends to be specialized. Thus, if GM fires 1500 plant managers and 1500 line workers, it's going to take all of those workers around the same amount of time to find new jobs. Older workers, whether white or blue collar, are likely to face age discrimination. White and blue collar workers are equally anchored to their communities (i.e. white collar workers aren't more capable of relocating than blue collar). Retraining white and blue collar workers takes time and resources, and the burden for both often falls on the worker.

(I might add, it's hilarious that one minute you describe white collar workers as useless bloat, the next they are more likely to get hired. Hmmmm....)

We should also note that factory work is changing as well. You don't have high school grads pulling a lever on a drill press all day anymore -- those types of repetitive jobs were automated out of existence years ago. Many factory workers today are managing, supervising and repairing robots, or aiding robots on tasks (like aiming headlights or calibrating cruise control systems).



I hate to break this to you, but... The US already HAS lost a ton of those lower-skilled jobs, especially in the auto industry. It HAS resulted in a leaner workforce. To wit:

GM in 1955: 576,000 employees who made approximately 2 million vehicles
GM in 2018 before layoffs = 209,000 employees that made over 10 million vehicles (and could make millions more, if the demand was there)

The US has been in transition from a manufacturing economy to a service economy for decades. How did you miss such a major economic shift?

You are so confident and yet so wrong. A lot to go through here.

1) About half of the workers from the Detroit, MI and Lordstown, OH plants are going to be given a job by GM.

2) The plants are not guaranteed to close.

3) I never said the white collar workers do nothing, but the ones cut were largely bloat. A quote from the USA Today article by CEO Marry Barra is that the cuts will make GM "lean and agile". That means that many of the workers they had were part of bloat.

4) Anti-Trumpers want automakers to produce more electric vehicles generally, and this is a part of that transition. You should be happy that GM is focusing on electric vehicles. These kinds of restructuring form a changing market are inevitable.

5) Manufacturing job growth was at record highs under Trump, so it's not just output we're talking about here. Of course, manufacturing is much lower now than it used to be. Yes, we have turned more to a service-based economy. That's a bad thing. That's why our economy has been hit hard. In order to have a healthy economy we need to be producing hard natural resources and products. The more we turn into a service-based economy, the more we depend on other countries, and the more they can control us. It is imperative that our economy is structured in a way that allows us to be self-sufficient, especially in case of war. If we depended totally on China to produce our good, for instance, and then they decide they want to stop trading with us, we'd be completely screwed. You don't seem to understand this.

 

[Fletch]

Trump is the guy who said he could shoot someone on 5th Av. and not lose any voters/supporters... That's cult like and honestly a HUGE insult, he's saying he can do anything and get away with it, so he's calling his supporters ignorant and gullible.. ..

He was addressing you guys, those 'libs' you love to blame everything on have nothing to do with this.

I dont know who Trump was talking about, but it wasnt me. But you are right, 'libs' arent responsible for the dumb things that Trump says. "libs' are responsible for the dumb things they say.

 

[Fletch]

I gave you a rational response explaining why Trump supporters are part of cult.

No you didnt. You simply repeated some idiocy you heard someone on TV say. Post an original thought.

 

[Visbek]

About half of the workers from the Detroit, MI and Lordstown, OH plants are going to be given a job by GM.

I haven't seen anything saying that 50% of workers at those plants will be moved elsewhere. I've seen that they will definitely and permanently close Lordstown, Detroit-Hamtramck and Oshawa, and plans to close two more next year. Either way... That is not seasonal, and is not normal.

The plants are not guaranteed to close.

The press release explicitly states those facilities will be "unallocated."

3) I never said the white collar workers do nothing, but the ones cut were largely bloat. A quote from the USA Today article by CEO Marry Barra is that the cuts will make GM "lean and agile". That means that many of the workers they had were part of bloat.

No, what she's referring to are factories that are operating significantly below capacity. E.g. Lordstown should be running at 80% capacity; it's at 31% capacity. That's a lot of blue collar "bloat."

Manufacturing job growth was at record highs under Trump, so it's not just output we're talking about here.

sigh

Manufacturing jobs haven't even recovered from the recession. In 2008, there were 1.37 million manufacturing jobs; today, after 9 years of recovery (7 under Obama), it is... 1.27 million. At the current pace, it's going to take about 4 years just to reach 2008 levels. So no, the transition to a service economy was not magically reversed in the past 12 months.

Of course, manufacturing is much lower now than it used to be. Yes, we have turned more to a service-based economy. That's a bad thing. That's why our economy has been hit hard.

Egads. That's so fundamentally wrong, I barely know where to start.

Manufacturing has been shrinking as a form of employment since the 1950s. However, there hasn't been a steady deterioration in the standards of living. Not even close.

Meanwhile, the areas that specialize in the service economy -- Seattle (Amazon/tech), SF Bay Area (tech), New York (finance, tech), Boston (finance, education), DC/VA (government, tech) are flourishing. They're doing so well that affordable housing is a major challenge in those regions. The areas that are suffering are... wait for it... areas that depended heavily on manufacturing, and have not made an effective transition to the service economy.

In order to have a healthy economy we need to be producing hard natural resources and products....

Sorry, but that's nonsense.

Cities like New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, London etc don't produce "hard natural resources and products," and are flourishing. Singapore is one of the most economically successful nations in the world, and it's basically just a big city with essentially no natural resources at all; 73% of its GDP is services. (The US is at 80% services btw).

And again... manufacturing output is near record highs in the US. What you have ignored, again, is that due to automation, we need very few manufacturing employees now to produce a huge amount of goods.

The more we turn into a service-based economy, the more we depend on other countries, and the more they can control us.

Nope, nope, sorry but that's just more bull****. Again, I barely know where to begin.

Obviously, a full explanation of international trade is far beyond the scope of this thread. All I can say here is:
• On a fundamental level, trade is beneficial for all parties, even when there are asymmetries. If you don't know what the term "comparative advantage" means, get thee to a Microeconomics class ASAP.
• On a fundamental level, we engage in trade because it's beneficial. As in, if was really beneficial for you to pay $1200 for a US-made clothes washer than pay $800 for one made in China with the same features and same reliability, then why aren't you (and 300+ million more Americans) already doing that?
• There is no link whatsoever between "service economy" and "international independence." That's just flat-out ignorant. The obvious example is China, which has spent years pushing manufacturing (40% of its GDP) -- and is heavily dependent upon other nations to buy the goods they manufacture. This clearly has not made China easier to control by other nations.
• Since you missed it: 11% of US GDP is exports; that is at least $2 trillion in economic activity. And that's a lot of jobs, including manufacturing jobs.

Spare us this quasi-nativist/protectionist garbage. It is not possible to cut the US off from the world. Even the attempts to do so produce far more harm than good.

 

[BrainNebula]

I haven't seen anything saying that 50% of workers at those plants will be moved elsewhere. I've seen that they will definitely and permanently close Lordstown, Detroit-Hamtramck and Oshawa, and plans to close two more next year. Either way... That is not seasonal, and is not normal.
<snip>
Spare us this quasi-nativist/protectionist garbage. It is not possible to cut the US off from the world. Even the attempts to do so produce far more harm than good.

1) It's frustrating that you challenge facts I give with the source simply because you won't read the source. I'll quote the source:

About half of those workers will be given the chance to relocate to another GM operation, the company said.

And it is normal and seasonal because I posted the link earlier that showed this exact same thing happened last year in November for the exact same reasons.

2) Unallocated doesn't necessarily mean closing. Another quote from the link I just gave you implies the plants are not necessarily closing:

The union vowed to fight the plan, but there's a serious chance that the plants will close for good.

3) And yes, when the facilities are operating at significantly less capacity than expected, that also creates bloat of blue collar workers, hence why they are getting laid off. But in terms of blue collar workers, that temporarily goes up and down much more. With white collar workers, it's a little different with how the management is effected when restructuring happens.

4) It's amazing the difference between what I said and what you heard. I said that manufacturing job growth under Trump hit record highs. You heard me say that the transition to a service economy was magically reversed. It's pretty clear that you want to put a label on the type of economy, such as service economy. I'm not worried about the label. It's a spectrum. I don't think it's healthy when service jobs dominate the economy. Under Trump, non-service jobs have grown, and he's concerned with the makeup of the economy in ways that other politicians aren't.

5) You tell me that it's fundamentally wrong to think that being a service-based economy is unhealthy, but you don't really give any reasons. You say that standards of living haven't deteriorated, but that doesn't prove your point. You also make the leap that because tech areas are in places where housing is expensive, that this proves a service-based economy is good. It's not. Tech could also easily move to many areas where housing is cheap, but they actively seek areas that have expensive housing. And yes, it's true that areas where manufacturing existed are hurting. That doesn't prove your point point that building an economy on service-based jobs is healthy.

6) You talk a lot about different cities individually. You aren't taking the whole system into an account. You think very shallowly that oh, this city is doing well and has service-based jobs so building an economy on service-based jobs must be the way to go. That's incredibly flawed. As a thought experiment, if the planet had no resources, what products would we have? If we produced no products, what service jobs would we have?

7) You keep saying manufacturing output is near record highs, ignoring that Trump's manufacturing job gains actually hit record highs. But we already have established you don't read the links, so that's why you keep repeating yourself after being proven objectively blatantly wrong. Source

Manufacturing jobs growing at fastest rate in 23 years

That's not just talking about output.

8) You claim trade benefits all parties, even when there are asymmetries. Your issue is that you look at the USA as a single party. The USA is made up of many groups, and some groups gain while other groups are harmed. If a trade deal is created that allows China to undercut the USA in manufacturing, then manufacturing workers will lose their jobs as plants move overseas, but the companies and consumers buying the products can gain from cheaper prices.

9) I want to point out that I am not an isolationist, and I do believe in trade deals. You have very shallow thinking, though, thinking that no asymmetry matters and that each country is only a single party. When jobs are lost, those workers lose their buying power, and they can't benefit from drops in consumer costs as well, which you haven't mentioned at all.

10) The rest of your arguments are just anti-isolationism, but that's just a red herring as I'm not an isolationist and neither is Trump.

 

[Visbek]

1) It's frustrating that you challenge facts I give with the source simply because you won't read the source....

You ignore decades of economic data, and I'm the frustrating one because I missed one mention, that appears in pretty much none of the dozen articles AND the official GM release? lolol

Anyway... Let's compare last year to this year again, shall we?
2017: 1500 temporary layoffs; 200 permanent; 1 factory temporarily closed; 0 cars cancelled
2018: 14,700 layoffs; 12,000 permanent; 3 to 5 factories indefinitely closed; 7 cars cancelled (almost all US passenger cars)
NOT NORMAL.

I said that manufacturing job growth under Trump hit record highs. You heard me say that the transition to a service economy was magically reversed. It's pretty clear that you want to put a label on the type of economy, such as service economy. I'm not worried about the label. It's a spectrum....

I'm pointing out to you that the "manufacturing job growth under Trump" is a meaningless change, because again, the number of manufacturing jobs aren't even back to 2008 levels. BLS figures:



By the way, I didn't come up with the label "service economy." That term was defined and put into common in 1968. The US is a service economy, it has been for decades, and that's not rolling back.

You tell me that it's fundamentally wrong to think that being a service-based economy is unhealthy, but you don't really give any reasons.... etc

We know that service economies can be healthy because we actually see healthy service economies. The most robust, entrepreneurial, advanced, and affluent nations of the world are all service economies, and have been for decades.

By the way, it was the rise of the service sector that made those regions incredibly expensive. NYC, DC, SF, Boston all stopped being major manufacturing hubs decades ago. And no, tech can't just move to cheaper areas, the employees they want to hire don't live in distressed Rust Belt cities.

And again, the "how" is not that difficult. People need services; people pay for services. Sometimes, they even pay for services offered by firms in other nations (gasp!). E.g. New York City is almost entirely a service economy, and is one of the wealthiest cities in the world. You tell me, how is that possible?!?

...As a thought experiment, if the planet had no resources, what products would we have? If we produced no products, what service jobs would we have?

No one is saying that "nothing needs to be manufactured, anywhere in the world, ever again." It's that because of automation, the US needs very few workers to manufacture what it needs (and even manufacture goods for export). It's also that manufacturing employment is no longer the core of the US economy.

You keep saying manufacturing output is near record highs, ignoring that Trump's manufacturing job gains actually hit record highs. But we already have established you don't read the links, so that's why you keep repeating yourself after being proven objectively blatantly wrong.

No, I did not deny that manufacturing jobs picked up in the past ~2 years. It's that it's basically meaningless, because manufacturing has shrank as a percentage of the labor market for DECADES, while output grows. (The setback in 2007 was due to demand, not because of any issues with production.)

Let me make this a bit more obvious:



To make the legend clear: Manufacturing as a percentage of the labor force declined from 40% in 1942, and declined straight down to 10% in 2010, and has stayed there since. And no, the big gains of the last 2 years has not made a dent in manufacturing employment as a share of the labor force -- that chart ends in September 2018.

So, let's go back to your original claim: "Blue collar workers are more important than white collar workers." It should be clear by now that this is deeply wrong. The plants were under capacity, meaning those blue collar workers are just as superfluous as the white collar. We don't need huge numbers of blue collar workers to have a healthy economy. Manufacturing employment has shrank since 1940, while the economy has obviously done well. Again, white collar workers get paid more, are just as likely to have issues finding jobs in those communities, and let's face it, GM is automating every factory job it can. Sorry, but blue collar workers are definitely not more important, either to their communities, or the economy as a whole.

You claim trade benefits all parties, even when there are asymmetries.... etc

Dude? Character limits. I can't jam an entire semester into 5000 characters. Take a class.

 

[BrainNebula]

You ignore decades of economic data, and I'm the frustrating one because I missed one mention, that appears in pretty much none of the dozen articles AND the official GM release? lolol
<snip>
Dude? Character limits. I can't jam an entire semester into 5000 characters. Take a class.

1) Your comment about what happened last year at GM is not accurate:

Although the shifts GM has eliminated so far employed 6,000 hourly and salaried workers, the actual layoffs have been smaller. A spokesman said the company has let go 2,300 temporary workers and 800 of its hourly, union-represented workers have been laid off, for a total of 3,100 job cuts so far.

Source

2) I think it's funny that you think manufacturing job growth doesn't matter, but comparing levels now to 2008 is all that matters. That's ass backwards. Manufacturing job growth is what matters most, and Trump's hit a 23-year high.

3) I never said you came up with the term service-based economy. That's been around all of my life. And actually, many experts would argue that we are exiting the service-based economy and entering a data-based economy. Sometimes people call it network-based.

4) It's not that a service-based economy can't be healthy, it's that they rely on others to exist. So yes, the USA can be a service-based economy while China, Mexico, Thailand, Vietnam, and others are making the products. But what happens when they choose not to make our products or turn into a service-based economy themselves? What happens when a war breaks out and we no longer have the ability to extract natural resources or produce our own products because China is doing that for the world? Production is the reason the USA won both world wars.

5) The employees tech companies want to hire don't all live in the same place. Those employees move wherever the tech companies are.

6) You say the people need services and people pay for services. That's how the service-based economy works. You don't seem to recognize that people need to make money in order to pay for services. Not everybody can have a service-based job, because then the costs of products would skyrocket from a lack of products. The areas you have mentioned that have mainly service jobs are depending on other areas of the globe for their products. Again, you don't recognize that, and you don't recognize the problems this can cause when those areas themselves turn into a service-based economy.

7) You are overestimating the impact of robots. If everything was being made by robots, plants wouldn't be moving overseas. They have been driven out of the USA to other countries through poor global trade deals. I have no problem with the jobs that are lost to automation. I have a big problem with the jobs that have been driven to other countries through these poor global trade deals. China, Germany, Japan and others still manufacture quite a bit. The USA isn't even the #1 manufacturing country anymore. Every manufacturing job that is in one of these other countries is a job that we could potentially have. That means we only have about 1/5th of our potential manufacturing jobs. Our economy is around 80% service and 20% industry while China's is around 50% service and 40% industry. Germany and Japan are around 70/30.

8) A bunch of what you said is a red-herring arguing that manufacturing shouldn't be the core of our economy because I never made that claim. I wish we could have a conversation in which you didn't constantly misrepresent me.

9) The blue collar jobs are more important not because we should have a manufacturing-based economy, but because of how few of those jobs exist while the labor pool for that kind of work is giant. Also, the impact on the economy and government programs when we lose blue-collar jobs and other factors such as national security make blue collar jobs the ones we should be worried most about.

10) I love how you now have to resort to telling me that your statement was wrong because of character limits, and when I called it out, you tell me to take a class. You're going to school right now.

 

[Visbek]

I think it's funny that you think manufacturing job growth doesn't matter, but comparing levels now to 2008 is all that matters. That's ass backwards. Manufacturing job growth is what matters most, and Trump's hit a 23-year high.

Good grief. One last time:

• In the 1940s, around 40% of all workers were in manufacturing.
• By 2010, that fell to 10% of workers.
• This means that manufacturing EMPLOYMENT is not the primary component of the labor force.
• Despite manufacturers hiring lots of people, the percentage of workers in manufacturing DID NOT INCREASE between 2010 and 2018.
• Despite manufacturers hiring lots of people, the number of manufacturing employees is STILL BELOW 2009 LEVELS.
• This means that manufacturing EMPLOYMENT is STILL NOT the primary component of the labor force.
• We haven't even gotten into manufacturing wages, which have deteriorated over time due to the weakening of unions.

The same thing happened with agriculture. Obviously everyone needs food -- but we only need a handful of farmers (who are poorly paid btw) to make enough food not only for the US, but to export around the world. Only 1.6% of US workers are in agriculture. Manufacturing is headed in the same direction.

Thus, in terms of the primacy of manufacturing employment to the economy,adding more workers is largely meaningless, because it is nowhere near enough to reverse decades of declines in manufacturing employment, and we are still a service economy.

What happens when they choose not to make our products or turn into a service-based economy themselves?

Then someone else will make those goods, or substitutes will be found, or the process of making those goods will be automated to the point where it's feasible to make them in different locations. C'mon, man. This is not new. Nations have traded for thousands of years.

What happens when a war breaks out and we no longer have the ability to extract natural resources or produce our own products because China is doing that for the world?

• China doesn't manufacture US military equipment.
• It's not 1941. We don't need huge numbers of low-skilled workers to make military equipment anymore. In fact, nowadays we need highly educated engineers to control the robots.
• Plenty of nations buy arms from other nations, and still wage wars, even when their actions risk offending their supplier. Someone somewhere is always willing to supply arms. Where do you think ISIS and Iran and North Korea get their weapons?

If everything was being made by robots, plants wouldn't be moving overseas....

Manufacturers move overseas for many reasons, including tax reasons and market proximity. (That's why foreign auto manufacturers have US plants.) Another is cheap labor. If it costs you $20 for 10 Chinese workers to make 100 widgets, and it costs you $40 to make 100 widgets in a highly automated US factory, you're probably gonna make it in China.

They have been driven out of the USA to other countries through poor global trade deals.

Nope nope, total bull****, total nonsense. The US doesn't have any major trade agreements with China, and they are a dominant force in US manufacturing. It's almost entirely about comparative advantage.

Every manufacturing job that is in one of these other countries is a job that we could potentially have. That means we only have about 1/5th of our potential manufacturing jobs.

lol.... No, that's not even the tiniest bit correct.

All I have space to say here is: Manufacturing wages in many nations is a fraction of the cost of a US worker. If a Mexican factory worker costs $2.50/hour, and a US factory worker costs $15/hour, the US worker has to be at least 6 times more productive for the US factory to make sense.

Plus, the US also exports around $2 trillion in goods now. By your logic, BMW shouldn't have a plant in Greenville SC with 9000 US employees -- they should be making those cars in Germany instead, and export them to the US. You sure that's what you want?

The blue collar jobs are more important not because we should have a manufacturing-based economy, but because of how few of those jobs exist while the labor pool for that kind of work is giant....

Egads.... More revanchist nonsense. "These jobs are so critical, because there are so few of them!" Hello?!? There are so few of these jobs because those jobs aren't critical anymore!

The solution here is not to vainly cling to a mythical Golden Age of US Manufacturing that isn't coming back (and didn't really exist anyway). The key is to adapt to a changing economy, along with providing better education and safety nets for those who are negatively impacted by the changes.

 

[BrainNebula]

Good grief. One last time:

• In the 1940s, around 40% of all workers were in manufacturing.
• By 2010, that fell to 10% of workers.
• This means that manufacturing EMPLOYMENT is not the primary component of the labor force.
• Despite manufacturers hiring lots of people, the percentage of workers in manufacturing DID NOT INCREASE between 2010 and 2018.
• Despite manufacturers hiring lots of people, the number of manufacturing employees is STILL BELOW 2009 LEVELS.
• This means that manufacturing EMPLOYMENT is STILL NOT the primary component of the labor force.
• We haven't even gotten into manufacturing wages, which have deteriorated over time due to the weakening of unions.

The same thing happened with agriculture. Obviously everyone needs food -- but we only need a handful of farmers (who are poorly paid btw) to make enough food not only for the US, but to export around the world. Only 1.6% of US workers are in agriculture. Manufacturing is headed in the same direction.

Thus, in terms of the primacy of manufacturing employment to the economy,adding more workers is largely meaningless, because it is nowhere near enough to reverse decades of declines in manufacturing employment, and we are still a service economy.



Then someone else will make those goods, or substitutes will be found, or the process of making those goods will be automated to the point where it's feasible to make them in different locations. C'mon, man. This is not new. Nations have traded for thousands of years.



• China doesn't manufacture US military equipment.
• It's not 1941. We don't need huge numbers of low-skilled workers to make military equipment anymore. In fact, nowadays we need highly educated engineers to control the robots.
• Plenty of nations buy arms from other nations, and still wage wars, even when their actions risk offending their supplier. Someone somewhere is always willing to supply arms. Where do you think ISIS and Iran and North Korea get their weapons?



Manufacturers move overseas for many reasons, including tax reasons and market proximity. (That's why foreign auto manufacturers have US plants.) Another is cheap labor. If it costs you $20 for 10 Chinese workers to make 100 widgets, and it costs you $40 to make 100 widgets in a highly automated US factory, you're probably gonna make it in China.



Nope nope, total bull****, total nonsense. The US doesn't have any major trade agreements with China, and they are a dominant force in US manufacturing. It's almost entirely about comparative advantage.



lol.... No, that's not even the tiniest bit correct.

All I have space to say here is: Manufacturing wages in many nations is a fraction of the cost of a US worker. If a Mexican factory worker costs $2.50/hour, and a US factory worker costs $15/hour, the US worker has to be at least 6 times more productive for the US factory to make sense.

Plus, the US also exports around $2 trillion in goods now. By your logic, BMW shouldn't have a plant in Greenville SC with 9000 US employees -- they should be making those cars in Germany instead, and export them to the US. You sure that's what you want?



Egads.... More revanchist nonsense. "These jobs are so critical, because there are so few of them!" Hello?!? There are so few of these jobs because those jobs aren't critical anymore!

The solution here is not to vainly cling to a mythical Golden Age of US Manufacturing that isn't coming back (and didn't really exist anyway). The key is to adapt to a changing economy, along with providing better education and safety nets for those who are negatively impacted by the changes.

This is all one big red-herring. I'm not going to go through it point-by-point. I'll simply ask you the question of who makes the tanks for WWIII if the auto manufacturing is all in other countries?

 

[Visbek]

This is all one big red-herring. I'm not going to go through it point-by-point. I'll simply ask you the question of who makes the tanks for WWIII if the auto manufacturing is all in other countries?

lol

Pointing out the numerous errors of your claims is not a "red herring." In fact, I deliberately brought it around to your original claims. You just don't have a valid response.

Anyway.... The US still manufactures the vast majority of its military equipment. That includes tanks.

In fact, the US keeps making tanks these days, despite the fact that we don't need any more tanks. (The military brass pointed this out to Congress years ago; political expedience and pork spending have kept it open.) There's a stockpile of 26,000 military vehicles, including at least 4000 tanks, in northeastern California. And, as the brass pointed out, tanks aren't much use in modern combat, which mostly involves insurgencies (and cyberwarfare).

The US doesn't need a major US auto industry in order to make tanks. E.g. The Lima Tank plant only has 600 employees, and cranks out 11 tanks per month. The rise of 3d printing in manufacturing, which is just starting to ramp up, pretty much guarantees that we won't need foreign parts in a pinch. It's plausible that a move to sustainable energy will reduce dependence on fossil fuels, which still relies heavily on foreign sources.

And again.... lots of nations don't produce their own military equipment, and still wage wars, and do things that piss off their suppliers. One obvious example is Saudi Arabia, which does not make its own equipment, buys equipment from the US, and routinely does things that piss off the US -- including waging war in Yemen, killing US residents, and overtly manipulating the international oil market specifically to take down US fossil fuel production.

Last but not least, it seems fairly obvious that any war that is large and long enough to impede US access to matériel won't last long. For example, most computer components are sourced in Southeast Asia (Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand etc). China would have to invade multiple nations and stop all exports of computer goods from those nations to even start to impede US military computers, and that's not going to happen. It should also go without saying that any nation that gets anywhere near an actual invasion of the US will be nuked.

I.e. Any conflict large enough to qualify as "World War III" will probably only last a few weeks before someone starts firing nukes. Anything smaller than that is highly unlikely to pose a permanent threat to military production. I'd say that makes the question of "where do the tanks come from?" moot.

There are a handful of situations where there are genuine security issues related to trade. But on the whole? Nope. And it certainly isn't the case that imports of foreign cars poses any sort of genuine security threat to the US.

 

[BrainNebula]

lol

Pointing out the numerous errors of your claims is not a "red herring." In fact, I deliberately brought it around to your original claims. You just don't have a valid response.

Anyway.... The US still manufactures the vast majority of its military equipment. That includes tanks.

In fact, the US keeps making tanks these days, despite the fact that we don't need any more tanks. (The military brass pointed this out to Congress years ago; political expedience and pork spending have kept it open.) There's a stockpile of 26,000 military vehicles, including at least 4000 tanks, in northeastern California. And, as the brass pointed out, tanks aren't much use in modern combat, which mostly involves insurgencies (and cyberwarfare).

The US doesn't need a major US auto industry in order to make tanks. E.g. The Lima Tank plant only has 600 employees, and cranks out 11 tanks per month. The rise of 3d printing in manufacturing, which is just starting to ramp up, pretty much guarantees that we won't need foreign parts in a pinch. It's plausible that a move to sustainable energy will reduce dependence on fossil fuels, which still relies heavily on foreign sources.

And again.... lots of nations don't produce their own military equipment, and still wage wars, and do things that piss off their suppliers. One obvious example is Saudi Arabia, which does not make its own equipment, buys equipment from the US, and routinely does things that piss off the US -- including waging war in Yemen, killing US residents, and overtly manipulating the international oil market specifically to take down US fossil fuel production.

Last but not least, it seems fairly obvious that any war that is large and long enough to impede US access to matériel won't last long. For example, most computer components are sourced in Southeast Asia (Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand etc). China would have to invade multiple nations and stop all exports of computer goods from those nations to even start to impede US military computers, and that's not going to happen. It should also go without saying that any nation that gets anywhere near an actual invasion of the US will be nuked.

I.e. Any conflict large enough to qualify as "World War III" will probably only last a few weeks before someone starts firing nukes. Anything smaller than that is highly unlikely to pose a permanent threat to military production. I'd say that makes the question of "where do the tanks come from?" moot.

There are a handful of situations where there are genuine security issues related to trade. But on the whole? Nope. And it certainly isn't the case that imports of foreign cars poses any sort of genuine security threat to the US.

Oh boy. You don't even understand that production ramps up during wartime, and vehicle plants get switched over to military plants. If there are no vehicle plants to switch over, the ability to produce military vehicles decreases drastically, which means our ability to win a war declines drastically. Consider this conversation over.