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  #61  
Old 09-20-2009, 11:29 PM
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BEC BEC is offline
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I am an engineer at an American manufacturer of hard goods (airliners, fighters, helicopters, satellites, etc.) though the actual US content of each varies by product. There are about 159,000 US employees in the company as of the end of August. Not sure how that fits into your question.
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  #62  
Old 09-20-2009, 11:45 PM
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Mark II Mark II is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BEC
I am an engineer at an American manufacturer of hard goods (airliners, fighters, helicopters, satellites, etc.) though the actual US content of each varies by product. There are about 159,000 US employees in the company as of the end of August. Not sure how that fits into your question.
OK, in my book you and the folks at Semroc count. The Economist might disagree, though. By my count, that makes 4 members so far.

My point is that if anyone is wondering whatever happened to "Made in the USA", they should just look around. How many of your friends, neighbors and members of your family work in manufacturing these days?

http://economistsview.typepad.com/e...ecline_in_.html

http://buffalo.bizjournals.com/buff...24/daily32.html

http://www.usatoday.com/money/econo...nufacture_x.htm

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  #63  
Old 09-21-2009, 03:10 AM
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I've worked in manufacturing, for the most part, since I got out of the Air Force in 1992. That also means I get layed-off and have to move about every three years.

The British told us in 1980 not to convert to a service economy because it doesn't work. And the first thing manufacturers did with Reagan's trickle down money was build factories overseas. What I wonder about is, how long will it take these, supposed educated, people to figure out they got rid of the people buying there cars and stuff. Report after report has shown the middle-class has been on the decline for 30 years. And do they actually think that $6.50 an hour will buy a house and a new car?!?

Gee, Mr. Obvious, I never made the connection...

Then again, being layed-off once again, I might be a bit biased.
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  #64  
Old 09-21-2009, 03:59 AM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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IF we ever develop a planetary government (which I'm not agitating for--a proposed global government would have to guarantee *at least* the same freedoms as the U.S. Constitution before I would even *think* about supporting it), we could content ourselves with being a service economy, just as some of our states (still) manufacture goods while others specialize in agriculture, resource extraction, or tourism as the bases of their state economies; being one nation with a common currency and an inter-connected economy, all of the states benefit from the specialized economic activities of each individual state.

If the USA and China were "states" in a planetary republic with a world currency (the "Terro?") that was analogous to our 50-state American republic, we could prosper by growing food and providing various services and the Chinese could prosper by manufacturing goods, since we would both be "playing on the same team," so to speak.

However, until and unless hostile aliens show up in our stellar neighborhood and force humanity to band together in order to repel them (at which point it might be too late anyway), any notions about world governments of any kind are just pipe dreams.
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  #65  
Old 09-21-2009, 12:07 PM
Jeff Walther Jeff Walther is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mycrofte
I don't remember ever eating or knowing anyone who ate a Estes parachute.


Our vacuum cleaner ate an Estes parachute. It got a little sick from the shrouds, but I don't think the plastic part poisoned it.

Sadly, it was an old 8" Estes parachute. Grrrr.
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  #66  
Old 09-21-2009, 12:29 PM
Jeff Walther Jeff Walther is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark II
OK, let's see a show of hands. How many (American) YORF members are employed in factories?


My employer designs a product which is manufactured at a factory in Taiwan. When the product comes back, I test them. We also produce software which runs on our product. Are we a service organization? We're awfully close to creating an item. But the manufacturing does happen elsewhere, because we design semiconductors and a factory for those runs to billions of dollars. That part must be contracted out if your product has small volumes--meaning less than tens of millions of units.
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  #67  
Old 09-21-2009, 12:34 PM
Jeff Walther Jeff Walther is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mycrofte
What I wonder about is, how long will it take these, supposed educated, people to figure out they got rid of the people buying there cars and stuff. Report after report has shown the middle-class has been on the decline for 30 years. And do they actually think that $6.50 an hour will buy a house and a new car?!?

Gee, Mr. Obvious, I never made the connection...

Then again, being layed-off once again, I might be a bit biased.


Nope, I don't think you're wrong. You may be biased, but not wrong.

The thing that puzzles me is that in history class back in the 70s when we studied the pre-labor movement factories (think, "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair) we were taught that factory owners finally realized/were-taught-the-lesson that paying their employees more leads to an environment where more goods are sold and so they actually do better than when they pay their employees less.

Apparently that history lesson was lost on the modern set of MBA wingnuts. Of course, the above also only works in the aggregate. Any individual employer who can pay his workers less will reap a disproportionate benefit, until enough others follow suit to wreck the economy.

Hence the benefit of unions holding wages at a high level across the board.
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  #68  
Old 09-21-2009, 04:44 PM
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Yeah, I forgot about that part.

As far as I know, they still teach that Ford was a genius for paying his workers enough to afford the cars they were building. At least they did at Western Illinois University when I was there in 1998...

And yes, Jeff, you are in a service organization. You provide a product without actually building it. Kinda like Wal-Mart...
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  #69  
Old 09-30-2009, 02:55 AM
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Maniac BAR Maniac BAR is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark II
OK, let's see a show of hands. How many (American) YORF members are employed in factories?

That's about what I thought.

Next question: how many (American) YORF members are employed in or own businesses that provide some kind of service, as opposed to manufacturing a tangible item?

MarkII

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This may be a little late but I have both of my hands up! I have been in a factory in the manufacturing of aerospace parts for almost 30 years. Yes I get my hands dirty and am quite busy running three different types of machines.

HOWEVER, with that being said, I have seen over the last 15 years or so, the movement away from manufacturing to business acquisitions. What the company calls "GROWTH". Bullcrap!!

All that has ment is that the company is finding more and more excusses to pay their people less and tell them to do more work if they want to make more money and even to keep their jobs. But since the money for capitol expensses is pitiful to begin with, we spend more time trying to get the 40 year old machines just to work. So what happens? They say we can't do the job right or fast enough and send the work out to other countries so they pay less for the finished goods and make their " SHAIRHOLDERS" happy.

So what else did they do? They told everyone that if you didn't retire on or before Sept. 1 the company would no longer pay their share of the medical plan after that date. So now 1/3 of their top people are gone and guess who has to take up the slack.

Lucky that I had the time in and was the right age to kiss them goodby but NOT what I wanted to do for a few more years!

So the point is that you are right and you are wrong! There is still a large amount of manufacturing being done right here in the USA but not for long. It is amazing that the US is such a world leader in so much but so far behind the curve on how the rest of the world is working. Most of the "NEW" programs that are being introduced to the American work force has been tried almost everywhere else with poor results but we don't see that until it is too late.

Been there, done that.

Sorry for the rant but that one hit a nerve. Luckly, it was my last one.

I am off the soap box.
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