<i>"Many agricultural concerns have produce rotting in the fields for lack of workers."</i> That is due to a lack of skilled foreign workers, aka illegal aliens being pressured out of the fields, literally. Field harvesting isn't a no-brainer task. There is a lot of nuances involved that require years of learning. Can't just take someone off a welfare role from the inner city, stick them in an orchard and expect the orchard to be picked clean & proper. It's damn hard work, and there is learned skill involved. Produce will continue to rot until illegal aliens return to the task. That, or wages would have to at least triple (with benefits on top) to attract U.S. workers. Add elevated wages to produce costs, pass that onto the consumer and reprice those 99c value meals at the fa(s)t-food restaurants.
Ah, but don't worry. All this inflation is making our goods more attractive on the world market. That's what I get a kick out of. People complain that our exports aren't great enough. Then the same people complain that the USD is plagued by inflation. Amazing They complain that we get everything from China. Well of course we do. Their g-ment is specifically depreciating the value of their currency to keep their exports well priced. They aren't following the rules that allow for self adjustment of a capitalistic market. If they left things alone, wages would skyrocket in China and our trade deficit would be non-existent. Of course, then we couldn't buy as much stuff. Do we want more exports, or greater purchasing power?
I think the point I was trying to make was obvious, in the context of this thread. Not going to help you if it isn't. I'm too old to be patient with the deliberately dense.
Wrong. Manufacturing serves as the epicenter of a nations innovative process. Where goes manufacturing, so goes R&D and process refinement. This is true for most industries. 'Disposable' factory jobs serve as a bullwark against severe recessions or depressions. Try recycling money domestically when every dollar spent goes overseas. Chinas pollution has nothing to do with it.
dalailama, likely it will never happen. Best thing to do is do what the private banks behind the fed do: don't pay income tax (if you are willing to go to court as has been seen with Ed Brown and others, they won't be able to find a law that says you have to or should pay it). As the country goes into recession buy gold, property etc at discount, and sell out at other extreme of the cycle.
You try it first. Let me know how it goes. *shudders* Now back to the main point here which is rapidly becoming - is manufacturing necessary to support an economy? No question that technical innovation and manufacturing go hand in hand, although computer simulation does change that ball-game (provided your simulator is accurate). By decreasing the degree of manufacturing, you decrease the degree of innovation for non-electronic goods. Fine. Point conceded. However, in the absence of total war, which requires vast mobilization of resources on the scale of WWII, what does it really matter? The new world order concepts still remain to some extent and the war is still a war of terrorism, rather than a war against a specific foreign power (with apologies to Iraq). So, if we lose the GM plants, and the worker's knowledge to build MANY mediocre weapons as opposed to a FEW high-quality weapons, what does it matter for our national sovereignty (and hence our economy) so long as there is no Total war? (Of course, if you have total war, you're caught with your pants down unless you are willing to use nukes)