America DEBT FREE in 2 years

Obviously some factories are shuttered or offshored. Every industry is experiencing this. A lot of software is now being written in India. But the demand for computer science grads is expected to climb over 30% in the next few years. Huge numbers of jobs are created and destroyed in this country. It is the nature of our economy.

But your thesis is still incorrect. You cannot look at a few places and say "this is what is true for the entire manufacturing industry." Automation has been the primary destroyer of jobs.

Examples:

Due to productivity gains, China lost more jobs (15 million) in manufacturing than the US (2 million) from 1995-2002: http://www.conference-board.org/utilities/pressDetail.cfm?press_ID=2432

"in recent years, outsourcing has been blamed for the loss of jobs in which automation is the more likely culprit[3]. This argument is supported by the fact that in the U.S., the number of insourced jobs is increasing at a greater rate than those outsourced[4]. Further, the rate of decline in U.S. manufacturing employment is no greater than the worldwide average: 11 percent between 1995 and 2002[5]. In the same period, China, which has been frequently criticized for "stealing" American manufacturing jobs, lost 15 million manufacturing jobs of its own (about 15% of its total), compared with 2 million lost in the U.S.[6]. Millions of human telephone operators and answerers, throughout the world, have been replaced wholly (or almost wholly) by automated telephone switchboards and answering machines (not by Indian or Chinese workers). Thousands of medical researchers have been replaced in many medical tasks from 'primary' screeners in electrocardiography or radiography, to laboratory analyses of human genes, sera, cells, and tissues by automated systems." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automation

"After the most recent recession ended in 2001, manufacturing continued to lose jobs through this year. “Job growth is so slow in manufacturing because there are fewer recalls to manufacturers,” Hill said. “In this recovery, many of the jobs that were lost will never come back” because of advances in technology and automation. " http://www.managingautomation.com/m...acturing_Survival_Hinges_on_Innovation_163842"

Business Week estimates that 1% productivity improvement can eliminate up to 1.3 million jobs. With U.S. productivity growing at an annual rate of 3-5%, the reason for the jobs shortfall becomes clear. According to Forrester Research, of the 2.7 million jobs lost over the three years, only 300,000 have been from outsourcing. Dick Morley explains it with his usual colorful flair, “Jobs are going down the silicon hole, not the outsourcing hole.” And the figures support this contention. Productivity resulting from industrial automation—not outsourcing—is the biggest culprit behind most manufacturing job losses. All industrialized countries are losing manufacturing jobs too – including China." http://www.automation.com/sitepages/pid1939.php"

 

Everyone believes what they want to believe. Tell people outsourcing is destroying jobs and the person who doesnt want to believe it will quote stats supporting his belief. I think everyone gets the idea by now that USA is on a downhill trajectory.

 

The plural of anecdote is not data.

 

Good. That's all you can say when you have no argument. Outsourcing is nothing more than search for efficiency, process have been going on since Industrial Revolution there is nothing new about it. The only difference is it's going on on global scale.
Tell me it's a really bad thing we have lost all those farming jobs isn't it? What a pleasure it must have been to work the field. Too bad unions weren't able to save those jobs for us regular people.
Main reason manufacturing employs less and less people is human labor adds less and less value to the final product(I am talking about physical labor here) And if there is really cheap labor available it's much better for the system as a whole to utilize that.
Shit, it got too complicated now. Simpler to stick to what they feed the masses with. No need for thinking.

 

Well said. People whine about manufacturing? Well the unions live in a dream world. They cry "protect American jobs" while auto workers think they deserve $40-$80 an hour to tighten nuts on wheels. No wonder the American auto industry (Big 3) is slipping to less than 50% of the market.

Classic manufacturing jobs by and large are boring and suck. It is similar to the farm jobs, where Americans have little interest in picking crops, that is why immigrants do it.

Work will go to the most cost efficient. Whining about it changes nothing.

But every Joe Public thinks he has the right to post, whether or not he actually understands what is going on in the world.

 

We have a SYSTEM that ENCOURAGES the jobs to be outsourced and goods to be imported instead of made here, so it should be no surprise that jobs are being moved away as quickly as possible.

I think the secondary result will be a worthless dollar that results from the huge trade imbalance, and never ending deficits. At some point lenders will realize that U.S, treasuries are junk, and can never possibly be repaid at the value they were lent at, even ignoring the interest promised.

When that happens, I guess we will learn to "make do" or "do without", both phrases from the days of the depression.

 

The dollar is the world's reserve currency, which is why you're seeing that effect. Demand for dollars is greater than it would be otherwise, which makes it chronically overvalued, which is why the US is cornered into running a trade deficit. The tradeoff is of course, that we get everybody else's stuff a lot cheaper and get to live better as a result.
As for Treasuries becoming junk: nope. Reserve currencies don't just get dumped at the end of their cycle, because the cost would be too great.
For the pound, agreement was reached in 1968 among the former colonies who were still part of what was known as the "Sterling Area", to sell in measured increments only.
The Washington Agreement, which accomplished the same thing for gold, was signed in 1999, and recently renewed.
In both cases, these agreements prevented wholesale dumping, which would then cause massive losses, of course.
The same thing will be done with the dollar, when the time comes, for the same reason.

 

Once most jobs have been outsourced to India and China, we will be right back to living like the Amish, living on farms and picking our own crops, the way life was meant to be. No need for college and tons of student loans, no car payments, no mortgage, and no utility bills, just the basic needs like food and shelter and then we'll all realize true freedom again.

 

I don't disagree that what you said has been accurate since WWII, but I think In the next 3 or 4 years it will change completely to where the dollar is no longer the worlds reserve currency, and our bonds as desirable as fleas.

Who are we going to borrow from to pay for boomers retirements and healthcare as they age?