All Terrain Thinking

A Compendium of things I think are Important

Consequences In Life, Often Unanticipated

 

23. MANUFACTURING

"My idea is that we should encourage manufactures to the extent of our own consumption of everything of which we raise the raw material." - Thomas Jefferson

America used to be the world’s king of manufacturing. During WW II, America was turning out one four engined B-17 bomber each hour, not to mention building dozens of other planes, hundreds of ships, thousands of vehicles, millions of guns, and billions of rounds of ammunition, to use an escalating figure. After the war, our manufacturing continued full blast, catching up on pent up demand. Our plants weren’t bombed or destroyed, and our inventive genius continued unabated. Unabated until government became so onerous and confiscatory, that it gradually became uneconomical to manufacture here, and the plants began to migrate to Mexico and overseas, usually after exhausting all other methods of saving the company. The decline had begun, and continues to this day.

Major American cities all had manufacturing industries. Philadelphia, a city I am well acquainted with, had hundreds of factories that made things such as Disston Saws, Stetson Hats, Philco Radios and TV Sets, Baldwin Locomotives, several of brands of carpet, Botany 500 clothing, sugar, ammunition, groceries, and building materials, just to name a few. I can't think of a single one that is left. The buildings are empty, decaying, and the target of arsonists. The surrounding neighborhoods have also suffered from the unemployment. Literally millions of jobs have fled America, to lands where there are no stiff regulations, heavy taxes, pollution controls, OSHA, EPA, and the rest of the alphabet soup agencies that regularly throttle business and confiscate our wealth.

America used to have several first rate trolley, railroad, and subway car manufacturers, which supplied not only American cities, but exported their product around the world. Two of the major ones were the J.G. Brill Co. of Philadelphia, and the St. Louis Car Co. of St. Louis. Both places now sit empty, in spite of the resurgence of electric transport in most major cities. Trolley cars made by these two companies before the turn of the century, still operate regularly in Lisbon Portugal, so high are their quality. Modern streamlined trolleys and subway cars by the hundreds still run in San Francisco, New York, and Pittsburgh...made by these two manufacturers. The new cars now come mostly from Germany and Japan, because government controls and taxes have destroyed American abilities. Philadelphia now runs Jap Kawasaki trolleys right past the J.G. Brill site on Elmwood Ave. Other cities have these, plus German Seimens cars, which San Diego imports and uses.

Manufacturing plants create additional employment opportunities, which are destroyed when those plants cease operation. Jobs in management, secretarial, shipping, machinery manufacturing, raw material manufacturing, plant repair, building, packaging, transportation, and of course selling. All are lost when plants close, not just the actual factory jobs.

SOLUTIONS

Long gone are the days when manufacturing was the pride of America. Men working "on the line," making, inventing, and selling things, created a prosperity unparalleled in human history. This prosperity is now only hazily remembered, but believe me, it was there. Making what we consume has diminished so much, that our manufacturing brilliance has become but a 10-watt bulb. Detroit, Philadelphia, Buffalo, St. Louis, Los Angeles, and other major cities, which used to be home to thousands of manufacturers, are left with empty buildings and unemployment. The national statistics show low unemployment, but they also show low inflation, decreasing crime, and a host of other specious figures...released by government, which created the problems. The commonly heard joke now, is of the man who agrees with the low rate of joblessness, saying he has three of them. Millions make far less than they used to make, and must hold two or three part time jobs, because none other are available. Can we trust government figures? I don't.

If America were still a manufacturing country, it doesn't take a college degree to make things on an assembly line. Production line workers have always made good salaries, been model citizens, sometimes were union members, contributed to their community, and generally lived close to their employment. "Service" industries, such as hamburger stand employees, do not create the same type of wealth, as do manufacturers, who take raw materials, and form useful, long lasting items, that aren't instantly consumed. America cannot survive on "service" industries and jobs. We need not only to invent things, but also to make and sell them. Sales people have always had high incomes, but with few things being manufactured here any longer, there is little use for a sales force that sells American made items.

I am reminded of large signs on two bridges at the entrance to two former manufacturing cities in America: Chester, Pennsylvania and Trenton, New Jersey. One says, "TRENTON MAKES, THE WORLD TAKES," and the other reads, "WHAT CHESTER MAKES, MAKES CHESTER." Neither are true any longer. Shuffling papers, writing regulations, suing people, leveraged buyouts, and other types of hocus-pocus, didn't make America the greatest nation on earth, with the highest standard of living. America became great by inventing, manufacturing, and selling to everyone else in the world, not buying from them. We are now being advised that "service" industries will suffice. The fuzz-brained academicians and politicos, who instill this "service" industry nonsense into the craniums of our youth and non-thinking adult populace, need to be ignored, as they are in grievous error.

By eliminating all subsidies, income taxes, and re-instating severe tariffs on our economic enemies to equalize the differentials, American manufacturing would quickly rebound, capital and jobs return and stay here, and those empty factories might begin humming again...at least the ones that haven't been torched by arsonists.

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