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You are still wrong. Yes, we have fewer people employed in manufacturing and that makes big headlines where people assume that means we don't produce as much, but that isn't the case:
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Do a little experiment: walk into a Walmart, Best buy, Sears or any other store for that matter and count the number of items you find that were made in China, India, etc. vs. in the USA.
If you are taking the position that most mass-produced retail things at places like WalMart are made overseas you won't get any argument from me, but you were implying the U.S. doesn't make anything anymore and that is flat out wrong.
Everyone wants to do something about 'health care' but no one wants to do anything about how people actually (don't) care for themselves (which is what makes health care cost so much).
We might be doing too much for them already.
What is expensive are things like insisting on doing heart attack EMT and ER (or more) interventions rather than just letting more people die from conditions that set them up for continuing costs.
Yes, we're all getting screwed with the health care thing. I think one of the most overlooked solutions to reducing health care costs is food reform. It's insane the number of medications people are on and the % of overweight / obese people. This is not normal, natural, or healthy.
I can't recall who said it, or the exact wording, but there is a quote about people need to look at the murder of animals the same way they do the murder of humans. I totally agree that we need to stop supporting the industries that are killing us with fast food, unhealthy diets and additives.
The health care thing is being driven in part by the drug companies that have too much influence over the medical providers today. That combined with insurance provider greed and Americans are getting squeezed which contributes to why we have to worker harder and longer for less and less. It is the economic divide created by corporations for their own greed. We are not as bad off as places like rural India but look at their social divide and tell me we aren't fast tracking to their system! Most of us don't have the huge health/retirement packages provided by federal, state and local governements which the taxpayers are also forced to pay for so we just keeping paying everyone else.
Speak up with your vote every chance you get and express yourself often to your well paid elected officials.
What is expensive are things like insisting on doing heart attack EMT and ER (or more) interventions rather than just letting more people die from conditions that set them up for continuing costs.
Usually, I agree with your thoughts but what about people like my Uncle who didn't know about cholesterol years ago? I think we forget that some of health issues just weren't as well understood then as they are now.
Would you like to be subject to a death panel if you were need of medical care? No clear cut answers but there is a huge public outcry going on in Alameda, CA when local police refused to assist a drowning man due to the budget. Yes, he was suicidal for the moment but should he have been allowed to die for that reason?
Not nearly as much as we used to. Do a little experiment: walk into a Walmart, Best buy, Sears or any other store for that matter and count the number of items you find that were made in China, India, etc. vs. in the USA.
Then ask yourself what those Americans who used to have those jobs do now to maintain their living standards. The answer is that they became employed in lower-paying service jobs and balanced out their living standards by buying cheap Chinese goods with cheap debt.
Oh, and guess who played a big hand in perpetuating this? China. China accumulates a huge amount of US dollars from their business with us (since they sell a hell of a lot more than they buy from us), and then it holds onto that surplus while artificially keeping its currency devalued, i.e. relatively cheap to ours. The result? The Chinese can then essentially lend our dollars back to us in the form of buying US debt so that the cycle of cheap debt is maintained...so that we can buy more of their cheap goods. It was essential to China's growth strategy.
This has been great for China...not so good for us. They got real economic growth while we had the illusion of economic prosperity. It looked good for a while, but don't kid yourself: the last decade or so of "growth" that you saw in America was largely notreal.
In the interest of our short-term consumption appetite - and in the short-term financial gain of some influential American elite -we rolled over like a good lap dog for the Chinese interests and gave away the whole farm while enslaving ourselves in debt. Now we're paying for our massive debt binge, and we will continue to pay for probably this entire decade during which time China will continue to experience real growth and soon become the dominant world power. Hope it was worth it to our business and political leaders...
Spoken like a true Californian!
When I feel the need to buy something just go to the vintage shops in the Haight and get lots of Made in USA. Or, your local thrift store still cares some Amercian products but they are vanishing.
You are still wrong. Yes, we have fewer people employed in manufacturing and that makes big headlines where people assume that means we don't produce as much, but that isn't the case:
If you are taking the position that most mass-produced retail things at places like WalMart are made overseas you won't get any argument from me, but you were implying the U.S. doesn't make anything anymore and that is flat out wrong.
Ok, so obviously I don't literally stand by the claim that the entire nation of America does not manufacture even one single item. But that facetiousness aside, maybe I'm not as wrong as you think. Overall manufacturing output is up, but if you look at the underlying data for manufacturing output by sector, you'll find that only a few sectors are responsible for the growth - notably mineral fuels and technology/computers. Most of the others, from automotive to papers to plastics to textiles to fabricated metals are all down, down down. And furthermore, the growth of mineral fuels is skewed by one major variable - the skyrocketing price. Take computers and electronics out of the picture, and you'll see some pretty anemic manufacturing growth.
While statisticians can make graphs that show overall value of manufacturing output to be up, but the curve does not indicate a healthy, broad manufacturing base with a vibrant future. The salient point is that entire swaths of manufacturing have gone overseas, and they American jobs that used to exist with them have been largely replaced by inferior jobs (if any). What that means for large groups of Americans is a deteriorating living standard.
Ok, so obviously I don't literally stand by the claim that the entire nation of America does not manufacture even one single item. But that facetiousness aside, maybe I'm not as wrong as you think. Overall manufacturing output is up,
the issue isn't about those sorts of core and especially not the high tech stuff that GE and Boeing and even many of the auto makers are doing.
the issue is the low skilled labor jobs that paid a livable wage with benefits and are needed now and in even greater numbers than when industry decided to offshore all those jobs rather than reinvest in the plant and equipment and processes that continued to use the same pre WW2 plants we still had then (and still do now).
we saw it as early as the early 60's when the first WW2 imports from Marshall Plan rebuilt Germany and Japan started showing up here. Genuinely good products in ever greater numbers every year. Things made not with recycled scrap steel but with fresh steel made in modern steel mills and with castings made in modern foundries.
If you want moderately above average public schools, that 900sf 1950s subruban house can easily set you back $500K in many large cities in the US. (NYC, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, SF, etc.) So, figure a $100K down payment, and a mortgage payment of 3x income since interest rates are low, and you're talking the one work outside the home parent bringing in $133K. Which is still statistically a pretty big salary for one even in a high wage area.
If "good schools" is the objective for which you are willing to raise the ante by $450K, just buy a house in a Nebraska town, and hire a private tutor for $40K a year to home-school your kids. Or let the kids go to school free in Nebraska, and you won't need the $133K job.
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