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A recent article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “New Business, Not Small Business, Is What Creates Jobs” seems to ignore the dearth of production facilities in America. The point of the article is that new jobs have been created by newly formed small business enterprises, and that to continue this growth, government has to eliminate regulatory and economic barriers. Certainly high taxes, costly environmental mandates, and zoning regulations have contributed substantially to the demise of America’s production facilities. Government has also contributed to high labor costs by passing legislation that gave labor unions the ability to cripple manufacturers. It is no wonder that U.S. industries have had to leave American workers behind as they moved their facilities out of the country and in many cases simply ceased doing business. The nonsense about being able to support economic growth and create wealth from a service industry is silly. Firms that service production need to be near by the production facilities. If the production facilities are in China, support for those industries can not be located half-way around the globe. Insurance companies that service manufacturing need to be close to their market as well. These are just two obvious examples. I’m sure you can think up many more. If you were born after 1980 then you probably believe that the environment must be protected and that smoke stacks are a detriment to it. You probably believe that the American economy can survive on “clean industries”. You’re wrong! And this economy proves you wrong. So called high-tech firms, according to the Wall Street article accounted for 24% all patient applications, but it did not mention how those patients translated into domestic production facilities. The article suggests that what is needed are skilled workers trained in foreign countries. With 10.5% unemployment and a real unemployment rate nearer to 17% are we to believe we need to import intelligence? Reply to my post on the Free-Republic: The only way America can create wealth and resume the standard of living to which we have become accustomed is by creating jobs in production that actually produce wealth. Until then learn to live on less, enjoy fewer amenities, and more government control over your life.
Until America restores its prior manufacturing capacity it
will be on the downward economic slope.
You can only live so long on imported goods financed by monetary illusions before the piper gets paid. Other than the near-term profits that outsourcing and importing can bring, there is no sustainable economy that is based on importing nearly all of our material and intellectual (e.g., software) product. The only way that the trillions in stimulus money could have done any long term good is if it had been spent in re-instituting and modernizing our industrial manufacturing capacity. Instead it is being spent where a lot of it ends up in foreign hands because that’s where everything is now made, or in government agencies where it sustains bureaucracies and welfare clientele.
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