01-27-2017, 03:51 PM
De-industrialization:
Simple explanation. We Americans are at a stage in which the only possible cause for fresh demand for manufactured goods is population growth. Our purchases of manufactured goods are for disposable objects like razor blades and aluminum foil... and replacement of durable goods. Example: I am now on my fourth TV set as an adult, and the last one that I bought I bought ten years ago as I decided to go with a flat screen TV. We are not trading cars every two years as was once the norm for parts of American middle-class life.
So how can Donald Trump bring back manufacturing jobs back to America? Only if Americans decide to replace all their stuff. That is unlikely. Few people buy a refrigerator, stove, or washing machine if the current one hasn't gone bad. Paradoxically the only way to stimulate consumer purchases is to unleash immigration upon us...
The number of people needed in mining, energy extraction, and manufacturing has been shrinking; even China is seeing the decline in need for manufacturing workers.
President Trump believes that we can get more productivity just by accelerating the depletion of resources, polluting more, and cutting taxes for the elites. But what would he know? He has never been a manufacturer except in some failed enterprises.
Simple explanation. We Americans are at a stage in which the only possible cause for fresh demand for manufactured goods is population growth. Our purchases of manufactured goods are for disposable objects like razor blades and aluminum foil... and replacement of durable goods. Example: I am now on my fourth TV set as an adult, and the last one that I bought I bought ten years ago as I decided to go with a flat screen TV. We are not trading cars every two years as was once the norm for parts of American middle-class life.
So how can Donald Trump bring back manufacturing jobs back to America? Only if Americans decide to replace all their stuff. That is unlikely. Few people buy a refrigerator, stove, or washing machine if the current one hasn't gone bad. Paradoxically the only way to stimulate consumer purchases is to unleash immigration upon us...
The number of people needed in mining, energy extraction, and manufacturing has been shrinking; even China is seeing the decline in need for manufacturing workers.
President Trump believes that we can get more productivity just by accelerating the depletion of resources, polluting more, and cutting taxes for the elites. But what would he know? He has never been a manufacturer except in some failed enterprises.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.