The Weekly Sedition Returns to ABQ Ch.27

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Permalink Reply by Lee Kershner on June 30, 2010 at 5:56pm

Please keep in mind the following facts and restructuring of components of the GDP since 1950:

 Currently the U.S. national debt is in the trillions and growing.
 We borrow approximately $2 billion a day from the Chinese.
 The U.S. is now the world’s largest debtor.

WE CAN'T MAKE UP THE DEFICIT WITH HIGH-TECH SERVICE INDUSTRIES AS WAS PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT. OUR LEADERS ASSURED US THAT ENTREPRENEURS AND CREATIVITY WOULD MAKE UP FOR THE LOSS OF MANUFACTURING. TRADITIONALLY R&D FOLLOWS MANUFACTURING.
 America had an $821 billion trade deficit in goods in 2008.
 America has an $80 billion surplus in high-end services (education, financial and insurance
services, telecommunications; and all other business, professional, technical services).
 Increasingly these high-end services, like software development, are moving overseas.
 Global cross-border software and service outsourcing are expected to reach $1.6 trillion in 2010.

• The green economy is rapidly being outsourced as well!
 The U.S. invented solar cells. But 90 percent of the solar cells we use are now imported from China.
 Roughly 50 percent of our windmills now come from overseas, mostly China and Europe.
 Only 8 percent of computer circuit broads are now made in the U.S.

• ALMOST EVERY COUNTRY HAS SOME SORT OF POLICY TO PROMOTE DOMESTIC MANUFACTURING EXCEPT THE U.S.
 The Italian government bailed out Fiat during the global economic downturn on the
condition that manufacturing remain in Italy.
 At the same time, the U.S. government supported General Motors despite its plans to outsource more production to China and Mexico.
 China requires that at least 80 percent of the equipment in its own solar power plants
be made in China, and wind turbines installed in China must contain 70 percent domestic content.
Meanwhile, China exports more than 95 percent of its solar energy products to the United States and Europe.
 Canada negotiated exceptions to WTO agreements for government procurement of steel, coal and motor vehicle production for all provinces and sectors.

• Manufacturing isn’t gone from America yet, but it’s at serious risk of leaving.
 Manufacturing employs 14 million people, generates nearly 12 percent of U.S. gross domestic
product and accounts for 60 percent of U.S. exports.
 Manufacturing is at least the third-largest sector or greater in 40 states.
 But MANUFACTURING HAS SHARPLY DECLINED FROM 27 PERCENT OF GDP IN 1950 TO ONLY 11.5 PERCENT TODAY.
 And a quarter of the nation’s 282,000 remaining manufacturing companies -- 90,000 in all -- are now deemed severely "at risk."

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