Here’s a letter to the Washington Post:
As if repetition makes what is false factual, Harold Meyerson again repeats the myth that American manufacturing output is declining (“In recession battle, Germany and China are winners,” July 1). In fact, if Mr. Meyerson would visit this link, he’d discover that data compiled by the Federal Reserve show that the inflation-adjusted total value of industrial output is today (May 2010) – despite the fact that we’re in a recession – 67 percent higher than in January 1986.*
Perhaps Mr. Meyerson wishes to compare today’s manufacturing output to that of 1979 – the year prior to America’s alleged embrace of laissez-faire capitalism. He can do so by looking, in addition, at this second link:
He’ll discover that manufacturing output today is about 80 percent higher than in 1979. Or maybe Mr. Meyerson would prefer to compare today’s manufacturing output to that of the mid-1950s, when America was supposedly at the peak of her industrial might. If so, Mr. Meyerson will discover that the real value of today’s manufacturing output is 351 percent higher than in 1955.
Mr. Meyerson should cease and desist from all efforts to manufacture the myth that Americans no longer make things.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
* This link below explains how to read the links in my letter, with a key sentence being: “The production index measures real output and is expressed as a percentage of real output in a base year, currently 2007.”
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{ 24 comments }
Professor Boudreaux- you've been tireless in your efforts to get Mr. Meyerson to change his mind. You've used hard facts and data to back up your arguments, and yet he still spouts the same nonsense to a national audience. I think it's fair to say he's got some other motive for beating this dead horse.
It's always best to assume that your opponents have the best intentions. This might be one of the few cases where it's clear that your opponent here might not have good intentions.
Perhaps it would be more relevant to post data showing manufacturing as a percent of GDP as opposed to nominally.
It isn't just that Meyerson is trying to propagate a Great Lie for political ends. The editors of the Washington Post, and many news outlets across the country are doing the same. Perhaps they are all saying to themselves,
“If Paul Krugman and the NYT can make money lying about economics, then maybe we can too.”
Corey,
It is clear to me Don Boudreaux's arguments are being ignored buy Harold Meyerson, whatever might be Harold's intentions.
I'm not speaking for Don, but please consider my motivation for occasionally writing letters to a newspaper. When I disagree with the author of an opinion piece or with a reporter's slant of a news story, I am not expecting to change how the author or report thinks about that issue. Rather, I am attempting to change how the newspaper's readers think about that issue.
The same NYT that was going broke just a few years ago and needed Carlos Slim in order to not go broke?
I wonder how their readership is doing now?
“Perhaps it would be more relevant to post data showing manufacturing as a percent of GDP”
Milton’s nephew,
Not sure I understand. Would it matter if manufacturing’s portion of GDP had changed? As real prices of manufactured goods have declined, consumers have had more money to spend on something. If they choose to spend that additional money on services rather than manufactured goods, does that really matter?
These data are not nominal; they're real (i.e., inflation-adjusted). I have no doubt that as a percentage of GDP, the real value of manufacturing output has fallen – but so what? The U.S. economy still makes lots of “things.” (I add, for the record, that even if the real value of U.S.-made manufactured goods HAD fallen dramatically, however you wish to measure it, that fact, in and of itself, would be neither good nor bad.)
Not sure why, but I am unable to reply to the comments of others. DISQUS seems to accept my comments only when posted via “Add New Comment”.
Meyerson appears to miss the distinction between manufacturing output and the number of people employed in manufacturing.
A modern Luddite perhaps?
WHO CARES?!?!
My God, I wish this sentiment that “more general manufacturing equals more prosperity for the country” would just stop.
Most of the manufacturing that people miss from the “good ole days” is low value, low wage work by today's standards. BE HAPPY most of that cheap junk and trinket work is off our shores. That leaves more time to do more productive work.
Well put. The sophism that making crap in a factory is inherently better than providing a valuable service is still alive and well.
“Service Economy” is still considered a pejorative thing to say because it's used to invoke the image of low-paying fast food and retail mall jobs. Two things are wrong with that image:
1. Those jobs are by and large taken by younger, low skilled workers like teenagers or simply as a part-time job.
2. “Services” means so much more than those jobs. Accountant, Medicine-related jobs, Therapists, Consultants, Lawyers, all kinds of assistance jobs like paralegal and dental hygenists (sp).
Funny, many of the jobs that we aspire to as we look toward adulthood are service jobs. Nobody dreams of working in a factory.
Many follow the “newspaper of record”. Hopefully they follow them right into bankruptcy.
I think what is lamented by Meyerson is not the loss of manufacturing jobs; it's the loss of union manufacturing jobs.
What is the difference between goods and services when most goods are produced by servicing machines?
It boggles the mind that someone can be that willfully ignorant. Shouldn't we be celebrating the fact that it no longer requires as much of our workforce to produce even more (and better quality) stuff than we have in our entire history? This progress is what has allowed us to enjoy the vastly increase quality of life that we do today. If Mr. Meyerson simply thinks that we should go back to our roots as far as occupations go, why not take it all the way back to humans' hunter-gatherer era. I'm sure we had full employment back then!
Yes! I'm so sick of the protectionists and anti-free trade Dems bitching and whining about “lost jobs.” So the fuck WHAT? So some people lost their jobs in the manufacturing sector. PEOPLE LOSE JOBS IN ANY ECONOMY, even when it's booming! But if there are plenty more good jobs created to offset the losses, who the hell cares if we lose some industrial jobs? Why do they cling to this one sector of our economy so much? Is IT or other service-sector industries REALLY so bad, lefties?
Face it, we're postindustrial. Get used to it. You can't coast through life graduating HS and then getting just a little bit of training (or not) and expect to get some lower-skilled job. You'll have to better yourself and get a good amount of training or college in the future. And you certainly can't expect 50-year job security in your cozy job with plenty of benefits anymore. Deal with it.
Yes! I'm so sick of the protectionists and anti-free trade Dems bitching and whining about “lost jobs.” So the fuck WHAT? So some people lost their jobs in the manufacturing sector. PEOPLE LOSE JOBS IN ANY ECONOMY, even when it's booming! But if there are plenty more good jobs created to offset the losses, who the hell cares if we lose some industrial jobs? Why do they cling to this one sector of our economy so much? Is IT or other service-sector industries REALLY so bad, lefties?
Face it, we're postindustrial. Get used to it. You can't coast through life graduating HS and then getting just a little bit of training (or not) and expect to get some lower-skilled job. You'll have to better yourself and get a good amount of training or college in the future. And you certainly can't expect 50-year job security in your cozy job with plenty of benefits anymore. Deal with it.
Am I supposed to feel “sorry” for those who lost their jobs at GM or Chrysler any more than someone who lost his job working at Wal-Mart, esp. when BOTH of those people have families to feed? Get real, Dems. Stop with this glorification of the industrial sector. Some jobs have to go. We're transitioning to a service economy, and that's the way it has to be. We can deal with these workers who lost their jobs through things like more job training, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking a few lost plants and manufacturing jobs here and there is such a bad thing.
The Dems have such tunnel vision on this issue! They don't realize or even DARE to look for the information on the GAINS from trade and focus too damn much on the few losses. *facepalm* “America lost a few million manufacturing jobs since the 1990s. Oh my god! We're gonna lose our superpower status and become a 3rd world country!” …Calm the f*ck down!
TANSTAAFL, Democrats? I'm sure you've heard of that phrase at least once, right?
Yeah… What WOULD there to be exciting about working in a manufacturing plant these days, esp. a highly-automated one like a food production or carmaking factory? Not much more than pushing buttons and using basic manual dexterity, something anyone can do. I think a lot of other liberals have a similar fetish for construction jobs, even though a lot of them are simply sitting inside a machine and using a joystick or pressing buttons to allow the LARGE tools to do the real work. Or doing really low-skill work like digging and piling shit.
Besides, where's the pride in a low-skill job? Almost anyone (or anyone in the case of something like McDonalds) with a little responsibility could do it. Some of those jobs really ARE jobs even a monkey could do, even if that phrase itself “offends” liberals out of their wits, like Barbara Ehrenreich, whose book “Nickel and Dimed” wants us to believe folks working at walmart or denny's “aren't unskilled” simply because they “work hard” at what they do. WHO CARES? Every job requires you to work hard at something. When you have to do a lot of even the easiest task, you're gonna WORK HARD. Duh…
Liberals also need to give up the labor theory of value. It makes no sense. It's stupid. Your parents wouldn't put up with it, so why should the rest of the country? If you wanted an allowance, and your parents said “mow the lawn”, and you couldn't do a good job, but you said “I worked my ass off”, they won't give a rat's ass! They're not gonna give you money til the job's done.
Or how about the idiotic “living wage” bullshit? Or asking the gov't to force employers to pay for benefits, like healthcare? A job is a job- a source of income and nothing more. It is NOT to be used as a way to require your employer to indirectly pay for your entire family. YOU should figure out how to do that. If I think you deserve a raise based on productivity, I'll do it. And if I'm feeling generous because profits are through the roof and can afford a raise regardless, I'll do it if I'm a manager. But I would NOT give someone a bunch of benefits JUST BECAUSE “I have a family to raise.” Tough shit. That's not my problem, esp. if we're in a recession.
Wages should be based on one thing: Your worth to the company and/or economy. Or managers can compensate for the riskiness of that job or other important factors with higher pay. BUT, if you work hard but contribute nothing, you deserve nothing. This is what the min. wage advocates DON'T REALIZE. You can't force a company to raise wages artificially simply b/c a lot of the folks there didn't go to HS or dropped out or whatever. That's not my problem.
I won't even get into the negative effects of such forcing b/c I think it's obvious to us all here.
The real pride comes in being a leader or someone with high skills that is NEEDED by others to get the job done. The real pride comes in having specialized education and experience that others don't. That may sound a little 'elitist', but it's my take. A low-skill job is merely a stepping stone towards more prestigious employment.
These are the same democrats who support a leviathan state. A leviathan who demands a floor in wages and requires a manufacturer to file 1000 page arcane reports and get permit to apply for stickers to affix to their plaquards that must be renewed every 6 months as part of mandatory inspections at the manufacturer's expense. The free lunch is payed for by entrepreneurs often out of their investment capital, not profits.
Maybe also laments the loss of their free lunch paid out of entrepreneurs investment capital. Seems to be less opportunities to shake down service businesses.
As always, Boudreaux, you are correct that manufacturing in the USA is greater now than any other decade-although this last decade was not so good-based on the business cycle (i.e. bubble to start the decade and a recession to end it).
I do want to point out one other point that was brought up when I also pointed out these facts and that even if we wanted to compare per capita real growth, manufacturing has outpaced our immigration and natural growth in population in the USA.
Thanks for continuing the fight for truth, justice and the American way.
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