What is so good about manufacturing?

[fskimospy]

There really is no saving you from yourself. Good luck man you will need it.

Are you drunk at 9AM? This post doesn't even make any sense.

All I asked for was a rationale as to why manufacturing was necessary for economic mobility. It could be, but you've provided no argument as to why that would be the case.

 

[OverVolt]

Are you drunk at 9AM? This post doesn't even make any sense.

All I asked for was a rationale as to why manufacturing was necessary for economic mobility. It could be, but you've provided no argument as to why that would be the case.

You are about as naive as they come. Yes, people still need medium skill manufacturing jobs to get ahead because *gasp* not everyone makes their living on a computer. Your worldview is so tiny, sheltered and warped, I wish you could see it like I do, but I know thats hopeless. Instead of focusing on being "smart" and calling everyone else "dumb" focus on wisdom, which is IMO much harder to obtain than smarts.

 

[nehalem256]

I think the problem is simple.

Many service jobs generally have to be done locally. Whereas as manufacturing can be done essentially anywhere with the finished good then shipped worldwide.

If my trinkets are made in China its is awfully hard for me to cut someone's hair in China in payment for said trinket.

 

[fskimospy]

You are about as naive as they come. Yes, people still need medium skill manufacturing jobs to get ahead because *gasp* not everyone makes their living on a computer. Your worldview is so tiny, sheltered and warped, I wish you could see it like I do, but I know thats hopeless.

Have you even read the thread? My very first post in it talked about the need for mid skill jobs, but why must those be in manufacturing?

What's so funny is that you're accusing me, someone who has worked in low level service jobs, industrial jobs and high level service jobs as having a tiny and sheltered world view and you're doing it to avoid having to reconsider your own sheltered worldview.

I worked a shit job in high school, I worked onboard a ship for almost five years, and after I got out of the navy I worked in a high frequency radio factory/depot. Now I'm an analyst, which is a reasonably high skill field.

 

[fskimospy]

Instead of focusing on being "smart" and calling everyone else "dumb" focus on wisdom, which is IMO much harder to obtain than smarts.

I find it funny that the guy who, in the span of about half a dozen posts has called me naive, a dumbass, uptight, etc wants me to stop calling people dumb.

 

[OverVolt]

Have you even read the thread? My very first post in it talked about the need for mid skill jobs, but why must those be in manufacturing?

What's so funny is that you're accusing me, someone who has worked in low level service jobs, industrial jobs and high level service jobs as having a tiny and sheltered world view and you're doing it to avoid having to reconsider your own sheltered worldview.

I worked a shit job in high school, I worked onboard a ship for almost five years, and after I got out of the navy I worked in a high frequency radio factory/depot. Now I'm an analyst, which is a reasonably high skill field.

I don't care where you've been. You still talk like someone who is very sheltered. That is what I think.

Why take issue with the jobs being in manufacturing or not?

They generally have lower barriers to entry than the trades, as far as middle-income jobs go. I think its silly to even make an issue out of it. There is a certain power the country has when it manufactures its own products. The same leverage that china currently has now. What is there to not understand?

 

[OverVolt]

I find it funny that the guy who, in the span of about half a dozen posts has called me naive, a dumbass, uptight, etc wants me to stop calling people dumb.

I don't care I know you are a hopeless cause anyway. You must really be from NY. I'm certainly not from San Fran :awe:

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I'm not at all convinced that manufacturing is inherently necessary. What are you basing that on?

Replacing better paying jobs with worse paying ones is certainly a problem, but almost all of the highest paying jobs are also service or IP jobs. Why MUST manufacturing be a part of a healthy economy?

The highest paying jobs are irrelevant to the point. There aren't enough CEO positions to go around. There aren't enough IP or other jobs either. That means that people will have to work where the jobs are, and that's more "burger flipping". You might come up with a way or a thing you can make that will be bought by others anywhere in the world, but how do you make a Big Mac in NY for Australians? You don't. So we trade hair styling for Whoppers instead. So manufacturing offers an inherent opportunity that our current economy doesn't. The question that ought to be asked is if manufacturing in itself guarantees better paying jobs, and the answer is no. Automation would be the preferred choice and that's where creative thought comes in, but I can envision how that could be done. I cannot however get Mcdonald employees to true middle class status in any scenario.

 

[fskimospy]

I don't care I know you are a hopeless cause anyway. You must really be from NY. I'm certainly not from San Fran :awe:

Haha, nice way to justify your hypocrisy. I'm not from New York.

 

[fskimospy]

The highest paying jobs are irrelevant to the point. There aren't enough CEO positions to go around. There aren't enough IP or other jobs either. That means that people will have to work where the jobs are, and that's more "burger flipping". You might come up with a way or a thing you can make that will be bought by others anywhere in the world, but how do you make a Big Mac in NY for Australians? You don't. So we trade hair styling for Whoppers instead.

Sure, my point in mentioning high paying service jobs was that service jobs are not inherently low paying.

So manufacturing offers an inherent opportunity that our current economy doesn't. The question that ought to be asked is if manufacturing in itself guarantees better paying jobs, and the answer is no. Automation would be the preferred choice and that's where creative thought comes in, but I can envision how that could be done. I cannot however get Mcdonald employees to true middle class status in any scenario.

To quote Jesus, the McDonald's employees you will always have with you. I think the issue we are talking about here is a viable path to a reasonably comfortable life for people with low to mid level skill sets. I just don't see why the only way forward on this is through an assembly line. Maybe that's the case and I'm open to hearing why that would be, but so far I haven't seen it.

 

[piasabird]

Employees get paid! When you buy something in a store you will be helping people in the USA and not China. You might have heard that there are people that are out of work that your tax dollars are supplying food medicine and shelter for. Besides that, if we hire people in the USA they pay taxes, which keeps the government going and builds roads and bridges and pays for police and fire departments etc. Did you study economics at all?

Do you want to live in Detroit?

 

[Engineer]

why must those be in manufacturing?

They don't but it's hard to find enough mid skilled jobs to fully employ an 'average economy'. Not to mention, you can't import your way to prosperity. You can do it for awhile as long as your print the currency and can get the rest of the world to take it. If you can sell your 'services' to the rest of the world, that will work too but if you import, import and import some more but don't export to balance it, you'll run into trouble.

Regardless, I don't think you'll ever get the workforce up in education level enough (across the board) to cover an entire country. You can send everyone to college and you'll just end up with the most educated McDonalds and Walmart workforces in the world.

 

[piasabird]

What happens during a war if we can no longer make automobiles and a lot of goods from overseas are no longer available? Even clothing could become scarce. Maybe no coffee would be available.

 

[piasabird]

A lot of office jobs could be replaced by computer programs and automation.

 

[OverVolt]

Do you want to live in Detroit?

He will end up in one eventually. Move to an area with like minded people and bam, economic black-hole. Oh well...lol

 

[Mursilis]

I think the issue we are talking about here is a viable path to a reasonably comfortable life for people with low to mid level skill sets.

Is that an achievable goal (moreso with the low-skill set crowd), and should that be society's job to provide such a path? If people choose not to develop in-demand skill sets, how can they expect a job with a living wage? The days of making a solid middle-class wage doing something practically anyone can do or learn to do in a week are rapidly vanishing, and I don't see them coming back.

 

[mikeymikec]

Back to Geography lessons. IIRC:

Mining and farming are known as primary industries - a society relying on these is not dependent on another country in order to perform this function (in theory, automation makes things more complicated). Assuming that it is still possible to grow food and useful materials can be found in the land, it's quite a dependable type of industry. People always need food and at least to some extent the ability to build stuff.

Manufacturing (ie. taking stuff from the mine and refining it / molding it / making something out of it) is known as a secondary industry. It is dependent on some primary industries so it isn't quite as reliable/dependable but still is reasonably reliable/dependable.

Tertiary industries such as the service sector are almost completely reliant on the other two forms of industry as well as the rest of society performing its functions normally.

Since Thatcher, the UK relies a huge amount on the service sector, so we tend to get harder hit by recessions than a country which has better base industries to fall back on.

 

[OverVolt]

Is that an achievable goal (moreso with the low-skill set crowd), and should that be society's job to provide such a path? If people choose not to develop in-demand skill sets, how can they expect a job with a living wage? The days of making a solid middle-class wage doing something practically anyone can do or learn to do in a week are rapidly vanishing, and I don't see them coming back.

1. In his mind yes.
2. In his mind no, but then they collect food stamps or whatever it is poor people do he has no clue
3. Yes its gone, though he probably thinks everyone just needs to learn new skills and ipso magico there will also be enough jobs for them all too.

 

[OverVolt]

Back to Geography lessons. IIRC:

Mining and farming are known as primary industries - a society relying on these is not dependent on another country in order to perform this function (in theory, automation makes things more complicated). Assuming that it is still possible to grow food and useful materials can be found in the land, it's quite a dependable type of industry. People always need food and at least to some extent the ability to build stuff.

Manufacturing (ie. taking stuff from the mine and refining it / molding it / making something out of it) is known as a secondary industry. It is dependent on some primary industries so it isn't quite as reliable/dependable but still is reasonably reliable/dependable.

Tertiary industries such as the service sector are almost completely reliant on the other two forms of industry as well as the rest of society performing its functions normally.

Since Thatcher, the UK relies a huge amount on the service sector, so we tend to get harder hit by recessions than a country which has better base industries to fall back on.

I thought the tertiary industries are the only important industries. The stupid people do the first two right.

 

[glenn1]

Why is manufacturing seen as "inherently good"?

Because the same people who spent decades calling manufacturing "soul-crushing drugery" are now nostalgic for them. Once upon a time, someone with basically no education or skill set to speak of could make wages far above what they could in other positions since industrialization wasn't as widespread. Now technology, transportation infrastructure, and trade barriers have evolved world-wide to a point where the locality of a worker is no longer a value-add factor. Thus being an American working in manufacturing no longer means higher pay since an 8-year old Bangaladeshi girl can do the same job as a UAW worker in Detroit.

Being an American is not a value-add that merits higher pay. The mere fact of working in manufacturing vs. other fields is not a value-add that merits extra pay. Some who would have previously worked in manufacturing might as well just adopt subsistence farming or hunting/gathering since it creates about the same level of value and there's less competition from other similarly uneducated, low-skilled morons.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

To quote Jesus, the McDonald's employees you will always have with you. I think the issue we are talking about here is a viable path to a reasonably comfortable life for people with low to mid level skill sets. I just don't see why the only way forward on this is through an assembly line. Maybe that's the case and I'm open to hearing why that would be, but so far I haven't seen it.

Jesus and you are both right, but in practice they subjects of their quotes are not much different from each other.

As I said, manufacturing in itself doesn't automatically mean good or even more jobs, but it presents an opportunity simply due to trade. You can sell something elsewhere, something the McDonald employee cannot do. Also, there are so many jobs to go around. Those which have been "lost" aren't, really. They were moved offshore. It may be possible to get some of those back, but how do you create more of something there was too much before?

When I have time I'll see if I can find my post which addressed several things including this, but if you have a potential alternative it would be good to see.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Without reading the whole thread:
Manufacturing has a ton on "drag" with it. Between building a plant, maintaining the roads & maybe railways, the various coffee & sandwich shops around them, mechanics to keep stuff running, HR Professionals, Engineers/Designers are usually close, networking professionals to get internet to remote places, ECT.

 

[Engineer]

Is that an achievable goal (moreso with the low-skill set crowd), and should that be society's job to provide such a path? If people choose not to develop in-demand skill sets, how can they expect a job with a living wage? The days of making a solid middle-class wage doing something practically anyone can do or learn to do in a week are rapidly vanishing, and I don't see them coming back.

Then be fully prepared for the lower skilled masses to vote themselves the treasury as they 'force' government to take from the haves (you) and give to the have nots (them). It WILL happen......

 

[Mursilis]

Then be fully prepared for the lower skilled masses to vote themselves the treasury as they 'force' government to take from the haves (you) and give to the have nots (them). It WILL happen......

You seem to assume I'm a "have", yet we've never met and you have NO idea about my economic situation. Regardless, . . .

How's that "voting themselves the treasury" worked out so far for the have-nots? Isn't the big problem right now supposed to be the concentration of wealth at the top?

 

[Engineer]

You seem to assume I'm a "have", yet we've never met and you have NO idea about my economic situation. Regardless, . . .

How's that "voting themselves the treasury" worked out so far for the have-nots? Isn't the big problem right now supposed to be the concentration of wealth at the top?

I said 'It WILL happen'. If you're not a 'have', too bad for you.