Any questions?
Our comment for this is three words recalled from Mrs. Ponte’s Latin Class: ‘res ipsa loquitor.’
Translation: ‘The thing itself speaks.’
Data: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; Manufacturing Employees (MANEMP)/ Total NonFarm Payrolls; All Employees (PAYNSA)
Original source FRED
We found it Here. (Paul Kedrosky Blog)
Bernard Martin says:
a falsis principiis proficisci
I believe that this posting is alarmist and sensationalist. Frankly it’s mere presentation borders on Yellow Journalism.
My grandfather was a machinist for 50 years at the same company. He retired in 1971 and he ran 9 automatics for a very well know printing machine manufacturer. When he retired 3 men had to take over running those same machines because he knew every nuance to them and how to keep them making chips. He was ‘productive’ and had built ‘efficiencies’ into his job… He fixed his Muda & Mura problems.
By the mid 1980’s the plant was closed. Why? Because a new plant using only a few “automated” machines had replaced all of the machines in the old plant.
In 1965 a typical shop might have 30 guys in front of 30 Bridgeports making 60 parts a day. Today ONE horizontal, with a programmer and 3 shifts of “parts loaders” can do the same amount of work in an hour.
I imagine that a similar graph exists for all of the lost jobs in accounting. Where did all of those filing clerks and people inputing punch cards into machines go? Where did all the typing pools go?
….and what happened to all those National Cash Register units?
Automation and technology played a big role in the elimination of jobs.
Of course, the next argument always put forward is the threat of another country ‘taking our jobs” In the 70’s it was Japan, now it’s China. Have we lost jobs to off-shoring? Certainly. Will we again in the future? Absolutely. But that is not NEW news. It’s been going on for generations.
Why was Columbus on his voyage? To find an alternative route to China because this guy Marco Polo visited there quite a few years before on the silk road and traders wanted those goods. Why was Marco Polo able to do that? Because the dust had settled on the Crusades and the battles for the ports, in places like Acre, that where the terminus of the Silk Roads.
The British East India Company in 1600 began global economic trading as we know it today.
THAT lead to the colonization of the America’s and many many immigrants coming here for work. The first shots of the FIRST global war were fired @ Fort Necessity in 1754 just south of Pittsburgh and was the impetus of the Seven Years War fought around the world basically over economic issues related to Trade.
So, the basis of the foundation of the United States resides in global trade. The model created by the Founding Fathers made us the biggest and richest kid on the block.
“As a direct result of colonization of the America’s the British Trade Unions (remember that the Brits started the whole idea of Unions) was pretty angry with the the folks in New England for taking their jobs from them because they had cheaper labor.
Several years later the people in New England where pretty upset with the Southern States for taking their jobs away. … moving forward in history the textile industry moved to China and the folks down in the American South where pretty upset. In the past several years the Chinese have become rather perturbed that they have lost the textile business to India and Viet Nam.”
That last brief snippet of history was related to me by the Indian Ambassador to the US several years ago… The most interesting part of the story was the final part: He fully expected the textile industry to next move to Afrika or another “low cost producer” Such is the nature of history repeating itself.
How do you combat low cost producers? Grab your bootstraps and find a way to do it better, faster and cheaper….
So how about we look at a graph of US Mfg Productivity compared to the rest of the world? You’ll find that we are more productive, per unit of labor, than just about everyone else. We grabbed our bootstraps and we went out and competed.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod4.nr0.htm
‘res ipsa loquitor.’
Bernard Martin says:
a falsis principiis proficisci
I believe that this posting is alarmist and sensationalist. Frankly it’s mere presentation borders on Yellow Journalism.
My grandfather was a machinist for 50 years at the same company. He retired in 1971 and he ran 9 automatics for a very well know printing machine manufacturer. When he retired 3 men had to take over running those same machines because he knew every nuance to them and how to keep them making chips. He was ‘productive’ and had built ‘efficiencies’ into his job… He fixed his Muda & Mura problems.
By the mid 1980’s the plant was closed. Why? Because a new plant using only a few “automated” machines had replaced all of the machines in the old plant.
In 1965 a typical shop might have 30 guys in front of 30 Bridgeports making 60 parts a day. Today ONE horizontal, with a programmer and 3 shifts of “parts loaders” can do the same amount of work in an hour.
I imagine that a similar graph exists for all of the lost jobs in accounting. Where did all of those filing clerks and people inputing punch cards into machines go? Where did all the typing pools go?
….and what happened to all those National Cash Register units?
Automation and technology played a big role in the elimination of jobs.
Of course, the next argument always put forward is the threat of another country ‘taking our jobs” In the 70’s it was Japan, now it’s China. Have we lost jobs to off-shoring? Certainly. Will we again in the future? Absolutely. But that is not NEW news. It’s been going on for generations.
Why was Columbus on his voyage? To find an alternative route to China because this guy Marco Polo visited there quite a few years before on the silk road and traders wanted those goods. Why was Marco Polo able to do that? Because the dust had settled on the Crusades and the battles for the ports, in places like Acre, that where the terminus of the Silk Roads.
The British East India Company in 1600 began global economic trading as we know it today.
THAT lead to the colonization of the America’s and many many immigrants coming here for work. The first shots of the FIRST global war were fired @ Fort Necessity in 1754 just south of Pittsburgh and was the impetus of the Seven Years War fought around the world basically over economic issues related to Trade.
So, the basis of the foundation of the United States resides in global trade. The model created by the Founding Fathers made us the biggest and richest kid on the block.
“As a direct result of colonization of the America’s the British Trade Unions (remember that the Brits started the whole idea of Unions) was pretty angry with the the folks in New England for taking their jobs from them because they had cheaper labor.
Several years later the people in New England where pretty upset with the Southern States for taking their jobs away. … moving forward in history the textile industry moved to China and the folks down in the American South where pretty upset. In the past several years the Chinese have become rather perturbed that they have lost the textile business to India and Viet Nam.”
That last brief snippet of history was related to me by the Indian Ambassador to the US several years ago… The most interesting part of the story was the final part: He fully expected the textile industry to next move to Afrika or another “low cost producer” Such is the nature of history repeating itself.
How do you combat low cost producers? Grab your bootstraps and find a way to do it better, faster and cheaper….
So how about we look at a graph of US Mfg Productivity compared to the rest of the world? You’ll find that we are more productive, per unit of labor, than just about everyone else. We grabbed our bootstraps and we went out and competed.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/prod4.nr0.htm
‘res ipsa loquitor.’
speakingofprecision says:
Bernard, well, I wanted to start a conversation…
I presented the graph without comment, so I am having difficulty seeing the presentation of this data as alarmist or sensationalist or how sharing facts constitutes ‘yellow journalism.’ Had I blamed it on the current or former administration well, that I could see as irresponsible, but to just present a graph???
We do not disagree about adding value, working faster better cheaper, nor do we disagree about US productivity compared to the rest of the world. I think that we can agree that there is an ‘economic succession’ where labor intensive production moves to lower cost economies as your history comments point out.
And yet
-The US gov’t finds itself in supply difficulties because it can only buy critical RFID chips for US passports (kind of a security issue) from overseas suppliers.
-A machine shop in Wixom Michigan tries to hire 50 skilled machinists and gets no qualified applicants.
-We go to parties among our friends and neighbors and watch everyone suddenly turn silent and stare at their shoes when someone mentions that their kid isn’t going to college, he’s going into the ‘trades.’
I started at a steel plant in Lorain Ohio in 1978.They employed over 10,000 souls.
There are not 2000 employees there today. Nor are they producing anywhere near the tonnage.
In the mean time, US government jobs have grown by a multiple of almost 6 times from 1940 to present, from 3.988,000 to 22,505,000. (That will be the next graph I post, again, sans comment) Government employment is 17 percent of employment.
US industry Output as a percent of world industry output is 18%, China is next at 12% with nowhere near the productivity. So what is likely to happen when they modernize???When the Chinese grab their own bootstraps, and manage for efficiency instead of mere employment?
Trade in goods as a percentage of GDP is not as much an indicator of manufacturing as it is about a nation’s reliance on trade, but for the US we are at 24.4%; China is at 59.2%. Which of these can best afford imports?
Thanks for the comments, and my apologies if the data presented seemed “Yellow journalism.” I’ll look forward to your advice on how to present such data in a more neutral, less offensive manner. You can send me a message privately. I’m all about continuous improvement. I didn’t see anything “yellow journalism” about posting economic data straight from the source.
speakingofprecision says:
Bernard, well, I wanted to start a conversation…
I presented the graph without comment, so I am having difficulty seeing the presentation of this data as alarmist or sensationalist or how sharing facts constitutes ‘yellow journalism.’ Had I blamed it on the current or former administration well, that I could see as irresponsible, but to just present a graph???
We do not disagree about adding value, working faster better cheaper, nor do we disagree about US productivity compared to the rest of the world. I think that we can agree that there is an ‘economic succession’ where labor intensive production moves to lower cost economies as your history comments point out.
And yet
-The US gov’t finds itself in supply difficulties because it can only buy critical RFID chips for US passports (kind of a security issue) from overseas suppliers.
-A machine shop in Wixom Michigan tries to hire 50 skilled machinists and gets no qualified applicants.
-We go to parties among our friends and neighbors and watch everyone suddenly turn silent and stare at their shoes when someone mentions that their kid isn’t going to college, he’s going into the ‘trades.’
I started at a steel plant in Lorain Ohio in 1978.They employed over 10,000 souls.
There are not 2000 employees there today. Nor are they producing anywhere near the tonnage.
In the mean time, US government jobs have grown by a multiple of almost 6 times from 1940 to present, from 3.988,000 to 22,505,000. (That will be the next graph I post, again, sans comment) Government employment is 17 percent of employment.
US industry Output as a percent of world industry output is 18%, China is next at 12% with nowhere near the productivity. So what is likely to happen when they modernize???When the Chinese grab their own bootstraps, and manage for efficiency instead of mere employment?
Trade in goods as a percentage of GDP is not as much an indicator of manufacturing as it is about a nation’s reliance on trade, but for the US we are at 24.4%; China is at 59.2%. Which of these can best afford imports?
Thanks for the comments, and my apologies if the data presented seemed “Yellow journalism.” I’ll look forward to your advice on how to present such data in a more neutral, less offensive manner. You can send me a message privately. I’m all about continuous improvement. I didn’t see anything “yellow journalism” about posting economic data straight from the source.