Can the US thrive without manufacturing?

[Johnlodge]

Can the US thrive without manufacturing?

[Flanders]

Umm..aren't we also losing many of those service and information-based jobs as well?

At least those that do not require a "physical" presence to perform them?

I seem to recall a conservative college professor earlier this decade responding to the white-collar technical, medical, and legal professionals who were becoming increasingly upset about their jobs ALSO being outsourced along with blue collar manufacturing labor, and he stated that they would need to move on to the next level, becoming "consultants and idea/concept gurus"

[Gistok]

Flanders.... you should have asked your professor if this country can handle over 100 million consultants. Also... can one get a degree in "consultancy".

Being a consultant in a field often requires some job experience in it. And if all the jobs in a particular field get outsourced, just how does one become an "expert" and develop new ideas for it?

Going from a manufacturing economy to a service economy to a consulting economy.... yeah right...

As King Louis XV of France once said before the French Revolution [[that his grandson Louis XVI lost his head over)... "après moi, le deluge"...

[raptor56]

The problem is, if we no longer manufacture, we then rely on somebody else for all of our goods. What happens if those goods producers either get greedy and sky rocket the price, or decide they don't want to sell to us any more because they want us to conform to some policy or demand of theirs? Country XYZ says they don't like our leadership so they are going to stop making clothes, shoes, car parts, computers, and paper for us. We have no manufacturing capacity, so what do we do? Bow to their request? It would take years to build the infrastructure again.

Speaking of service industries, haven't we been losing thousands of IT service jobs to India and Mexico over the past 10 years?

[oladub]

Gistock, 100,000,000 consultants will create a need for 25,000,000 coordinators.

[ccbatson]

We can, but would be better off not having to. What is needed is to restore incentive by diminishing taxation and regulation by government in their not so gradual socialization of AMerica agenda.

[ejames01]

I swear this guy has written this very same message 2,500 times. We KNOW that you feel that way. It is not necessary to write it on EVERY thread.

We can, but would be better off not having to. What is needed is to restore incentive by diminishing taxation and regulation by government in their not so gradual socialization of AMerica agenda.

[eriedearie]

Gistock, 100,000,000 consultants will create a need for 25,000,000 coordinators.

Which in turn will create the need for 50,000,000 meetings between the consultants and coordinators!

[MoparDan]

Which in turn will create the need for 50,000,000 meetings between the consultants and coordinators!

Which will wind up wasting manhours ad infinitum.