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!

[jiminnm]

When I was working and had to deal with an assortment of consultants brought in by executive management, we had a number of sayings about them. The one that immediately comes to mind is that a consultant is a person who borrows your watch to tell you what time it is, and then charges you $500/hour for it.

[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.

[Detroitej72]

Who will we buy our military supplys from, the people [[China) who are our biggest threats?

[Flanders]

Who will we buy our military supplys from, the people [[China) who are our biggest threats?

I think that we are trying to overwhelm Communist China with commercial corporate capitalism and flood them with US manufacturing jobs, but with 1.3 billion to serve, it ain't going so well...

[Gistok]

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.

Who is stuck in the deeper rut? Him or Trainman??

LOL... thanks for all the "consultant" humor folks!!

[mauser]

This poll doesnt allow you to vote yes or no without the posters assumptions being added to each answer.

In court this would be called "leading the witness".

So - MINUS the leading question/ answer selections - a simple and unqualified "no" to the thread title question.

[Olddetroiter]

There's a word [[2 words actually) for countries without manufactring. They're called 'Third World'.

[Johnlodge]

This poll doesnt allow you to vote yes or no without the posters assumptions being added to each answer.

In court this would be called "leading the witness".

So - MINUS the leading question/ answer selections - a simple and unqualified "no" to the thread title question.

You're right, a simple no would have sufficed.

[MoparDan]

There's a word [[2 words actually) for countries without manufactring. They're called 'Third World'.

Another word is "Colony".

[rb336]

Who will we buy our military supplys from, the people [[China) who are our biggest threats?

There has been some talk that the latest naval ships may have to be built with -- chinese steel

[gazhekwe]

Chinese steel might be made with iron ore from the Mesabi iron range in Minnesota. China bought and reopened a major mine there a year or so ago.

I guess our 'servce' role includes digging, processing and shipping our resources to a country that has the vision to do what we don't support here.

[ccbatson]

Ejames...similar, very important, message, yet liberals still don't get it. So, repeating it in applied circumstances as illustration might open some eyes.

[firstandten]

If you want to eliminate the middle class and basically have a two class system we then can thrive without manufacturing.

[Detroitej72]

Ejames...similar, very important, message, yet liberals still don't get it. So, repeating it in applied circumstances as illustration might open some eyes.

I guess conservatives should be pretty satisfied outsourcing all our manufactoring to other countries. Then they will have killed all labor unions, and made tons of money off the backs of Chinese workers paid slave wages.

Conservatives never cease to amase me. They claim to be for the free market, but when a union bargains a contract in good faith with the company, they claim it destroys a company.

They seem to prefer companies to locate in third world countries, where the labor is mostly sweatshop esque, with little or no safety guidlines or care for employees. They love communist countries where they can be in cahoots with the government, and pay slave wages.

Such hypocracys.

[rb336]

Chinese steel might be made with iron ore from the Mesabi iron range in Minnesota. China bought and reopened a major mine there a year or so ago.

ahh -- just call us Zaire/Congo west. supplier of raw materials, while value-added work goes to the new economic first world - China

[ccbatson]

Only those whose eyes have been opened will be able to answer. In personal social circles...quite a few as I am told. On a larger scale, I hear tell of many people being "Hannitized" and the like on talk radio.

[Detroitej72]

Only those whose eyes have been opened will be able to answer. In personal social circles...quite a few as I am told. On a larger scale, I hear tell of many people being "Hannitized" and the like on talk radio.

What weak minded fools.