OK, the title sounds facetious. But we are, in fact, schizophrenic about the state of manufacturing in the United States. It seems like all the familiar products we buy from the expanded pharmacy to the big box stores come from developing countries in Asia and Latin America so we think that manufacturing has left the country never to return. Yet lately, we hear reports of a “rebirth” of manufacturing based on anecdotes about one or another company’s decision to relocate a plant back home and opinion surveys. The press also reports that “manufacturing is leading the recovery.” Small wonder that there is confusion!
So where does the truth about manufacturing lie? The fact is that it never left, it just changed caused by the confluence of two major trends – globalization and what economists call “comparative advantage.” Globalization is easy to understand even though not long ago, it would have stretched the imagination to think that India would ever be in the steel and automobile businesses. Comparative advantage among countries is chiefly about labor costs. It is manifest in the high labor-content products that are now manufactured in foreign countries like sneakers, clothing, electronics and even computers. These products are produced in low capital cost plants set up to take advantage of the momentary low wages in a particular country. When wages inevitably start to rise in those countries, these manufacturers can quickly move to another country in which wages are still low. As these trends developed, the economic and social landscape changed so that communities that were once anchored by a high employment factory now seem to be adrift with residents commuting long distances to go to work in diffuse companies.
Manufacturing employment in the sixty odd years since the end of the Second World War has declined by twenty-two percent in absolute numbers and from thirty-two percent of the total non-farm labor force to nine percent. Non-manufacturing employment has grown correspondingly. These employment trends have tracked the composition of GDP but manufacturing employment has also suffered from continuing automation exacerbating its downward trend. GDP grew explosively in the years after the Second World War and manufacturing grew at approximately half the overall GDP rate. The most pronounced period of growth for both took place in the twenty years between 1970 and 1990. In the years following 1990, the growth rates slowed but the growth of manufacturing slowed much more – GDP grew by a factor of 2.5 and manufacturing grew by 1.8 while manufacturing employment dropped by a third. These economic numbers tell us three things: i) we still make plenty of stuff here – industrial production continues to grow, ii) although growing, manufacturing is not growing as fast as it once did and, iii) manufacturing employment will lag industrial production.
The obvious challenge is to get manufacturing growing at the rate that it did in 1970-1990 – when output quadrupled. Recognizing that globalization and automation have taken their toll on manufacturing employment, the general solution to “bringing manufacturing back” will depend on volume. Simply stated, volume means creating the conditions that make manufacturing economically attractive in the United States so that there will be more companies and more output and consequently, more employment. In contemplating greater volume, we can’t delude ourselves into believing that we can restore low-skill, high-labor content industries to the United States in the near term.
The challenge to policy-makers is to create conditions amenable to manufacturers so that those who have left will return and those who are here will stay. This is not about taxes and tax incentives but rather it is about economic conditions: logistics infrastructure – roads, rails, depots etc; location infrastructure – industrial sites, public warehousing, origin-based tax abatement; a trained, well-paid and productive labor force to manage and operate the modern factory; sustainable demand – a robust export policy, a low value of the dollar, economic stimulus; and finally a modest but thoughtful National Industrial Policy to facilitate growth in targeted industries as has been proposed by Lester Thurow and others. Fostering such economic conditions will require intense focus by the national government with the specific objective of creating a favorable manufacturing environment in the United States. It will not be enough to gaze upon anemic upticks in manufacturing employment and anecdotal accounts about a returning company and hope somehow that randomly changing economic conditions will re-birth manufacturing. We are capable of restoring a strong, albeit different, manufacturing sector with its traditional well-paying jobs. It only requires national focus and commitment.
Monthly Archives: September 2011
Your website will be hit only if you can make it memorable, this means, the content you have on your website should be attractive and interesting for the visitors. If not the content should be able to provide guidance and information to the visitors. There are some very famous sites that are making excellent business with these tricks.
There are some other requisites for making your website memorable, these have been mentioned thousands of times, like small name for a website, a name that appears fun and easy to remember, it should also showcase what your website is all about. These have been successful tips, however, nothing beats personalization of your website, there are many websites giving news and links to blogs, this is good too, for the information seeking visitor this is a great boon.
There are some websites, that have put up large advertisements, which make browsing difficult than interesting, these advertisements will pop up with the mouse movement and stay with you till you leave the web page in frustration, this is sure to put negative marks for the website.
Also found some websites which put up a pop up window, people might end up clicking the pop up window because they want to see the website rather than the pop up. This marks sly business policy rather than a smart one, even biggies like Google rate such pages lower.
Apart from all the above your website requires to look professional and neat, you can include excellent graphics, interactive characters, etc. to your website. You should make your website as spacious and free from cramming links as possible, this way you will know best visitors, only those genuinely interested will visit your website.
You need to make it look neat and well formatted, you should make it properly aligned so that readers can follow the links properly and will not waste time searching for these. Another innovative way to make your website look attractive is to use innovative font for your website. A different look and a different perspective will definitely have impact on all those visiting your website.
Anyone can register a website domain, whether they are an individual or a business. This article explains how to purchase a domain name and what to consider before choosing and registering a domain.
The first and most important decision is to choose the words which make up the domain. An actor would most likely choose their full name. A school or charity would choose the name they are known by. Consider the reasons for wanting a domain name. If the domain is for a business website, then the business owner will almost certainly want the website to be found in the search engine results. But will customers search for the business name or a particular product or service? The choice of words which make up a domain name can be important in achieving good placement in the search engines and make a big difference in the number of visitors finding a website.
Having chosen a name, the next step is to find a reputable website which sells domains. Do some research – compare prices and renewal policies. Find out if the company will automatically renew the website before it expires. Otherwise, a website will suddenly disappear from the internet if the domain is not renewed. Domain name sellers usually have an on-line domain checker so that a purchaser may establish which domains are available. Every domain must be unique and there are several domain suffixes, including .com, .co.uk, .info, .biz and .gov. Some business may purchase several domains with different suffixes in order to avoid anyone else using them.
In choosing a domain name, do not use any names which may be copyrighted. Whilst you may be able to buy such as domain, this is actually illegal. For example, Tesco.com and Tesco.co.uk are domain names of a popular supermarket. Choosing a name such as “tescobargains.com” could certainly result in legal action being taken. If your first choice of a name has already been sold, consider possible alternatives and the viability of competing with other established websites with similar names.
Once a domain name has been chosen and found to be available for purchase, it is a very simple procedure to buy the domain using a credit card. During the purchase, registration details will be taken including the name and address of the domain owner. These details will then be available to the general public. It may be possible to request that address details be hidden from publicly available information during the registration process.
Domain names may be purchased and registered for 12 months or longer, and should then renewed shortly before they expire. Make sure that credit card details held by the domain registration company are always updated when a new card is issued. Failure to do this could result in expiry of a domain name.
