Chairman Donny says you will own nothing and be happy in your work

 

Car manufacturing jobs, so-called good jobs, already don't pay enough to enable these Detroit auto workers to buy their own homes and have families, and they fear layoffs because of the tariffs

 The Wall Street Journal doesn't mention it here.

This guy's been working for the company for 10 years and he's still renting.

... Daniel Campbell, who maneuvers steel auto parts around a Stellantis factory north of Detroit, says he and many of his colleagues are worried about layoffs.

“I’m scared,” he said from his brick bungalow on the west side of Detroit, which he rents with two roommates. “We’re complaining about gas and eggs now. Who is going to be able to buy these cars that are already $80,000, and then you make it $90,000?”

The 46-year-old UAW member, who makes about $30 an hour, and one of his roommates have talked about trimming their spending, including eating out less and cutting clothing and electronics purchases. 

“There’s going to come a time where we’re not going to be able to go and spend,” he said. 

 At work, the assembly lines have been running faster in recent weeks as Stellantis has tried to stockpile parts ahead of the tariffs, Campbell said. He and his co-workers are running out of room to store the parts. ...

Platitudinous Glenn Loury thinks like a Marxist in his old age: Workers of all races have a common bond, he says

This kind of politics is universal.

The lapdogs lick it up here.

Glenn Loury last worked in a factory, when, in 1972? More than 12% of the civilian population had a manufacturing job back then. Today fewer than 5% have one. But in neither case was there anything universal about being working class.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What have miners, sailors, tailors' apprentices, metalworkers, waiters, bank officials, ploughmen, and scavengers in common with one another?

-- Oswald Spengler

 

Another town dies hard and no one gives a shit, right Joe Manchin?

 Cleveland-Cliffs Steel announced it was idling its tinplate production plant, a move that directly cost 900 people their jobs.

Salena Zito, here.

President Clinton signed permanent normal trade relations with China in October 2000: Any questions?

 

Joel Kotkin: The capitalist elite undermines our economic security

 He means libertarians.

Here:

Free-market dogmatists have played a part in the deindustrialisation of the West as well. Consultants and investors pushed businesses to look offshore for virtually every critical production input. Between 2004 and 2017, the US share of world manufacturing shrank from 15 per cent to 10 per cent. Our reliance on Chinese inputs doubled. The trade deficit with China, according to the Economic Policy Institute, has cost as many as 3.7million American jobs since 2000. Overall, the US and the EU have seen their share of value-added manufacturing drop from 65 per cent in the 1960s to barely half that today.

Both full time jobs and overall civilian employment in Jan 2023 remain relatively strong but both are far from US potential: 12 million more could be working but are not

Full time as a percentage of civilian population dropped to 49.32% in January 2023 from 49.77% in December.

 

Peak full time at 53.6% in 2000 applied to 2023 would mean 10 million more working full time than actually do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Civilian employment as a percentage of civilian population dropped to 59.67% in January 2023 from 59.99% in December.

 

Peak employment at 64.4% in 2000 applied to 2023 would mean 12 million more working at all jobs than actually do.

 

Pathetic underperformance.

 

The shortfall with peak manufacturing jobs in 1979 at 19.4 million was 6.6 million in 2022. 

 

 

Phony boom narrative under Trump continues under Biden, only the lie is much bigger

 Factory Jobs Booming Like It's 1970s...

Well, it's the lying New York Times, of course, and drive-by repeater, Drudge.

The summer peak in 2019 was 12.905 million.

The summer peak in 2022 was 12.916 million, up . . . eleven thousand! Woo hoo!

Meanwhile in the 1970s, many MILLIONS more worked in manufacturing in the United States, and many millions more as a share of the population:

11.8% of the population in 1979 on average vs. just 4.9% in August 2022!

From the end of the story, lol:

Eight percent of the surveyed companies reported moving segments of their supply chain out of China to the United States in the past year, while another 16 percent had moved some operations to other countries. But 78 percent of the companies said they had not shifted any business away from China.

 

 

US manufacturing jobs went straight south after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, a development cheered by US Chamber of Commerce chairman Steve Van Andel of Michigan's AMWAY in the Chicom China Daily, US Independence Day 2001

US Chamber Backs China's WTO Entry : 

Steve Van Andel, the newly elected chairman of the US Chamber of Commerce, said on Monday that he was looking forward to China joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) sometime before the end of this year. He said this will pave the way for permanent normal trade relations between China and the United States.

"For US business, one of the best things that can happen to help confidence in the Chinese market is China becoming part of the WTO," Andel said in an interview with China Daily.

His remarks come at a time that China is hoping to enter the world trade body. The country hopes to join before a WTO ministerial meeting in Qatar between November 9 and 13.

China has concluded separate agreements with the United States and the European Union, the world's two top trading powers, in the last few weeks, promoting its WTO membership.

Although the US Congress last year voted for Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) between China and the United States, it still reviews its trade policy towards China every year until the country actually becomes part of the WTO.

"The chamber is already actively supporting normal trade relations with China again." Andel said.

The chamber, the world's largest commerce association representing 3 million US companies and 3,000 state and local chambers, has been committed to lobbying the US Congress to normalize trade relations with China.

He said he would go back to Congress soon after his visit to China to lobby for normal trade relations with China again.

A normal trade relation between China -- potentially the world's largest market with 1.3 billion consumers -- and the United States is very important to businesses in both countries, he said.

Last year, the trade volume between the two nations amounted to US$74.5 billion.

He said China's WTO entry would certainly benefit "not only better relations, but also more trade between the two markets.''

Andel said he would carry the same message during his talks with the Chinese leaders and government officials, including President Jiang Zemin over the next couple of days.

Andel will lead a US business delegation to China in September to attend a meeting organized by China's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.

"I will also next year travel around the United States again, probably to 50 to 60 different local chambers talking about the importance of trade with China to US and Chinese businesses,'' he said.

Andel, chairman of US-based Amway, the global consumer goods giant, said China's WTO accession and normal trade relations between China and United States were expected to boost his company's business in China.

Amway, which has invested more than US$100 million in China, aims to increase its business in the country to 10 percent of its global turnover in a few years from the current level of 5 percent.

(Chinadaily.com.cn 07/04/2001)

 

 

The absolute number of nuclear warheads matters but their hard-target kill capability matters more, and we don't have it against the Chicoms

All presidents since Reagan/Bush have failed to prioritize US hard-target kill capability, including Trump, so our enemies both in Russia and China have been compensating for that.

Eroding the certainty of destruction erodes deterrence.

The Chicoms haven't been emphasizing concrete manufacturing just to build vacant buildings and roads to nowhere.

Mark B. Schneider:

In 1985, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Vessey briefed President Ronald Reagan about the need for improved hard-target kill capability, including the need for 100 MX (Peacekeeper) ICBMs. We actually got 50. Of the three U.S. hard target capable systems created by the Reagan administration, two (the Peacekeeper ICBM and the Advanced Cruise Missile) were eliminated by the George W. Bush administration. This left only the high-yield WW-88 Trident warheads. Reportedly, the U.S. produced only 400 of the high-yield WW-88 warheads for the Trident II missile. Obviously, they can’t all be used against Chinese silos even if one makes a number of best-case assumptions. Moreover, it is not clear that the 1990 accuracy of the Trident II will be adequate if the Chinese are building silos based upon the new 30,000 psi super concrete now commercially available. The 1970 accuracy of a Minuteman III, while a great achievement in 1970, is hardly the same today against really hard targets. Unfortunately, the Minuteman III life extension program did not aim to upgrade the accuracy of the Minuteman.[8] It is not comparable to the Peacekeeper. There are plenty of important targets, including hard targets, the Minuteman III can cover, but super hard targets are not among them.

Even before the discovery of the new Chinese silos, a case could be made from a targeting standpoint for a strategic nuclear force of 2,700-3,000 nuclear warheads. There is a great difference between target coverage (assigning a warhead to a target) and damage expectancy (the probability of target destruction). Claims by Minimum Deterrence advocates, such as the Global Zero "Commission" report that a small nuclear force can do effective counterforce targeting are bogus. Regarding China, the report’s targeting plan involved “(85 warheads including 2-on-1 strikes against every missile silo), leadership command posts (33 warheads), war-supporting industry (136 warheads).” With the new Chinese silos, this targeting approach would require almost 1,000 warheads. Moreover, the approach itself is flawed because it ignores the Underground Great Wall, which protects the Chinese mobile ICBM force, the Chinese Navy and Air Force, and the large Chinese force of nuclear-capable theater-range missiles. The Global Zero report also assigned two warheads against every Russian silo. The report talked about target coverage, not damage expectancy, because its recommended force structure would likely have performed very badly against the facilities it targeted.

Against the very deep hard, and deeply targets (HDBTs) [sic; should read "very hard deeply-buried targets] there is essentially zero chance that they can be destroyed with a single U.S. nuclear warhead. The 2018 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review only partially reversed the Obama administration’s decision to eliminate the two most effective U.S. bombs against HDBTs, the B61 Mod 11 and B-83. These bombs will be retained longer than planned but not be life extended. Once again, numbers matter, and we no longer have the numbers. Conventional weapons have little and declining capability against HDBTs.[9] As one report stated, “One GBUJ-57A/B [Massive Ordnance Penetrator] can only penetrate 8 meters of 10,000 psi rock or concrete. This could drop to 2 meters of 30,000 psi material.” 

More.

Green New Deal in the hands of Democrats is a dagger aimed at the heart of the middle class

 Joel Kotkin here in The New York Post:

If these Democrats win both houses of Congress as well as the White House, things could get far worse for the already beleaguered middle class, which has been rocked by the pandemic, with an estimated 100,000 small firms going out of business. Particularly hard-hit by the recent urban unrest are inner city and minority businesses. ...

If the Democrats win on Election Day, the future for the middle class could be bleak. As a lifelong Democrat, this is not easy to write, but most of the party’s initiatives — such as the Green New Deal — are directly harmful to those in the middle and working classes, who’d be forced to face increased housing and energy prices and fewer upwardly mobile jobs in industries like manufacturing.

The only thing Trump has accomplished at "warp speed" is ruining the US economy because he ignored a deadly virus until it was too late

Trump, the supposed savior of US manufacturing, has presided over the utter collapse of manufacturing capacity utilization to a level in April 2020 never experienced in the post-war. The president could lawfully and easily order this unused capacity to make masks which would in fact protect everyone, and other PPE for hospital workers and care-givers to protect our front line workers, but he has not. Were he serious about re-opening the country, he would have made this JOB 2 on Feb 1, after JOB 1, which was hard-stopping all passenger air travel, the primary vector for the pandemic. Trump didn't do JOB 1, either.

Industrial production generally has imploded to levels never seen since 1919. The so-called America first president has done nothing in three years to make America strong enough to prevent this from happening. Remember Ann Coulter said long ago already that Trump was a lazy ignoramus. 

Motor vehicle production annualized has tanked 11 million units in just two months to fewer than 72,000 annualized. That's the typical monthly sales figure for a single popular car. 

Oh, I've forgotten unemployment, which also is unprecedented, though understated, at 14.7%. It's actually closer to 20%. North of 33 million not-seasonally-adjusted have made first time claims for unemployment from March 19th inclusive.

Trump's numbers are truly great, as in "you great oaf!"

Yes the government has "bailed out" the workers and the businesses, but with a Rube Goldberg machine which has been completely unfair in its results, picking winners by virtue of their established access to bankers or savvy state systems of unemployment administration. Bank or live somewhere not up to speed? Dats tuff, Anwar. You're a loser anyway.

Meanwhile coronavirus infections are set to soar again because our president is throwing a tantrum to open the country but hasn't made it safe to do so. He's had two months for that but has produced BUPKIS. If you want people to go back to work, they need masks. Where are the masks? Oh well, you were on your last legs anyway.

How anyone can vote to re-elect this level of horrific incompetence and reptilian danger is beyond me.

The only thing saving industrial production in this country since 2007, up less than 5%, has been fracking to mine oil and gas

It has had little to do with Trump or Obama either way, political support or no political support.

The only thing giving an additional recent boost to oil and gas was the 2015 bipartisan agreement to end the oil export ban, signed by Obama.

Industrial production from all mining categories is up almost 17% 2015-2019, and a whopping 53% 2007-2019.

Industrial production from coal mining, a subset of this like oil and gas, is down over 39% since 2007, and 21% since 2015 despite Trump's promise to restore the industry. Industrial production from base metals mining is up less than 3% since 2007. Industrial production from gold and silver mining is down almost 15%.

Industrial production from crude oil mining is up a whopping 140% since 2007, and from natural gas 79% from 2007 through November 2019 on an average basis.

Otherwise it's a sorry picture.

Industrial production from manufacturing is down 1.3% 2007-2019, despite Trump running on bringing manufacturing back to the United States.

And industrial production from electric and gas utilities has grown a paltry 2% 2007-2019.

It's all mining of crude oil and natural gas.

If the anti-capitalist climate kooks get their way, we're all in big trouble.

Neel Kashkari and other Fed members seem aware at least of the nosedive in labor's share of business income, but are oblivious to its roots in globalization

Fooling around with interest rates isn't going to bring back the core manufacturing businesses which once formed the hubs of American middle class prosperity. That will be just as ineffectual as it has been throughout the Obama administration. Why should it work now all of a sudden when it hasn't worked for ten years?

Well, what else would you expect from the man tasked with implementing the useless TARP sideshow?

Neel Kashkari still hasn't got a clue, but he sure does sound like the workers' friend.

Kashkari Says Worker Bargaining Power Should Inform Fed's Stance: 

Minneapolis Fed chief links rates to labor share in interview

Kashkari’s break from Fed tradition on inequality adds to the case for keeping interest rates low. He suggested faster wage growth and low unemployment may not be putting much upward pressure on inflation because workers have lost a lot of their bargaining power in recent decades, echoing a point Fed Vice Chairman Richard Clarida has made. ...

There's been no manufacturing jobs boom here in Michigan under Donald Trump, just more of the same

Just got a Trump robocall inviting me to his 3/28 visit to Michigan, boasting of all (12,000 of) those new manufacturing jobs

Might as well be October 2006, thirteen years ago.

No V-shaped recovery here, or anywhere, just another L-shape.

H. Ross Perot's $13/hr factory jobs going to Mexico in 1992 should pay $27/hr today adjusted for inflation but pay only $18

The giant sucking sound clip from 1992 is here.

Perot characterized factory wages in 1992 as typically paying between $12 and $14 per hour.

Adjusted for inflation the $13 job in 2017 would pay nearly $27 per hour. The reality is it pays a lot less than that. Factory work in Michigan today basically starts at $15, up only 25% not 107%. The average manufacturing job paying $21+ is composed of a lot of such lower paying positions.

The reality is in Michigan that the top eventual $18/hr advertised wage is the equivalent of less than $9/hr in 1992.

The jobs have gone out of the country, expanding middle classes abroad while impoverishing our own at home.

Our so-called friends the Chicoms installed spychips on thousands of servers used by Apple, Amazon and a host of others

The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies:

The chips had been inserted during the manufacturing process, two officials say, by operatives from a unit of the People’s Liberation Army. In Supermicro, China’s spies appear to have found a perfect conduit for what U.S. officials now describe as the most significant supply chain attack known to have been carried out against American companies.

A DACA "fix" is a recipe for more illegal immigration

Amnesty for ‘Dreamers’ won’t solve policy flaw creating DACA dilemma:

"Congress itself has been the culprit. ...

Congress continues to refuse to mandate the well-tested and widely-used E-Verify system. The outlaw employers in construction, manufacturing, hospitality and other services, of course, don't use it. Thus, parents worldwide, at this very moment, are enticed to illegally cross borders and overstay their visas while starting their children on the path to the long-term illegal-status life that Dreamers say is untenable. ...

As soon as amnestied illegal immigrants become U.S. citizens, current law allows them to petition for their parents to also obtain lifetime work permits and permanent residency. ...

But in the lifetime of a young Dreamer given an amnesty today, there would likely be time not only to obtain lifetime work permits for the original chain of extended family but for that Dreamer's grandparents (as parents of the Dreamer's parents), aunts and uncles (as siblings of the Dreamer's parents), and cousins (the children of the Dreamer's aunts and uncles).

The chains don't stop there. Every one of those adults could immediately bring their minor children and their spouse. Every spouse can start the same chains in his or her families.

All of them could receive lifetime work permits to compete for jobs with working-age Americans who don’t have a job, nearly one-in-four Americans, according to government data.

That’s the reality of DACA amnesty that Congress needs to face."

We have met the enemy and it's corporate America, for supporting amnesty

Farcebook, IBM you bm we all bm, Microsoft, Marriott and NAM, the National Association of Manufacturers.

Gee, US manufacturers want the cheap foreign labor just as much as the hotels. What was that again about bringing the manufacturing jobs back to America, Mr. President?

Corporate America ADMITS they hire illegals instead of you, here:

Ending protected status for DACA recipients would push them out of the legal workforce – costing companies as much as $1.8 million a day in restaffing, according to the think tank New American Economy. America's corporate titans have cited the potential damage to the nation's labor force in urging Congress to find a solution for those workers before the program officially winds down March 5.