Manufacture This

Can We Create More Manufacturing Jobs?

Posted by CTracI on October 14th, 2008

Our readers can attest that as the financial crisis has been heating up, ManufactureThis has been disappointed that almost none of the discussion about what should be done to fix the problem has mentioned what ManufactureThis feels is an absolutely critical component in any long-term recovery, the need for the American economy to be rebuilt in a way that is based on manufacturing actual products, not just exotic financial instruments.

Not to be overly self-referential, but the debates have been particularly troubling in their almost total lack of discussion of the need to create new manufacturing jobs.

With that as background, ManufactureThis was pleased yesterday to see that one of the presidential candidates, Sen. Barack Obama, gave a major economic address in Toledo, OH and released what the campaign calls “Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s Rescue Plan for the Middle Class.”

In his speech, Sen. Obama pointed out the effect the economic climate (even apart from the current crisis) has had on jobs and manufacturing.

The credit crisis has left businesses large and small unable to get loans, which means they can’t buy new equipment, or hire new workers, or even make payroll for the workers they have. You’ve got auto plants right here in Ohio that have been around for decades closing their doors and laying off workers who’ve never known another job in their entire life.

760,000 workers have lost their jobs this year. Unemployment here in Ohio is up 85% over the last eight years, which is the highest it’s been in sixteen years. You’ve lost one of every four manufacturing jobs, the typical Ohio family has seen their income fall $2,500, and it’s getting harder and harder to make the mortgage, or fill up your gas tank, or even keep the electricity on at the end of the month. At this rate, the question isn’t just “are you better off than you were four years ago?”, it’s “are you better off than you were four weeks ago?”

Later in the speech, Obama reiterated the issue that we are glad to see someone finally paying attention to, when he said that his plan “begins with one word that’s on everyone’s mind, and it’s spelled
J-O-B-S.”

Noted Change Enthusiast Sen. Barack Obama outlines his Middle Class Rescue Plan in Toledo, OH

Still, as nice as it is to hear Sen. Obama address this issue, it’s also important to see what exactly he is proposing. To that end, we turn to the Rescue Plan the campaign released. In particular, two of the proposals stand out:

A New American Jobs Tax Credit. Obama will provide a new temporary tax credi to companies that add jobs here in the United States. During 2009 and 2010, existing businesses will receive a $3,000 refundable tax credit for each additional full-time employee hired. For example, if a company that currently has 10 U.S. employees increases its domestic full time employment to 20 employees, this company would get a $30,000 tax credit–enough to offset the entire added payroll tax costs to the company for the first $50,000 of income for the new employees. The tax credit will benefit all companies creating net new jobs, even those struggling to make a profit.

ManufactureThis applauds this commonsense solution to a simple problem. If the problem is that companies are finding it too expensive to create American jobs instead of offshoring production, what government can and shold do is to create incentives that make it a sound economic decision to create good jobs here at home. While this may not be a silver bullet, this is the sort of clear, reasonable policy that will, if enacted, lead to the creation of more manufacturing jobs.

Partner with America’s automakers to help save jobs and ensure that the next generation of clean vehicles is built here in the United States. Senator Obama pushed for $50 billion in loan guarantees to help the auto industry retool, develop new battery technologies and produce the next generation of fuel efficient cars here in America. Congress passed only half of this amount – it is critical that the administration speeds up the implementation of the first half and that Congress move quickly to increase certainty by enacting the second half. In addition, Obama believes that with the tremendous uncertainty facing the auto industry, and the small and medium business suppliers who depend on them, it is critical that we keep all options on the table for helping them weather the financial crisis.

ManufactureThis is pleased to see that the plan mentions battery technology specifically, because it is of major concern that ending our addiction to foreign oil, while a laudable goal for many reasons, will not help the American economy if we replace it with an addiction to foreign-made batteries. Right now, Japanese and Chinese companies are cornering the market on such items as lithium-ion batteries for hybrid cars, and we need to catch up. The Advanced Technology Vehicle program Obama describes here, which was recently – finally – funded in the Continuing Resolution is a positive step toward empowering American companies to reinvest in new technologies and ensure that the components of the oft-discussed green economy, like flex fuel vehicles and like hybrid batteries, are made here in America.

Overall, there is a lot to like about the Obama plan, but, as always, there are many potential pitfalls between page and practice. It’s important that Obama and everyone else keep their eye on the ball, because while programs to create jobs are desperately needed, it is also critical that the jobs created be good, well-paid jobs in sustainable sectors like manufacturing.

(Editor’s Note: ManufactureThis is a nonpartisan blog, and as such we will also gladly discuss any proposals the McCain campaign will make about jobs. Over the past couple of days, first Lindsey Graham said the campaign would be issuing new policy proposals, then Tucker Bounds said they weren’t, and then this morning Douglas Holtz-Eakin said they would. Regardless of what they eventually decide, should any new policies actually be proposed to help create jobs, they will be covered here.)

Posted in Manufacturing in the U.S. | 1 Comment »

Welcome to Nashville, Music City USA…

Posted by CTracI on October 8th, 2008

(Title Note: If you’ve ever spent any time in the Nashville airport, you’ve heard the constantly repeating PA announcement that begins like that over and over again. ManufactureThis apologizes if it is now stuck in your head.)

After a presidential debate and a vice presidential debate that were completely free of any discussion about how to create good manufacturing jobs here in America, ManufactureThis sat down to watch last night’s debate between Senators McCain and Obama, held in a city of which ManufactureThis has many fond memories, having attended college there (although not at Belmont University, site of last night’s debate). I mean, surely, this time they would talk about these critical issues, right?

An hour and a half later, while, by all accounts, most of America had nodded off and/or stopped paying attention to what has been pretty universally declared a rather boring debate, ManufactureThis was the one stomping around and seething (well, not the only one. McCain was doing a lot of that, too). Once again, the candidates failed to talk about manufacturing or China or even jobs except in the vaguest of terms.

Look, guys, there’s one more debate left. We want to hear what you are going to do to help us keep critical industries and new technologies made in America. Senator Obama, tell us more about these 5 million green jobs to which you keep referring, and how many of them are going to be good jobs building the new products that will allow us to transition into the green economy. Senator McCain, tell us more about…well…tell us something. Don’t make us bring back the cricket meter!

Also, ManufactureThis would like to take the pretext of writing about something that occurred in Nashville to gloat about his beloved, 13th-ranked Commodores!

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Even the Rope!

Posted by CTracI on October 8th, 2008

If there’s one thing ManufactureThis loves, it’s a fine turn of phrase. So much the better when the fine turn of phrase is in the service of educating people on an important issue. To that end, we present this, from our friends over at Campaign for America’s Future:

Campaign for America’s Future also features an article written by one of ManufactureThis’s favorite people, United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, which we highly recommend you check out.

Back later with reaction from tonight’s debate, where, I mean, they HAVE to talk about jobs, don’t they?

Posted in Holding China Accountable, Manufacturing in the U.S. | 1 Comment »

Swing State Note

Posted by CTracI on October 6th, 2008

An article in the online magazine Salon describes the sort of impact manufacturing jobs can have on campaigns in critical swing states like Wisconsin:

The Paper Valley is an area where economic discontent was bubbling to the surface long before the tidal wave hit the financial markets. Over the last decade, roughly one-third of the papermaking jobs in Wisconsin have vanished — unionized jobs paying $60,000 a year, enough to afford a vacation cottage on a lake and a Harley. But few paper plant shutdowns have caused more shock and distress than this summer’s closure of the Kimberly Mill in Kimberly, a town named after one of the founders of Kimberly-Clark and synonymous with papermaking for 120 years. The Kimberly Mill (owned by the NewPage Corp., a subsidiary of Cerberus Capital Management), which made glossy paper stock used in magazines, was a modern, seemingly profitable plant, which was shut down after the International Trade Commission (ITC) in Washington ruled that China was not illegally subsidizing below-cost paper imports.

The 600 out-of-work Kimberly employees, most of whom were represented by the Steelworkers, have become a potent political symbol in this corner of the state. “If Obama wins Wisconsin — and I believe he will win — it will be largely because of the fight that the millworkers are waging and the attention it gives to unfair trade laws,” says Democratic state Rep. Tom Nelson from Kaukauna. That may be hyperbolic, but the Obama campaign has embraced the cause of the Kimberly workers. Andy Nirschl, the local union president, introduced Obama at a Labor Day rally in Milwaukee, and the Democratic nominee pointedly referred to the Kimberly Mill in his opening remarks in Green Bay three weeks later.

Now, ManufactureThis is strictly nonpartisan (but we do love our brothers and sisters in the Steelworkers), so if the Republicans want to make the recovery of lost manufacturing jobs and the drive for fair and enforceable trade laws a economic policy priority in their campaign, we would gladly welcome their support. In fact, as this quote shows, it is exactly these issues that are out there swinging this election every day…

Posted in Enforcing Trade Laws, Manufacturing in the U.S. | No Comments »

Two Words: Show Me

Posted by CTracI on October 2nd, 2008

When ManufactureThis sat down last Friday to watch the first presidential debate, and was told by Jim Lehrer that the debate would be mostly about foreign policy but would also feature quite a bit of discussion about the economy. At that, my thought was, “Okay, great, foreign policy AND the economy. There’s no way they can get out of talking about China.”

But, of course, they did.

According to the transcript, Obama mentioned China three times, and McCain mentioned China twice. Both of them mentioned the fact that we have borrowed a lot of money from China, and beyond that Obama mentioned China in relationship to their recent space launch and in the context of potential Iran sanctions. McCain, other than his one reference to the debt issue, only mentioned China in a reference about…Richard Nixon!

McCain apparently thinks the guy on the left is the more relevant to China than our trade deficit. I would imagine he thinks the guy on the right is really young and makes the devil’s music.

Neither candidate addressed the fact that the erosion of our domestic manufacturing base and the outsourcing of our critical infrastructure to China is, let’s not mince words, one of the major national security challenges the next president will face!

The Vice Presidential candidates get their chance tonight in St. Louis, and ManufactureThis certainly hopes that these issues will be addressed. According to AAM’s data, Missouri has lost 70,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000, and the trade deficit with China has cost Missouri 45,400 jobs. The candidates owe it not just to the people watching at home, but to the good people of St. Louis who will be in the hall tonight.

ManufactureThis is, alas, not optimistic. Instead, the best he’s really hoping for is for Joe Biden to explain away his fairly poor fair trade voting record and for Sarah Palin to…er…I dunno, explain how Alaska is the closest state to China.****

Frankly, I’ll be winning to declare a winner to either candidate who works in a reference to St. Louis’s own Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.

Still, as cynical as ManufactureThis is, he is hoping to be wrong. So, get to it, Joe and Sarah. I’m listening. Show me.

The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. Did you think it was called something else?

****And, in case you’re wondering, yes, ManufactureThis is just fastidious enough that he actually checked to make sure. According to this, Alaska is about a thousand miles closer to China than Hawaii.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

We Need to Build the New Economy Here In America

Posted by CTracI on October 2nd, 2008

ManufactureThis has been talking a lot during this financial crisis about the need for whatever new economy is built on the rubble of the one that’s melting down center around a sustainable model with American manufacturing at it’s center.

Here’s the sort of thing I’m talking about, from dday over at Hullabaloo:

The problem, folks, is that the largest sector of the private economy is financial services, in other words people pushing paper to other people, while manufacturing is at its lowest level in decades. That is historically unsustainable and impossible, and invites crises like this, and no amount of figuring out a creative accounting fix and some kind of bailout on the cheap is going to change that. Only by creating a new energy economy, allowing for 5 million new green-collar jobs, and building a manufacturing base again to match the knowledge economy will we ever have an economic system in any kind of balance. Yet only the Senate bribery bill even brooches that subject.

Now that’s what I’m talking about…

Posted in Manufacturing in the U.S. | No Comments »

No Such Worries

Posted by CTracI on October 1st, 2008

One place where ManufactureThis is confident that the critical issues facing American manufacturing will be addressed Wednesday is up in Rochester, NY, where the Alliance for American Manufacturing Made In America roadshow is taking upstate New York by storm.

If you are in the Rochester area, be sure to come by. Admission is free and the issues are critical. You can help us keep it Made In America.

Posted in AAM, Manufacturing in the U.S. | 2 Comments »

On the Trail…

Posted by CTracI on October 1st, 2008

Looking at the schedules for the candidates on Wednesday, we find less activity than usual, but that’s mostly because debate preparations have both Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin out of the public eye today.

In addition, Celebrity TV/Movie Cameo Aficionado and Maverick Financial Crisis Theater Star John McCain is holding no private events, and is instead attending a fundraiser in Los Angeles (at post time, it is not known whether he is considering this a CountryFirst Brand Campaign Suspension (TM)). Side question: does the fact that McCain was in “Wedding Crashers” and “24” mean that he’s a member of the Screen Actors Guild? Is John McCain really a card-carrying union member? If it makes a difference (and I think it does), he does have a line in “Wedding Crashers.” But ManufactureThis, as is its wont, digresses.

Today, Barack Obama is in LaCrosse, WI, and Michelle Obama is in Boulder, CO (she’ll also be in Missouri today, but we’ll talk about Missouri, location of the VP debate, tomorrow). According to AAM’s handy database of Manufacturing In Your State, we see that those two states have lost 144,500 manufacturing jobs from 2001 to 2007, and almost 100,000 jobs due to trade with China alone.

ManufactureThis is still very disappointed in the fact that China was largely ignored during last Friday’s presidential debate (but will discuss this more tomorrow), and particularly in these troubling economic times America is looking for leadership that can rebuild our economy on more solid footing than the one that’s collapsing. And that, Barack and Michelle, is American manufacturing.

So, let’s hear it. You have the field to yourself today…

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Made In America Pop Culture Update

Posted by CTracI on September 26th, 2008

On Wednesday night, ManufactureThis watched the premiere of the new version of Knight Rider, and was pleased to see one positive similarity to the original: the fact that the real star of the show, KITT, is an American car.

The new KITT.

The original Knight Rider featured a Pontiac Firebird TransAm in the role of KITT, but Pontiac stopped making the Firebird in 2002. I’m just saying, the TransAm was iconic in the days of Knight Rider, when they were built in Van Nuys, CA and Norwood, OH. In 1993, Pontiac shifted production to Canada after making them in America for 26 years. Now the car doesn’t exist…

The Original…RIP.

When the time came to choose a car to star in the new version, ManufactureThis is glad to see that the producers kept up the proud tradition by selecting the Ford Mustang as the new KITT. The Ford Mustang is made here in America in Flat Rock, MI (which we will henceforth be calling the CrimeFightingSuperCar-Basket of America) by union workers from the United Auto Workers.

Now, I don’t want to cast aspersions on other, foreign-made CrimeFightingSuperCars that are used to fight nefarious plots by super villains (coughBondcough), but doesn’t it seem to anyone else like the car is usually ancillary to the actual foiling of those plots? Moreover, doesn’t it seem like they get destroyed pretty often?

Foreign-made CrimeFightingSuperCar unable to stay on the road in Casino Royale.

CrimeFightingSuperCars that are Made In America, however, are always central to preserving our way of life!

Posted in Manufacturing in the U.S. | 1 Comment »

Help Me Keep It Made In America

Posted by CTracI on September 25th, 2008

This is a personal request to our readers. Recently, ManufactureThis learned that he needs new tires for his car. Obviously, it’s very important to me that the tires I buy be Made in America by union members (in this case, most of the tires are made by our good friends at the United Steelworkers).

I have a general list of which companies are Steelworker companies, and it’s my understanding that BF Goodrich is, generally speaking, among them. However, I would like to be sure, if at all possible.

The ones I’m considering are BF Goodrich Traction T/A or Touring T/A Pro Series tires. Can anyone put my mind at ease that these are, in fact, tires made in America by union workers?

Alternately, does anyone have any other suggestions? I need standard 195/65R15 tires and my priorities are that they be Union-made and low-cost. Performance and/or longevity are less important to me (ManufactureThis commutes via public transportation and drives less than 5,000 miles per year).

Anybody out there able to help?

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Can We Create More Manufacturing Jobs?

Welcome to Nashville, Music City USA…

Even the Rope!

Swing State Note

Two Words: Show Me

We Need to Build the New Economy Here In America

No Such Worries

On the Trail…

Made In America Pop Culture Update

Help Me Keep It Made In America

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