The poet Charles Reznikoff once noted that what matters is “not the five feet of water to your chin, but the inch above the tip of your nose.”  Cheerful words indeed, but particularly poignant today for the residents of Qingdao, in China’s Shadong province.  Preparing to host the boating competitions of this summer’s Olympic Games, the city’s residents are currently working non-stop to clear a stunning algae bloom that has swallowed up large swaths of coastal water.

  Qingdao officials blame the algae bloom on “increased rainfall and warmer waters in the Yellow Sea.”  However, the Algae infestation now covers more than 5,000 square miles of the sea, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

Possibly the International Herald Tribune is closer to the mark when it notes that “many coastal Chinese cities dump untreated sewage into the sea. At the same time, rivers and tributaries emptying into coastal waters are often contaminated with high levels of nitrates from agricultural and industrial runoff. These nitrates contribute to the red tides of algae that often bloom along sections of China’s coastline.”

While China does have environmental laws on its books, they are seldom if ever enforced.  As a result, Chinese manufacturers frequently violate every accepted air and water discharge standard. 

Not having to incorporate environmental restrictions into their production saves money aplenty, but it also means tons of noxious smokestack emissions and the sort of groundwater runoff that produces unnaturally vast algae fields.

   In the next few weeks, AAM will be examining the consequences of Beijing’s environmental disregard with a report focusing on lax emissions standards for Chinese steel producers.  You can be sure ManufactureThis will have much to say when that report is issued.  But for now, here’s to a safe and healthy Olympic Games in the People’s Republic.

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The New York Times reported today on a study commissioned by the Kaiser Family Foundation.  According to their research, a 1% rise in the nation’s unemployment rate could lead to more than 1 million new Americans losing their health insurance.  The possibility of this is very real, given the current, tenuous state of the economy.

  The study also noted that the number of uninsured Americans has continued to grow over the past decade, with 47 million American currently lacking healthcare, a full 16 percent of the population.

One reason for the decline in those with health insurance may be the ongoing erosion of middle class manufacturing jobs that previously supported millions of families.  More than 3.5 million manufacturing workers have lost their jobs since 2000, and unfortunately, few of them have been able to find new factory jobs offering the same pay and benefits as their previous work.  If one multiplies that 3.5 million times three or four family members dependent on a job’s healthcare benefits, we begin to see just one of the many problems that spin off of a wholesale reduction in America’s manufacturing workforce.

It’s often suggested that Americans are moving beyond manufacturing though, migrating to a purely “information services” economy.  While such a concept remains rather abstract in practice, it’s questionable whether these projected information industry jobs could avoid the same outsourcing fate that previously claimed manufacturing’s lunchbox.

Therefore it seems logical not to wantonly risk the livelihoods of millions of hardworking Americans.  A better approach might be the mature view that good-paying manufacturing work offers tangible benefits for the nation as a whole.  Employed factory workers mean families with healthcare.  Thus, the price tag of the “Made in USA” goods these people produce carries with it the self-reinforcing costs of their health insurance.

  But when these people are out of work, they no longer pay into local and state tax rolls.  At the same time, however, city and state agencies must find additional resources to help these uninsured Americans.  Possibly the most troubling consequence of the increasing uninsured is the Kaiser study’s projection that 60% of them will be children.  There’s something poorly conceived in any economic planning that fails to account for the next generation of America’s working taxpayers.

It would be nice if these worrying scenarios were not looming so close on the horizon.  And so, a pragmatic approach would be to try to stem the loss of valuable factory jobs and rebuild our more prosperous manufacturing sector.  To do so, however, requires the vision to revise current U.S. trade policy.  Until we staunch the bleeding and begin to retain these jobs, we’ll see an accelerating pattern of all the ingredients for a bad economic storm: laid-off workers, declining tax rolls, greater demand for social services from cash-strapped civic services. 

If only our elected representatives demonstrated sufficient foresight and adopted en masse a plan to save American manufacturing.

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A high number of Chinese-made toys and other gifts will be sold this holiday season.  Unfortunately, they come in a year already marked by lead-tainted toy trains, dolls coated with date-rape drugs, and a record number of other defective goods from China. 

 While these hazards have been well documented in the media, the threat has not passed.  AAM has just released a new report detailing why U.S. consumers face a continuing danger from unsafe imports.  Written by best-selling author and former Wall Street Journal editorial page writer Richard Miniter, Buyer’s Remorse: How America has Failed to see the Threat posed by Dangerous Chinese Goods and the Case for Safe Trade documents the dangers posed by unsafe Chinese imports and outlines steps that the U.S. government should take to keep Americans safe this holiday season.

Many Americans have become greatly concerned about safe products and the United Steelworkers (USW) have taken action by launching a “Stop Toxic Imports campaign.”  As part of the campaign, they’ve  has produced a video featuring Steelworker kids that focuses on protecting children from dangerous, imported products. 
 
Titled “Toxic Toys,” the video has been posted on YouTube and urges members of Congress to take immediate action to protect U.S. consumers from toxic products entering our country.

It’s an important message that should be placed front and center. As AAM director Scott Paul noted on CNBC earlier this week, no “free trade” agenda should be allowed to come before an emphasis on the safety of U.S. families.
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Just Thinking Out Loud’s Matthew Stewart posted an interesting piece today calling for a “lead-free” Christmas.  He happily pointed toward his Pennsylvania neighbors at Holgate Toys, who have been making toys in the U.S. for 200 years, including the very famous trolley train that rolls through Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood every day.  Matt suggested that Americans buy domestic this year, and help avoid unsafe lead products.

  Matt isn’t the only person concerned about lead-tainted products during this shopping season, though.  News reports have offered ongoing coverage of consumer concern over the safety of the toys and goods they’re buying for their families.

This raises an interesting point: if there’s now a heightened awareness of unsafe imports, what about all the cheap goods and toys that consumers have purchased in recent years?  Who can say if those items were lead-free?

For help on that, parents can turn to a free service being offered by the United Steelworkers.  USW recently launched ‘Get the Lead Out,’ an educational program that provides free lead testing kits and screening information to identify potential hazards in the home.  Parents can request a lead testing kit via their website.
 

This week consumer-product regulation has been on lawmakers’ minds.  The Senate Commerce Committee approved on Tuesday the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Reform Act of 2007 that would expand the CPSC’s authority and increase its budget and staff.  On Thursday, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing on FDA’s Foreign Drug Inspection Program, putting Commissioner Andrew C. von Eschenbach in the hot seat over his agency’s inadequate inspection of foreign drug manufacturers.

All this Hill activity is certainly appropriate: consumer anxiety about the safety of the products we buy every day remains high and mainstream media reports about new potential dangers posed by Chinese-made products keep coming. 

We’ve already highlighted the New York Times story this week that exposed the frightening reality of the Chinese pharmaceutical market.  What does it mean for the American consumer?  Over the last six years, manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients (AIPs) has been increasingly moving to China and India, to the point that now, approximately 80 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients that go into the finished medicines Americans will consume are manufactured abroad, mostly in those two countries.  

Neither China nor India has the same regulatory standards as the U.S. and the European Union.  Moreover, U.S. regulators are not able to carry out the same degree of oversight at foreign production facilities as they do at home.  By law, FDA has to inspect domestic drug manufacturers at least every 2 years.  However, of the 700 FDA-registered firms in China, the agency was able to carry out inspections at only 17 last year. 

Even more alarmingly, firms that are not registered with the FDA, such as Chinese chemical companies that are making pharmaceutical ingredients illegally, never get inspected.  According to the Times, China has an estimated 80,000 chemical companies, but our FDA does not know how many sell ingredients used in drugs consumed by Americans. 

The pharmaceutical industry stresses that there is a duality to the regulatory system: government oversight on the one side and the company’s own quality control on the other.  Yes, the pharmaceutical companies try to ensure that their supply chains are not compromised, but how successful can they be when even the local authorities in countries like China have no idea who is producing what components for the medicines that end up on the world market?

The U.S. has a state-of-the-art regulatory system, but even our system has gaps.  When manufacturing shifts to developing countries, the high quality and safety standards that the American consumers have come to expect from products made in America can no longer be guaranteed, as we have seen time and time again.  When production shifts abroad, the costs of production may decrease, but society’s costs rise, whether to pay for better regulation, or to deal with the consequences of consumer exposure to inferior, or dangerous products.

We’ve already seen recalls of toys, pet food, toothpaste, and many other goods, that may be dangerous to consumers.  If more medicines are imported from China, the health and lives of our most vulnerable citizens may be put at risk.  

There’s no question that production quality, inspections, and the level of regulation need to be dramatically enhanced.  But the only way to guarantee the highest possible quality standard for our pharmaceuticals is to manufacture more of them in the U.S. under our close scrutiny, rather than trust others to take the matter of consumer safety to heart.
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The big day is here and we have some big news…

The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) has partnered with actor John Ratzenberger (“Cheers,” The Travel Channel’s “Made in America”) to host a national series of “Keep It Made In America” Town Hall meetings this fall.  We hope to see you there.

By the way, AAM’s Scott Paul published a piece on today’s Huffington Post that discusses the Town Hall meetings.  Read it here.

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Over the weekend, there were two interesting local news stories on manufacturing job loss that caught the attention of ManufactureThis.

One comes out of Port Washington, Wis., where Briggs and Stratton announced that it would be closing a plant that makes lawn mowers and snow throwers. With its closing, 325 jobs will be cut, and according to the local machinists union, the average worker at the plant has a tenure of about 20 years.

“Tool room machinist Mike Helminger is 59 and has worked with the company for 37 years. He says more manufacturing jobs are disappearing and he worries who will hire him at his age.”

To get a good look at what the future holds, Helminger need only read a story posted the same day in the Santa Cruz Sentinel:

Headline: Santa Cruz yet to rebound after manufacturers left town starting 10 years ago

The story comes on the 10 year anniversary of the closing of a Wrigley chewing gum factory, which cost the area 300 jobs. The next few years following that plant closure saw the closing of other facilities, including Salz Leathers, Texas Instruments, Raytek, Giro and Lipton Tea.

“City finances have not only dipped since the manufacturing foldings, they’ve tumbled to the tune of several million dollars because of lost tax revenue — a combination of sales, utility, property and other miscellaneous taxes. The city has yet to fully recover, even a decade after Wrigley pulled the trigger.

“And, the manufacturing jobs — once considered a bridge to the middle class for workers with less education — have not been replaced, leaving few alternatives for people living in one of the nation’s most expensive communities.”

The story points out that countywide, the manufacturing sector has shrunk by more than 40 percent, from 10,700 in 1996 to less than 7,000 now, and points out that the significant loss has been:

“the elimination of good-paying jobs with health benefits and retirement.”

As MT has said before, unfortunately, this is a story that sounds all-too-familiar to far too many communities around the country.

MT has raised the questions before: What are we going to do to strengthen the American manufacturing base that is the cornerstone of our nation’s economy? How can we ensure American workers the economic security to realize their American dream?

It’s going to take a tremendous amount of determination, a commitment to working together, and an acceptance on the part of many that our nation’s economy isn’t humming along for everyone with nothing to worry about. Too many families, like hundreds in Port Washington and Santa Cruz, are far too close to the possibility of losing their jobs and their livelihood. 

There is no silver bullet that will strengthen manufacturing on its own, but there are many steps that will help, including enforcing and strengthening trade laws, reducing the trade deficit, addressing health care, pension and energy costs, and providing incentives for creating good paying jobs in the U.S.

If you believe The Gallup Poll, the Economy rates #3 behind Iraq (#1) and Terrorism and National Security (#2). In fact, Gallup points out that half of Americans still believe the economy is getting worse, not better.

Yet last night’s debate among the Democratic presidential hopefuls offered little for viewers and voters on the economy. While the debate did seem to be more spirited than previous ones, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer didn’t ask any of the candidates about the economy and the angst Americans have over job loss and economic security.

The New York Times

Healthcare, which rates #6, according to Gallup, merited its own questions, giving the candidates a chance to offer general overviews of their healthcare proposals. Yes, healthcare is an important issue, one that is severely undermining the economic security of families and employers across the country. So, yes, ManufactureThis was happy to see the discussion.

Immigration, #5 according to Gallup, also was had its time on the stage, with questions coming from Blitzer…again, an important issue that deserves discussion.

Energy, #4 on Gallup’s list, also drew questions from Blitzer, mainly related to gas prices. Energy is definitely an important issue that needs to be discussed and debated among the candidates, as is Iraq and National Security.

Was it an error on Blizter’s part that the economy wasn’t asked about? Did he inadvertently, in the heat of the moment, skip over #3? When it came to the issues most important to voters, according to our trusted friends at Gallup, Blitzer asked about #1, #2, #4, #5 and #6, but NOT #3.

Debate organizers made note of the fact that they relaxed the rules to allow more free-flowing discussion, rather than limiting the candidates to 30- and 60-second sound bites. MT, though, thinks it may be time to impose a rule on the moderators of all upcoming debates – equal time for the issues that are of most concern to voters.

With New Hampshire holding the top spot on the list of states that has lost the largest share of its jobs as a result of the trade deficit with China – a deficit that exists due in large part to China’s refusal to follow the rules it agreed to – Blitzer had every reason to put the candidates on the spot about the economy, jobs and trade. He didn’t and MT feels it was not just a missed opportunity, but a disservice to viewers and voters.

Another week, another debate. As you’ll recall, last week we posted on the fact that not once in the Democratic presidential candidate debate was the word “manufacturing” used, despite the fact that South Carolina, the site of the debate, has lost 91,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000.

Well, this week, we’re on to California, where more than 376,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost (the most of any state in the nation). Will any of the Republican candidates use the “M” word tonight? We hope so, in fact, we’ve publicly called on the candidates to tell us how they plan to address the serious challenges facing American workers and companies.

Additionally, The Politico, which is one of the sponsors of tonight’s debate, is giving voters the chance to submit and vote on questions they’d like to have asked of the candidates tonight. ManufactureThis has submitted a question:

“American manufacturing provides 14 million jobs and generates 80 percent of new patents, but it has challenges: 3 million lost jobs and 40,000 closed facilities, many because of trade with China. Do you have a plan to strengthen manufacturing?”

Click here to get to The Politico’s site, sort the questions by Topic (choose “Trade”), and then look for ManufactureThis.

Hopefully the candidates won’t need prompting from our question to get them to talk such important issues as manufacturing, international trade policy, health care and retirement security for Americans.