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The Deindustrialization of America

Submitted by A Reader

19 Facts About The Deindustrialization of America That Will Blow Your Mind

The United States is rapidly becoming the very first "post-industrial" nation on the globe. All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing. It was America that was at the forefront of the industrial revolution. It was America that showed the world how to mass produce everything from automobiles to televisions to airplanes. It was the great American manufacturing base that crushed Germany and Japan in World War II.

But now we are witnessing the deindustrialization of America. Tens of thousands of factories have left the United States in the past decade alone. Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost in the same time period. The United States has become a nation that consumes everything in sight and yet produces increasingly little. Do you know what our biggest export is today? Waste paper. Yes, trash is the number one thing that we ship out to the rest of the world as we voraciously blow our money on whatever the rest of the world wants to sell to us. The United States has become bloated and spoiled and our economy is now just a shadow of what it once was. Once upon a time America could literally out-produce the rest of the world combined. Today that is no longer true, but Americans sure do consume more than anyone else in the world. If the deindustrialization of America continues at this current pace, what possible kind of a future are we going to be leaving to our children?

Any great nation throughout history has been great at making things. So if the United States continues to allow its manufacturing base to erode at a staggering pace how in the world can the U.S. continue to consider itself to be a great nation? We have created the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world in an effort to maintain a very high standard of living, but the current state of affairs is not anywhere close to sustainable. Every single month America goes into more debt and every single month America gets poorer.

So what happens when the debt bubble pops?

The deindustrialization of the United States should be a top concern for every man, woman and child in the country. But sadly, most Americans do not have any idea what is going on around them.

For people like that, take this article and print it out and hand it to them. Perhaps what they will read below will shock them badly enough to awaken them from their slumber.

The following are 19 facts about the deindustrialization of America that will blow your mind....

#1  The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001. About 75 percent of those factories each employed over 500 people when they were still in operation.

#2  Dell Inc., one of America's largest manufacturers of computers, has announced plans to dramatically expand its operations in China with an investment of over $100 billion over the next decade.

#3  Dell has announced that it will be closing its last large U.S. manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in November. Approximately 900 jobs will be lost.

#4  In 2008, 1.2 billion cell phones were sold worldwide. So how many of them were manufactured inside the United States?    Zero.

#5  According to a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economy will lose over half a million jobs this year alone.

#6  As of the end of July, the U.S. trade deficit with China had risen 18 percent compared to the same time period a year ago.

#7  The United States has lost a total of about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000.

#8  According to Tax Notes, between 1999 and 2008 employment at the foreign affiliates of U.S. parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million. During that exact same time period, U.S. employment at American multinational corporations declined 8 percent to 21.1 million.

#9  In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent.

Let's Outsource Our Jobs Policy

By Marc Cuniberti

Obama continually spouts about how one of his top priorities is jobs, jobs, jobs. With one half-baked program after another aimed at creating make work instead of just letting business do what it does without excessive regulation or taxes, he burns through billions of hard-earned dollars trying to bandaid over the problem, while the solution sits right under his nose and he is told as much through repeated outcries from business leaders “Leave us alone!"  

In true misguided form, Obama believes, as do many politicians on both sides of the aisle, that successful businesses need to have their profits garnered and “redistributed” to those companies that make bad decisions with even more stolen and given to  those “eligible" workers who sit at home and collect benefits for almost 2 years while “looking” for work.

Jobs are created through demand, and, much like Henry Ford exhibited in his assembly line revolution, produce a good product cheaply, pay your workers fairly and the workers themselves will fuel demand with their paychecks. Unmolested by government interference and minimally taxed, his company went on to become one of the largest companies in the world, successfully employing tens of thousands of workers, most if not all of whom were more than thrilled to be employed and happy being able to afford to feed their families and buy other great American products.

Enter the “world improvers" crying for worker equality, minimum wages, child care, health insurance and all the things Ford's original workers could probably afford to buy on their own anyway, join them up with meddlers looking for pet peeves to settle and within a few decades, American business is so loaded with “improvement” costs it can no longer compete with foreign countries who, like America did way back when, just want jobs so their people can feed themselves.

Bogged down in costs, American businesses sought greener (and cheaper) pastures elsewhere, and the mass exodus to offshore jobs began. In the late '90s, with the writing on the wall begging to be read, Washington and the Federal Reserve thought we could replace good old manufacturing with an asset-based economy, where profits were no longer obtained by making and selling things but by banks shuttling money around balance sheets while force feeding Americans easy credit thereby enhancing the illusion.

Like all good fiction, however, it came to an end when reality once again bled through the canvas illustrating the flawed model America’s economy had become.

Not willing to give up the fight however, more regulation and more taxes are loaded into the “improvers” armament and hurled over the American business landscape while those below hunker down to take cover, not willing to venture out with more commitment let alone more hiring under such profit-destroying bombardment.

Those in power scratch their heads and wonder where everybody went, then rain down ever more costs in an attempt to drive out jobs in a landscape littered with dead and vacated businesses, casualties of the last volley.

Nothing beats a good fiction novel except maybe a good comedy, and true to form, the heads of the asylum never lack for completing the task. (Keep reading!)

Founded in America in 1878, General Electric is a multinational corporation offering a multitude of products and services. It filed over 7000 income tax returns last year, more than a good portion of those from its overseas operations.  Incredibly, however, in 2010 it paid NO U.S. INCOME TAX with the obvious blessing of the current administration.

Does GE outsource some of its manufacturing?

Does the sun rise at dawn? 

With more than half of GE’s revenues now coming from overseas, you could say it employs a few less Americans since the day it turned on its first light bulb. In fact, just last month it closed its last light bulb plant in the US to export those jobs overseas as well.

GE made over 10.8 billion dollars from its overseas operations alone, and employs literally tens of thousands of workers in over a hundred countries, the very same jobs Obama is using your money to try and create.

Who is in control of this behemoth and guides these decisions?

His name is Jeffrey Immelt (GE CEO) and he obviously has a lot to say about GE’s outsourcing and corporate tax liabilities. But don’t think his influence ends at the doorsteps of GE headquarters.

In January 2011, he was appointed by President Obama to lead the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Marc Cuniberti hosts the financial radio show “Money Matters”  on KVMR FM 89.5 and 105.1 or www.kvmr.org
  
Website  www.moneymanagementradio.com

Code Enforcement Coming To A County Near YOU

By  Seymour A. Cummin

When was the last time you read the Nevada County Land Use Code?
Many of us would probably say, “never”, and understandably so.
Reading it would probably be as interesting as, “watching paint dry” or “grass grow.”
For that matter, after all, our elected officials are watching over the business at hand with our best interest in mind. Right?

When or if one DOES read it they would think, “I’m sure they didn’t really mean what it implies nor would those responsible to carry it out be as merciless as government in other areas are proving to be.”

With that in mind, I’m going to provide you the opening paragraphs of the “Nevada County Land Use & Development Code-Chapter II-Zoning Regulations” and you tell me how it strikes you or better yet - maybe you should speak to your County Supervisor.

It’s time to start asking questions.

Section L-II 5.19 Legal Nonconforming Uses and Structures

A.  Purpose.  Within the zoning districts established by this Chapter, there may be
      uses and structures which were lawful before the effective date of the applicable
      terms of the regulations, but which are prohibited, regulated, or restricted under
      the terms of the regulations currently in effect or by future amendments. Relative
      to such uses and structures, it is the purpose of this Section to:

Reduce them to conformity or to eliminate them through abandonment,
        obsolescence, or destruction due to strict provisions against changes that
        could perpetuate them.

Provide for their regulation and to specify the circumstances and
        conditions under which they may continue to exist until brought into
        conformity, removed, or terminated.

The words used in these paragraphs are very loaded, even explosive.
Terms such as “REDUCING them to conformity or…ELIMINATING…through ABANDONMENT, OBSOLESCENCE, or DESTRUCTION due to STRICT PROVISIONS”….they may not be “planning” to do it now, but “providing for their regulation …specify the circumstances and conditions they MAY continue until brought into CONFORMITY, REMOVED, or TERMINATED.”

With the content of these words it begs the question: What is our government code setting us up for?

Letter to the Editor ~ Englebright Dam

By James Butler

While waiting in line at Wells Fargo in Raley’s I happened to see a copy of the CABPRO News on the counter.  When I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down.  It was like preaching to the choir.  The first article was about the Englebright Dam.  I live just 1.5 miles down the Yuba and can see the dam from my house.  My dad brought me up here in 1951 to look at a mining claim that he knew about since 1927.  I heard my dad talking about Landers Bar to his friends and relatives around the kitchen table since I can remember.

Before Englebright Dam was built, the only dam was the Old Bullards Bar, that diverted the N. Fork of the Yuba down the 6 mile long Colgate Tunnel and pentstocks.  Winter floods re-enriched Landers Bar each year the Yuba was free flowing and salmon migrated clear up to Washington.  So, in February 1951 my dad filed Landers Bar & Extension Mining Claim at the Yuba County Hall of Records in the Old Court House in Marysville. And I’ve been here ever since.  My dad passed away in 1993.  And I, his son is 74 now, with 61 years on the Landers Bar Mining Claim.

The shot rock out of the Englebright and Narrows II Project spoil dumps was scoured off at flood stage and “armoured over,” the river bed vital spawning habitat at Landers Bar 1.5 miles downstream.

AN APPEAL TO EVERYONE

By Patrick Wagner, MD

The fundamental job of the doctor is to understand normal, to understand disease, to understand the therapy needed to rid the patient of the disease, and finally to render treatment.  Happily, treatment works!  That makes doctors happy.  With these basic principles in mind, it is time for us all to become the doctors of our sick health care system.  By doing so, we will again be happy.

There are many diseases we don’t have cures for, but we are making inroads.  I think of the future of medicine and surgery and am inspired by the same thoughts you are inspired by.  Will we actually be able to cure cancer?  Will we be able to cure paralysis?  Will we be able to regenerate the pancreas and cure type 1 diabetes mellitus?  Will we be able to define the short circuits in thinking pathways in the brain and engineer medications to overcome mental illness?  Will we be able to give sight to the blind? The list goes on.

We must also think back and recognize how far medicine has come.  Amazing things are here for all of us today.  A young woman in labor has the option of an epidural catheter to ease her delivery.  A cardiac surgeon has the skill to replace a human heart!  The plastic surgeon can reshape the upper lip and base of the nose to help a growing youngster with a cleft palate.  Young patients with cystic fibrosis are treated by their dedicated doctors and breathe for as long and as comfortably as possible, surviving even beyond middle age. Trauma and critical care surgeons can restore health in extensively injured car crash victims. We must never take these things for granted.

If we stand back for just a minute, take a deep breath, and think about it, we will recognize that medicine is vitally important to all of us. We all want to be well, and if we get sick we want to get well.  We anticipate that the doctor will be there for us.  We anticipate that the doctor has morals and follows the Hippocratic Oath.  And rightly so.  We can feel the goodwill.

I have written two articles that were printed in this news magazine.  They highlight my experience in managed care.  As discussed in those articles, managed care is a process whereby the people who run Medicare and the people who run health insurance companies took over the responsibility of managing our health care. Based on the observations I made as a surgeon during my career, I believe that managed care went into full swing in about 1992.  Therefore, we are two decades into managed care today.   What I was told when managed care began was that I was charging people too much money for my services.  It was time to decrease the cost of rendering medical services.  I was also told that I must strive to increase the quality of my services.  Those were the same things you were told by the people and organizations who developed Medicare and managed care, and whom you pay to administer those services you receive.  I strongly sense that hospitals were told the very things that I was told, namely to decrease their costs and increase their quality of services. I base this assumption on the change in the relationship I had with the hospitals in Sacramento in the latter part of my career.  This change broke my heart.

WELCOME TO CALIFORNIA ~ A STATE PARK

By John Spencer

It all began for me one early morning while lying in bed (much before time to get up) thinking about our great State of California and what it has become.

My close proximity to the land development field and involvement in politics has given me a perspective not possessed by many others. I’ve seen the environmental movement come alive and have sat through many a public hearing acting on development projects. I’ve followed elections and have seen what the continued ratcheting up of regulations has done to our economy, and I think we have gone too far.

So while lying there I had this idea and thought it was so great I rolled over and awakened my wife to tell her what a great idea I had. When hearing all about it she said, “that’s perfect," now go back to sleep!

Since the time the environmental movement attacked the logging industry and ran a bunch of them out of business, I have watched with dismay how environmental activists (thinking the earth is more important than people) could have the power to destroy a whole community. From then on they had my attention. I think everyone knows what the program is, it is limited or no development, their kind of development, and none at all would be best. The movement doesn’t want YOU to do what you want to do, you need to check with them first, and the more regulations the State has, the better. The environmental movement is not a regulatory agency, but acts like one.

Everyone contributes in the form of taxes. From these taxes slush funds are created for activists to go get some in the form of grant funding. This funding keeps them alive even if they decide to turn around and sue the State or others (they don’t like) in an effort to put their agenda in play. Liberals have achieved a majority in the State house, and activist agendas are their road map. “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” If anything is going to happen in this State it needs to happen THEIR way, with your tax money. So they always need more of YOUR money to pull this off, and there is no upper limit. If you are anything other than Liberal you have a problem, and the best thing would be if you just left the State and didn’t bother them anymore.

So here is where my idea comes into play. Liberals like to control everything, they like big government and they are no-growth, protect the environment, and don’t care how much it costs. The only way this can be achieved (where they own everything and can control everything) is for the State to buy up all the property in California (except those properties owned by Liberals). Once the State owns most of the property, they simply turn the whole State into a State park (thereby protecting it). At all of the State highways entering California there would be a big arch structure saying “Welcome to California – a state park.”

Off the Top of My Head: Preparing For the Unthinkable

By Russ Steele

When I was an Air Force Electronics Warfare Officer we worried about the effects of a nuclear detonation on the aircraft electronic systems. This electronic damage would be caused by an electromagnetic pulse or EMP generated when a nuclear weapon is detonated. During weapons testing in the Pacific, scientists learned that EMP waves can fry the electronic systems hundreds of miles from the blast site. Today digital systems are proving to be more vulnerable than the analog systems used in the 1950s and 1960s. 

There has been much speculation about terrorists setting off a nuclear device at high altitude over the US to create an EMP event, which would shut down our transportation, communication and electrical distribution networks.  The CIA, FBI and TSA are working hard to make sure the terrorists never get access to such a device, let alone bring it into the United States.

However, there is an electronic pulse danger that government agencies have virtually no control over, and that is a super coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun.  A CME is a massive burst of plasma consisting primarily of electrons, but can contain small quantities of heavier elements.  CMEs are often associated with solar flares and highly active sunspots. As the sun nears solar maximum, which is forecast to be 2013, the sun will produce more CMEs, about three per day.  In contrast, back in 2008 at solar minimum there was only about one CME every week.

In 1859, during solar cycle 10, there was a super CME, one of the most powerful ever recorded.  This super solar storm produced auroral lights that were bright enough to read a newspaper at night. Some California miners got up and started breakfast, thinking the sun was coming up. Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases even shocking telegraph operators. Telegraph pylons threw sparks and telegraph paper spontaneously caught fire, according to some newspaper reports.

Ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica have been used to reconstruct a history of past super CME events. Evidence shows that events of this magnitude occur approximately once per 500 years, with events at least one-fifth as large occurring several times per century. Less powerful CMEs occurred in 1921 and 1960 when widespread radio disruption was reported.  A 1994 solar storm caused major malfunctions to two communications satellites, disrupting newspaper, network television and nationwide radio service throughout Canada.

Other storms have affected systems ranging from cell phone service and TV signals to GPS systems and electrical power grids. In March, 1989, a solar storm much less intense than the perfect space storm of 1859 caused the Hydro-Quebec power grid in Canada to go down for over nine hours. The resulting damage and loss in revenue were estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The 1859 storm was before our modern power grid was created. The power grid that brings energy to our home and factories has been in place for only a small fraction of human history.  A large solar storm like the 1859 event has not happened, yet there is a good possibility that such a solar storm could happen in this century.

October Dates to Remember

By CABPRO Staff

October 1, 1979 - After 70 years of American control, the Panama Canal Zone was formally handed over to Panama.  (Thanks to Jimmy Carter)

October 2, 1968 - California's Redwood National Park was established. Redwoods are the tallest of all trees, growing up to 400 feet (120 meters) during a lifetime that can span 2,000 years.

October 4, 1957 - The Space Age began as the Russians launched the first satellite into orbit. Sputnik I weighed just 184 lbs. and transmitted a beeping radio signal for 21 days. The remarkable accomplishment by Soviet Russia sent a shockwave through the American political leadership resulting in U.S. efforts to be the first on the moon.

October 8, 1998 - The U.S. House of Representatives voted 258-176 to approve a resolution launching an impeachment inquiry of President Bill Clinton. It was only the third time in U.S. history the House launched a formal impeachment inquiry of a sitting president.

October 12, 1492 - After a 33-day voyage, Christopher Columbus made his first landfall in the New World in the Bahamas. He named the first land sighted as El Salvador, claiming it in the name of the Spanish Crown. Columbus was seeking a western sea route from Europe to Asia and believed he had found an island of the Indies. He thus called the first island natives he met, 'Indians.'

October 13, 1775 - The United States Navy was born after the Second Continental Congress authorized the acquisition of a fleet of ships.

October 14, 1947 - U.S. Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager became the first man to break the sound barrier, flying in a rocket-powered research aircraft.

October 15, 1924 - Lee Iacocca was born to Italian immigrant parents in Allentown, Pennsylvania as Lido Anthony Iacocca. Dubbed "America's first corporate folk hero," he was a mechanical engineer who became an automobile executive at Ford and later helped save Chrysler from bankruptcy.

California: A Morality Tale in Three Parts

Remarks by Congressman Tom McClintock ~ Council on National Policy on September 30, 2011

I want to welcome this groundbreaking scientific expedition to the savage lands of the Left Coast.  You are here in California to answer an important theoretical question and now you have your answer.

Yes, this is what Barack Obama’s second term would look like.

Study it.  Fear it.  And then go home and make sure that it never happens to the rest of the country.

Of course, in spite of all of its problems, California is still one of the best places in the country to build a successful small business.  All you have to do is start with a successful large business.

Laugh if you will, but as you whistle past this cemetery, do heed the medieval epitaph:  “Remember man as you walk by, as you are now so once was I; as I am now so you will be.”

Mark that well, because if we lose this struggle for the future of our country, you will someday, you too will live in a California – only without the nice climate.

Bad policies.  Bad process. Bad politics.  Those are the three acts in a Greek tragedy that tell the tale of how, in the span of a single generation, the most prosperous and golden state in the nation became an economic basket case.

When my parents came to California in the 1960’s looking for a better future, they found it here.  The state government consumed about half of what it does today after adjusting for both inflation and population.  HALF.  We had the finest highway system in the world and the finest public school system in the country.   California offered a FREE university education to every Californian who wanted one.  We produced water and electricity so cheaply that some communities didn’t bother to meter the stuff.  Our unemployment rate consistently ran well below the national rate and our diversified economy was nearly recession-proof.