Unfortunately the trajectory of pay and benefits in certain manufacturing sectors was unsustainable. Here, in Jeep county, a new hire in an auto assembly plant enjoyed $28/h starting pay, fullynpaid tuition for themselves and their kids, free health and retirement benefits and many other perks. The Jeep workers had 2-3 brand new cars, boats, and most had 30+ days a year paid vacation. All came to ahead when Chrysler declared bankruptcy in 2009. It's just unsustainable. Now it's all gone and starting pay is around $15/h. New middle class is being formed in Fintech and health care jobs. Just like agriculture gave way to manufacturing. Live goes on, one group will suffer for another to prosper.
Ok, fair enough. I did allude to Detroit and the auto sector, but a weaker dollar would benefit American manufacturers of all stripes. American industry in general would be more competitive, and that's something I would love to see.
The US being a desirable place to live making real estate a speculative item for foreigners already owning/using dollars is also a concern. Once the money of the whole world starts flowing back into US financial and real estate assets, the level of competition for those resources increases, preventing the locals from sharing in the growth because they have to pay their bills in dollars, while better-off people from lower cost of living countries can reap the rewards. Higher net worth individuals here (Philippines) like to start picking up exposure to the US market, both beause of its strength and colonial ties. US educations are also quite common for those going abroad.
Yep. I toyed with writing about foreign investment into American real estate markets in this article but decided to leave it out. I absolutely agree it's a big problem. Some high ranking CCP official owns three townhouses in Palm Beach and now the locals can't afford to live there.
And as to the education, I know that well. I went to a university that was a diversity hotspot. So many students from China, South Korea, India, etc. One would have to assume that all the foreigners pursuing an education in the US has also increased tuition costs.
I love the Philippines btw, so many good memories from there.
Keeps it tight, focused, and would end up going long. I can see why you left it out. Being priced out of your own home is a difficult thing to write about and deserves to be fleshed out.
Glad you like the Philippines - seems that a lot of my peers that live here want to leave, which is a shame in my mind.
https://michael-hudson.com/2023/07/can-the-us-re-industrialize/ I agree with what you say but the damage is already done. You can see the link to Michael Hudson's views. Bill Clinton when he went centrist and championed globalization and partnered with the banks hastened the demise of the middle class and had a lot to do with the rust belt. I'd say he's responsible for it.
I guess I'm just a bit more optimistic than you. Yes, the damage is done, but just because manufacturing has left the USA doesn't mean it can never return. As I mentioned, a ever so gradually weakening dollar combined with geopolitical tensions is likely to bring an increasing number of production facilities back to the US.
What could absolutely happen though is that the new factories they build are the most automated in human history and don't create that many new jobs. That's an argument I'm very sympathetic too.
All possible please watch the video I found it informative, I spent a lot of time writing and reading about robotics seven or eight years ago at that time I wrote a piece called And the jobs fled.And The Jobs Fled- A short dystopia of the possible future.
By J. Matson Heininger
June 2015.
It all had happened quickly, twenty years. The system had imploded as driverless cars took over the roads, as drones delivered, as computers wrote code, as algorithms replicated, and as jobs fled almost completely to Robots. There were the rich, the few remaining head managers, and only a few of these, as machines now managed everything.
Some had seen it coming. The poor had known for years. But somehow, the wealthy and the establishment intellectuals had missed the point. The gravy train depended on dollars and consumption. In the constant drive for low cost production they had missed that if no one worked, if there were no jobs, few if any would continue to purchase the necessities and fewer still the gadgets of the future.
There had been the shudders, a crash, a restructuring, and then another crash—the government bailing out the banks and the big businesses and institutions. If they failed everything would fail. And the system could not be allowed to fail. So the richer crashed and recovered and crash and recovered again and again, bailed out by the system. And always the jobs fled.
Charlatan politicians blamed it on a lack of free trade, a lack of enterprise, a lack of sufficient controls. They stirred the Xenophobia of a nation of immigrants and everyone kept talking about American Exceptionalism, something America had never been, really, except for Jefferson’s vision of a continent to plunder. Yet, the proclamation that we were exceptional made the people feel good. So, the phrase continued. Pundits wrote about it, Universities taught it, American Exceptionalism. And always the jobs fled.
Then the wars came. It was their fault, who ever they were. I did not matter. It could not be America’s fault, because we were exceptional. And for a while, ten years, more and more citizens had gone to war—The young and middle aged, and we called them heroes. And still no one noticed. Until, one day, it all just stopped, an economic slide like no one had ever seen. Finally, there was no one to buy the junk and the system stopped dead in its tracks—Like an ancient train, its boiler busted, its tracks warped from disrepair. The machines kept making stuff, but there was no money for anyone but the few to buy anything. Only the few, as the government and the conservatives howled about balanced budgets instead of spending and the ship of state kept sinking deeper, deeper into chaos.
And then the democracy, or the fraud of American democracy imploded. Everyone went nuts with guns, blaming anyone different than themselves. The whole nation and then the world became about killing—Until the machines stopped, until the robots were destroyed, until the world returned to a New Dark Ages.
Unfortunately the trajectory of pay and benefits in certain manufacturing sectors was unsustainable. Here, in Jeep county, a new hire in an auto assembly plant enjoyed $28/h starting pay, fullynpaid tuition for themselves and their kids, free health and retirement benefits and many other perks. The Jeep workers had 2-3 brand new cars, boats, and most had 30+ days a year paid vacation. All came to ahead when Chrysler declared bankruptcy in 2009. It's just unsustainable. Now it's all gone and starting pay is around $15/h. New middle class is being formed in Fintech and health care jobs. Just like agriculture gave way to manufacturing. Live goes on, one group will suffer for another to prosper.
Ok, fair enough. I did allude to Detroit and the auto sector, but a weaker dollar would benefit American manufacturers of all stripes. American industry in general would be more competitive, and that's something I would love to see.
The US being a desirable place to live making real estate a speculative item for foreigners already owning/using dollars is also a concern. Once the money of the whole world starts flowing back into US financial and real estate assets, the level of competition for those resources increases, preventing the locals from sharing in the growth because they have to pay their bills in dollars, while better-off people from lower cost of living countries can reap the rewards. Higher net worth individuals here (Philippines) like to start picking up exposure to the US market, both beause of its strength and colonial ties. US educations are also quite common for those going abroad.
Yep. I toyed with writing about foreign investment into American real estate markets in this article but decided to leave it out. I absolutely agree it's a big problem. Some high ranking CCP official owns three townhouses in Palm Beach and now the locals can't afford to live there.
And as to the education, I know that well. I went to a university that was a diversity hotspot. So many students from China, South Korea, India, etc. One would have to assume that all the foreigners pursuing an education in the US has also increased tuition costs.
I love the Philippines btw, so many good memories from there.
Keeps it tight, focused, and would end up going long. I can see why you left it out. Being priced out of your own home is a difficult thing to write about and deserves to be fleshed out.
Glad you like the Philippines - seems that a lot of my peers that live here want to leave, which is a shame in my mind.
https://michael-hudson.com/2023/07/can-the-us-re-industrialize/ I agree with what you say but the damage is already done. You can see the link to Michael Hudson's views. Bill Clinton when he went centrist and championed globalization and partnered with the banks hastened the demise of the middle class and had a lot to do with the rust belt. I'd say he's responsible for it.
I don't see any significant manufacturing coming back to the United States. It is possible that at some point this might happen but the country will be so damaged by that time...I don't see it. Dr Paul Craig Roberts thoughts https://m.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR3OeV02mL3sD-s8ziafywppX2oT-M2_BWBayI56HJXixPIhXBoP-JN9DaY&v=jxyN6qxGuxs&feature=youtu.be
I guess I'm just a bit more optimistic than you. Yes, the damage is done, but just because manufacturing has left the USA doesn't mean it can never return. As I mentioned, a ever so gradually weakening dollar combined with geopolitical tensions is likely to bring an increasing number of production facilities back to the US.
What could absolutely happen though is that the new factories they build are the most automated in human history and don't create that many new jobs. That's an argument I'm very sympathetic too.
All possible please watch the video I found it informative, I spent a lot of time writing and reading about robotics seven or eight years ago at that time I wrote a piece called And the jobs fled.And The Jobs Fled- A short dystopia of the possible future.
By J. Matson Heininger
June 2015.
It all had happened quickly, twenty years. The system had imploded as driverless cars took over the roads, as drones delivered, as computers wrote code, as algorithms replicated, and as jobs fled almost completely to Robots. There were the rich, the few remaining head managers, and only a few of these, as machines now managed everything.
Some had seen it coming. The poor had known for years. But somehow, the wealthy and the establishment intellectuals had missed the point. The gravy train depended on dollars and consumption. In the constant drive for low cost production they had missed that if no one worked, if there were no jobs, few if any would continue to purchase the necessities and fewer still the gadgets of the future.
There had been the shudders, a crash, a restructuring, and then another crash—the government bailing out the banks and the big businesses and institutions. If they failed everything would fail. And the system could not be allowed to fail. So the richer crashed and recovered and crash and recovered again and again, bailed out by the system. And always the jobs fled.
Charlatan politicians blamed it on a lack of free trade, a lack of enterprise, a lack of sufficient controls. They stirred the Xenophobia of a nation of immigrants and everyone kept talking about American Exceptionalism, something America had never been, really, except for Jefferson’s vision of a continent to plunder. Yet, the proclamation that we were exceptional made the people feel good. So, the phrase continued. Pundits wrote about it, Universities taught it, American Exceptionalism. And always the jobs fled.
Then the wars came. It was their fault, who ever they were. I did not matter. It could not be America’s fault, because we were exceptional. And for a while, ten years, more and more citizens had gone to war—The young and middle aged, and we called them heroes. And still no one noticed. Until, one day, it all just stopped, an economic slide like no one had ever seen. Finally, there was no one to buy the junk and the system stopped dead in its tracks—Like an ancient train, its boiler busted, its tracks warped from disrepair. The machines kept making stuff, but there was no money for anyone but the few to buy anything. Only the few, as the government and the conservatives howled about balanced budgets instead of spending and the ship of state kept sinking deeper, deeper into chaos.
And then the democracy, or the fraud of American democracy imploded. Everyone went nuts with guns, blaming anyone different than themselves. The whole nation and then the world became about killing—Until the machines stopped, until the robots were destroyed, until the world returned to a New Dark Ages.