19 Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America That Will Make You Weep

[FreakinDJ]

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 outproduce 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 does into more debt and every single month America gets poorer.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/deindustrialization-factory-closing-2010-9#the-united-states-has-lost-a-whopping-32-percent-of-its-manufacturing-jobs-since-the-year-2000-13#ixzz1ipSup6o5

[Brickbat]

1. K&R for the painful truth.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Wastepaper is our biggest export by weight, not by value.

Our biggest export in $$$ last year was fuel. That will probably be true through ~2020.

[Ed Suspicious]

3. "All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy"... I wouldn't say that.

We still want to work. Mitt Romney types took our jobs away. How is that "us" getting fat and lazy?

[FreakinDJ]

4. Complacency allowed that to happen

intellectual-laziness

Too much Rush LimpDick / not enough Ed

[Curmudgeoness]

5. I have been saying this for 30 years.

It was in the early 80's that so many steel mills and other plants shut down. At that time, I was saying that we were going in the wrong direction. I remember hearing that we were moving away from the "dirty, polluting work" and going toward a higher standard of living with a "service industry". WTF. Oh, they meant moving toward the brainier professions---we would be the consultants of the world....exporting information and theories, I suppose. How is that working out for us.

And now, with few plants available and functioning, we would be in a compromised situation if we were to have to fight a war of defense. I never have understood this, and I wasn't even thinking about trade imbalances.

[Pacafishmate]

6. Manufacturing takes a heavy toll on the environment.

If we want to protect our water and air, we have to implement regulations. These increase costs for manufacturers and they move their operations elsewhere. Sadly, I don't think there is a middle ground that manufacturers will accept. As long as there is a country that cares more about profits than the environment, manufacturers will favor it. Money over loyalty, that's how capitalism works.

Protectionism will result in higher prices. Sadly for our species, instant gratification in the form of low prices wins over long term benefit. We march towards our destruction as we move manufacturing elsewhere and become a service economy. Personally, I believe that this country's time in sun is coming to an end. Our empire will eventually collapse, the rich will leave ( we know they have no loyalty to any country, only to their money) and the working class will be forced to accept a lower standard of living. If you want an acceptable standard of living, you'd better have a skill that can't be done by a computer, machine or third world worker.

[FreakinDJ]

7. So "We pollute over there so we don't have to pollute here" ???

Like that is Ecologically Responsible - All he have done is shift polluting industries to countries that do not regulate

The US actually has New Clean EPA regulated Steel Mills that don't pollute like the mills in China



But then again without outsourcing mill production to China it makes it much harder for corporations to avoid paying taxes

[Pacafishmate]

8. I'm not saying that it's responsible.

I'm saying that not polluting, whether it be here, in China or anywhere else will inevitably result in higher prices. Most people are too shortsighted to care about the environment over the price of the plastic dog turd. There are millions of people who don't care about pollution here, let alone somewhere thousands of miles away. The average person will not accept a lower standard of living to protect the environment. You and I may understand the pollution is bad, but to most people it's irrelevant as long as things are cheap. All life is selfish. We can blame corporations all we want, but as long as the consumer is ignorant or just selfish, nothing will change.

[Ed Suspicious]

10. It's not about evil greedy people, it's about using laws and regulation to direct our

natural inclination for stretching our limited supply of dollars.

[FreakinDJ]

11. Cheap stuff made in China - there I said it

Yes - I do think of the Environment

But I believe a point many "Environmentalist" omit from the conversation is how much shoddy manufacturing / construction contributes to the overall amount of pollution emitted.

Used to be several decades ago you could buy a Hoover vacuum that would last you 10 -15 years. We even had vacuum repair shops that would service your machines. Now with the advent of "Cheap Chinese Labor" and "Disposable Products" those same common household items have a use-life of around 2 years.

We are emitting 5 times the pollution

Yes - we have cleaned up our own backyard - but "World-over" we have increased pollution 5 fold

[my2sense]

9. .

[madrchsod]

12. i`ve been weeping since 1977....

[unkachuck]

13. this has been developing for decades....

....first things first....until we regain control of our government and institutions, and begin to change regressive trade laws, little is going to change....the current situation was created by and for the sole benefit of the 1% after they consolidated power in the '70s....

....the 99% baggers and the 99% Progressives share similar problems and a dislike of our current situation....we share similar pain and misfortune from unemployment and the wall street cabal....we share a similar distrust of the rope-a-dope philosophy of our the major Parties....we need to call a truce in order to work on our shared problems....

....we both need to have the money removed from elections and have the corporate influence removed from our respective Parties....or, we need to develop new Left and Right wing Parties to platform and support our own candidates and views.....we no longer can afford to be hoodwinked, played or disadvantaged by the 1% political Parties and their paid stooges....the 1% has bled us both dry, we have no more to give....

....when the above has been accomplished we can then fight amongst ourselves for the soul of America....