Yet another reason that Hillary lost

[CajunBlazer]

The new jobs report out today continues the good economic news we have received since since President Obama turned the economy around and got it pointed in the right direction.

However, here is one part of the economy which did not do well over the last 8 years and that is manufacturing. Even the new job report shows a lost of 4K manufacturing jobs last month, and that is a continuation of a long trend.

Who can be blamed - no one really. With automation (primarily) and globalization (which would have happened with or with tariff agreements), a reduction of manufacturing jobs was and is inevitable. Well, that isn't really true - we are all to blame because we all want to pay as little as possible for the products we use.

Hillary's problem was that Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are three states where ther have been heavy losses in manufacturing jobs, yet the inaccurate polls led everyone to believe those states were in the bag.

The people those states don't want offers of retraining for those who lost their jobs (themselves, family members, neighbors, friends, etc). They want those jobs back because they paid very well, especially for people who have only high school educations or less less. However, it isn't going to happen. And it isn't going to happen precisely because those jobs can done by machines or elsewhere for a lot less money. There are people on those states who are angry because they know those jobs are gone forever.

Apparently there were just enough angry people in the states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, to throw them and the general election into the Trump win column.

[Demsrule86]

1. One word...tariffs...we absolutely need those jobs back.

They can be done right here. Our country has fallen badly since the manufacturing loss...by greedy companies looking to make a buck and to be fair these companies should never have been forced to go head to head with the bowl of rice crowd...it is a race to the bottom...and I would be careful...all those smug white collar workers are now losing jobs overseas as well...call centers, bookkeeping, banking ...hubs accounting in his job is done overseas...it must stop...it enriches the few and starves average working people. You keep saying the jobs are not coming back, neither will the Democratic voters.

[ismnotwasm]

3. What is the "bowl of rice crowd"?

[CajunBlazer]

14. It's a slur that a progressive shouldn't use

[ismnotwasm]

30. I was afraid of that

One can always hope. I'm very disappointed

[CajunBlazer]

36. You are disappointed that I think you used a slur?

[radius777]

28. Xenophobia is at the heart of so-called "populism"

and protectionism, whether it comes from the left or right, which is why PoC/immigrants/metro areas (that are the base of the modern Dem party) have embraced the Clinton/Obama internationalist view of the world (which favors fair trade, i.e. centrist position on trade), and bristle at the idea of returning to the economic nationalist "populist" Dem party of FDR, which centered the white working class at the expense of everyone else on this planet.

[Blue Shoes]

5. Tariffs are bad. Subsidize Robots

Every economic study done has concluded that tariffs are a bad idea. Besides the age of mass employment from manufacturing is ending, machines are replacing them en mass. The only reason jobs go to China etc, is because they're cheaper then robots but it wont stay that way forever.

A long term sustainable solution is to promote automated factories here int he US and train unemployed workers to worked the more skilled technical jobs they require. Right now China is the biggest spender on manufacturing automation. Even they see the winds shifting.

https://www.ft.com/content/1dbd8c60-0cc6-11e6-ad80-67655613c2d6

[Squinch]

9. We manufacture more in the US now than we have ever done before. The problem is that

manufacturing jobs are robots' jobs. Tariffs won't change that, companies suddenly becoming altruistic won't change it, people calling others xenophobic names like the "bowl of rice crowd" aren't going to change it. It has nothing to do with whether white collar workers are smug or not.

If you can find a way to reverse the roll of technology, then you might do something to reverse the loss of manufacturing jobs. Otherwise, those jobs are lost and gone forever. This isn't a difficult concept.

[Garrett78]

10. Yep. I've posted before that US manufacturing is basically at an all-time high.

Mass automation means fewer people are needed. That's also why infrastructure development can't be thought of as a jobs program the way it was in the New Deal days. What once took dozens or even hundreds of workers now takes one person with a giant piece of equipment.

And even jobs that can't be done by robots aren't coming back unless we do away with labor standards, the minimum wage, etc.

As you say, this isn't a difficult concept. Coming up with solutions, though, is a challenge. Especially when "universal basic income" is off the table before the conversation even begins.

[Squinch]

12. People just aren't ready to hear what that means. It means either, as you say, making life a

living hell for workers, or going to a guaranteed living wage for all Americans paid for by actual corporate taxes and taxes on the wealthy who have garnered all the gains of all that manufacturing while cutting their contribution to the public weal. It means either going back to the low standard of living of the early industrial age (think children laboring so a family can survive, no safety net, general misery) or a switch to a much more socialistic structure.

I think it is going to take the misery of the first scenario for the second scenario to come about, and I don't think I'll live long enough to see the second scenario. (I'm 55 and plan to live to be a hundred.)

It makes me very sad. I see the horror that is coming, and I know that will be the tenor of my old age and last years.

[tammywammy]

19. I was listening to Marketplace last night

What took 25 people to product in 1980 takes 6.5 people now due to automation.

http://www.npr.org/podcasts/381444600/marketplace

I work in a manufacturing facility, it takes a lot less people to build our current product than it did previous products.

[Squinch]

20. Elon Musk has made some pretty smart statements about this. It is going to be the

driver of everything going forward, socially, politically, economically, everything.

It has already given us donald the crook because people simply refuse to see it and deal with it realistically. Hopefully we will change how we are handling it in the future.

[CajunBlazer]

13. Tarriff have very little to do with job lossses

Most of the manufacturing jobs have been lost to automation and that trend will accelerate. Those jobs are definitely not coming back though the plants may be still in the county. Less people are needed to supervise the machines and those jobs that are left require a higher level of training.

If you have ever bought one of two very similar products because it had a cheaper price (and I know that you have) you are one of the reasons why manufacturing jobs have gone to other countries. Yes, companies are selfish in that they want to make the most profits for their share holders (most of which are Americans like you and me and everyone else who has a 401K). But they are also in competitive business and they won't stay in business if their products are not significantly better or at least as inexpensive as their competitors. And the days when product made here are better than those made in other countries are gone.

I will give you a good example, I have near identical pocket knives - one is made by Case - that manufactures only in the US, and the other is made Rough Rider - a knife maker that moved its manufacturing operations to China many years ago. The two knives are made of identical steel and identical handle materials with identical durability and utility and they look exactly the same except for the logo shields on one side of their handles and the "made in ..." statement engraved in tiny letters on the base of the blades. I have shown those two knives to experts and without showing them logos and they cannot tell the two knives apart. The Rough Rider sells for about $15 to $20 bucks while the Case sells for about $45. The only reason Case is still in business is because the reputation the company earned long ago and because their knives are valued by collectors.

The transfer of jobs like call centers will stop only when the customers of the companies involve raise holy hell about not being able to understand the heavy accents of those employed in those overseas centers. I work for top 10 Dow company which has outsourced many technical jobs like programing to countries like India and Slovakia and I can tell you with great certainty that those jobs are not coming back unless and until there are strong indications that the people hired in those countries cannot do the jobs as well as people here and the verdict on that is still out on that one.

So you can climb on your high horse and scream to the world that "this has got to stop", but until you realize that it is people like you and me and our fellow Americans who are at the root of the problem, noting is going to change. In fact the job losses in this country in traditional fields is going to continue until it is as expensive to export jobs as it is to keep them here. We, collectively, are the problem when we buy stocks that perform well and when we seek to buy products at the best price.

Tariffs agreements are not the problem - if you think they are you have been listening to the wrong people - Trump and/or Sanders. For instance, the TPP specifically excludes China, and if it fails China is pushing its own pack which specifically excludes the United States. There are going to be trade agreements among the Pacific Rim countries involved -the only question is whether we take the lead in crafting those agreements so that our interests are protected or we let China take the lead. Foreign products are going to continue to enter the country because American consumers demand cheap prices. The important question is whether we will be able to continue to sell our products abroad.

You need to understand that we export a lot of products overseas and we need to protect our ability to continue to do so. For instance the US exported $133 Billion in farm products while we imported just $117 Billion in that category. We also export hundreds of billions of dollars of aircraft, automobiles, and technical equipment every year. Yea, we import a lot of cheap stuff from China, but we sell a lot of very expensive stuff to the rest of the world. American exports amounted to US$1.51 trillion during 2015. That amounts to $4,682 for every man, woman and child in the US. or $18,728 for every family of 4. That a lot of American jobs that President Obama was trying to protect then his administration negotiated TPP over the last six years.

There are going to be winners and losers in the American work force due globalization. Globalization cannot be stopped so it is what it is. There were a lot more angry losers in West Virginia because for economic and environmental reasons the use of coal as a fuel is becoming a thing of the past, but those losers didn't affect the results of the election. It just so happens that some angry losers just happened to make the difference in three critical states while a large majority of Americans supported Hillary Clinton.

[JCanete]

27. so you are for tariffs? No shit we need Tariffs. I bet trade agreements are way better though!

[ismnotwasm]

2. I don't see certain jobs "coming back" either.

As an analogy, There are a lot of rural Northwest Trump voters who are, or were, loggers still pissed off over the spotted owl ruling, and they've taught their rural children this same attitude.

[Wellstone ruled]

7. That story sure sprouted legs big time.

Who made money off that one? And you have to love the same crap about birds and Windmills. If that were true,why is Berkshire Hathaway investing billion in Windmills for Northwestern Iowa.

The reason the logging industry took a hit is,they were running out of prime timber and they could not compete with Japan and Canada.

[ismnotwasm]

11. Exactly!

My oldest daughter moved to the peninsula, and I was actually a little shocked to hear the bitterness about the Spotted Owl ruling from some over there

[Wellstone ruled]

15. Growing up in Northern Wisconsin

we heard ever excuse imaginable why the Mills were shutting down. It was because all the Prime Forests had been logged and the good timber was on the west coast,and that was 1949. Public Relations works wonders for those who scape goat the ignorant.

[Blanks]

34. I'm from the Pacific Northwest too...

I think the bulk of my high school friends who didn't leave, believe that Trump will bring those logging jobs back.

Of course, there is no explaining to them that the forests aren't really not logged because of the spotted owls.

Environmentalists can only fight to enforce the laws that are on the books. They don't really care about owls, they're trying to protect 'old growth forests'. If it weren't the owls, they'd find some other species that's endangered.

[ffr]

4. Want good paying union jobs. So they elect the union busting candidate?

Might as well shoot themselves in the foot while they take the rest of us down with them.

I don't buy this was the reason.

[CajunBlazer]

16. You mean you don't believe people are gullable enough....

...to believe the con-man's lies?

[ffr]

24. I know, right!

[LenaBaby61]

6. How do we KNOW for sure that the polls were wrong about those states ...

In the Mid-west?

I'll say and believe this forever, but I feel that this election was STOLEN from Hillary/Dems.

Also, for those folks who really DID vote for tRump who live in MI., PA., ad WI., they'll be getting an old, p***Y-grabbing, orange back hand across their chops right along with him dropping his pants and mooning them. Those great jobs from 50 years ago aren't coming back due to automation as you pointed out, plus those same folks, if they do find some type of job in in those 3 Rust Belt states--which more than likely become right-to-work states--then they'll be getting crappy to NO health insurance or they'll have to use Ryancare or voucher care, and neither amounts to a hill of beans in terms of health insurance.

[CajunBlazer]

18. And you my friend believe in a conspiracy theory...

... for which there is absolutely no proof.

[LenaBaby61]

22. Uh huh ...

And Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman in the JFK assassination too

[CajunBlazer]

35. Yep, based all that I have read, he was

Apparently you have fallen for many conspiracy theories. Do you know who else likes to believe in conspiracy theories? Those on the far right.

[LenaBaby61]

38. Apparently you have fallen for many conspiracy theories.

For me, there's too much credible evidence which shows that Oswald was not the lone assassin in the Kennedy murder.

Doctors at Parkland hospital attending to Kennedy confirmed that there was an entrance wound into Kennedy's throat. So assuming for one second that there was ONE assassin as you claim, how did Oswald's bullet from 6 floors up, and 200 plus feet away and from behind strike Pres. Kennedy in the front throat area? To buttress this, the Zapruder film shows Kennedy clutching the front part of his throat area. There were eyewitness accounts by officers and bystanders/ear witnesses at the scene who confirm that they heard shots coming from the Grassy Knoll and saw puffs of smoke coming from behind the wooden fence in that area as well, also, several Dallas police officers said that they actually saw bullets striking the curb as Pres. Kennedy's motorcade speed through the street and away from the direction of Oswald. Additionally, Secret Service and the FBI agents said that they saw Kennedy's throat area/head (back) hit, and Connally hit as well. Also, there was a parafine test which showed that there were no nitrates on Oswald's face or hands, and I believe that there should have been if he was the shooter. Evidence goes on and on and on.

And, that Warren Commission "investigation" stating unequivocally that Oswald was the lone assassin is/was laughable. In 1979, The House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) called what happened to Pres. Kennedy a probable conspiracy. There are thousands of what I feel are credible books that have done thorough and painstaking investigation/research into the Kennedy Assassination, and at the very least they've proven to me that Oswald, with long gone marksman skills, a rickety rifle, and 6 stories up in a book depository was the only person responsible for the death of the 35th President of the United States.

Hey, we'll agree to disagree on the Kennedy assassination.

[CajunBlazer]

39. No, most logical people don't fall for conspriricy theories

Ockham's razor: Proposition that assumptions should be reduced to their minimum. Thus, if two assumptions seem to be equally valid, the simpler one should be preferred. It is attributed to the English philosopher and monk William of Ockham (c.1285-1349) who expressed it as "Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity."

I find that many people who readily accept conspiracy theories are guided more by emotions than reason and are not ready to accept facts that they dislike.

I will agree to make one exception - I have found that some people who believe in alternate scenarios for the Kennedy assignation are not usually attracted by other conspiracy theories.

I will admit to the following; The House Select Committee on Assassinations came to the following conclusions:
- Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots at Kennedy.
- Scientific acoustical evidence establishes a high probability that at least two gunmen fired at the President. (Indicating that at least two people were involved.)

However believing Oswald was not involved is BS: I Happen to own a Carcano carbine - the same rifle which Oswald used. It is an older Italian bolt-action, magazine-fed weapon which can be highly accurate in the right hands. It is not "a rickety rifle" by any means. Oswald was rated "expert" with a rifle in his military days.

While I rated well with a Colt Combat Masterpiece pistol with which I was trained because I was an Air Force SAC officer on a bomber recovery team, I have had no training at all with a rifle. Yet one time when I was out deer hunting (by the way I have never killed a deer in my life), I did hit a squirrel in the head at 75 or 80 yard with that Carcano. I think that will attest to its accuracy.

In addition, I saw a demonstration on TV in where the conditions in Dallas were replicated on a test range complete with the 6 story shooting position and an open automobile moving at exactly the same speed as Kennedy's car. A shooter was able to put three shots on the head of a human target in less time that that used by Oswald. And by the way, a person using a hand gun normally will have powder residue on his hand after firing, but a person using a rifle, not so much, for obvious reasons.

[ffr]

25. Something doesn't seem right and I agree with you.

The one scary set of numbers though came from our election in Nevada and I think, if true, sets the mood for how I see the rust belt voter turnout.

I analyzed the NV presidential votes from 2012 & 2016. Hillary got roughly 9,000 more votes than Obama did in 2012 and won Nevada. So that looks in-line. A lot of democratic candidates up and down the ticket won. However, this increased number fell 60,000 votes short of new voter registration. So either a lot of Dems left the state or fewer total Dems voted for Dems or fewer dems overall voted.

The second disturbing trend, was how many more Rs voted for the totally unqualified Donald than they did for the far more qualified Romney. 50,000 more voted for Donald than they did Romney, which is much much higher than R new voter registration.

I don't recognize my country any more. This makes no sense to me whatsoever.

[RAFisher]

8. Honestly neither party has a solution. Automation will soon be taking over white collar jobs too.

What Trump did was just punt and ignore the massive problem ahead. So for the next few years it gets blamed on cheaper over seas labor. But soon machines and computers will be the cheapest form a labor. It won't matter if a lights out factory is built in Ohio or China. Who cares about the less than dozen QE jobs left? That's nothing compared to the 1k people that used to work there before automation took over. How many more decades until the entire Trucking industry is controlled by automation. Robots would be cheaper and safer than humans. Isn't Uber already testing driver-less cars in Pittsburgh?

There's a massive political and philosophical question that seemingly no one is talking about.

[CajunBlazer]

17. That's a problem for the future, and the future is closeer than we think

You are absolutely right, but the problem with that scenario is that if most of the people are out of work, no one will be able to buy the goods and services that the machines and robots provide. I have heard solutions proposed where business would be taxed heavily and everyone would be paid by the government even if they don't work, but that idea hardly seems sound.

In economics situations opposing forces have a tendency to arrive at an equilibrium point. I expect that someday in the not too distant future (maybe 50 to 100 years from now) machines and robots will still do much of the work while humans will get paid well for working far less a week with more time for leisure activities. That is if the machines don't gain sustenance and take over.

[radius777]

29. Post-scarcity, many things could become free/near-free,

Technology does that, as we see with computers and the internet, where almost everything we do online is free/near-free, because the cost of production and distribution is low.

We have to figure this out, but technology/automation is a good thing in the end, for workers, the environment, etc.

[joshcryer]

33. Obama touched on automation in his last STOU speech.

And he talked about basic income a few months ago.

The key is that the Republicans are the ones who aren't looking at it.

The Democrats are.

Trump's presidency delayed solutions for at least 4 years, probably 8 because of the bubble he's going to create.

[Exilednight]

21. It's a lot more complicated than you make it out to be.

Hillary's problem was that Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are three states where ther have been heavy losses in manufacturing jobs, yet the inaccurate polls led everyone to believe those states were in the bag.

The people those states don't want offers of retraining for those who lost their jobs (themselves, family members, neighbors, friends, etc). They want those jobs back because they paid very well, especially for people who have only high school educations or less less. However, it isn't going to happen. And it isn't going to happen precisely because those jobs can done by machines or elsewhere for a lot less money. There are people on those states who are angry because they know those jobs are gone forever.

Not that long ago it took an average of 25 people working in production to produce $1 million dollars worth of goods. Today that number averages out, after adjusting for inflation to 6 people to produce the same amount of goods.

[CajunBlazer]

23. I mentioned that replies most jobs were lost to automation ...

....so am fully aware of that. However, people like Trump and Sanders skip the automation job loses and blame it all on outsourcing because there is not a damn thing they can do about automation.

[JHan]

26. I'd like to know the difference, as well, between "outsourcing" a production line to automation ...

.. vis a vis outsourcing to foreign workers.

The debates need to delve deep into the policy positions/philosophy of candidates instead of focusing on performance ( i know, pipedream)

[CajunBlazer]

31. Yep, a pipedream

Candidates like Trump don't deal with facts, and certainly not facts that would undercut their messages. They target low information voters (and there are a lot of them out there) along with their true believer followers who will fall anything that comes out of their mouth plus party loyalists who will hold their nose and vote for anyone their party nominates to try to build a winning coalition in key states. As Trump has proved these types of people are not at all interested in facts.

[joshcryer]

32. Manufacturing is not coming back.

AI, automation, and cheap foreign goods will guarantee that. AI and automation need to be embraced, not shunned, and progressive policies like basic income need to be looked at and implemented.

Unfortunately this will not happen under a Trump presidency or the Republicans in general.

[CajunBlazer]

37. Agreed