A New Vision for America - Part V - Challenges We Must Address

[cbayer]

My father's weekly column:

A few days ago I ran across the following startling national challenges:

· The United States has lost approximately 42,000 factories since 2001. Three quarters of these factories employed more than 500 persons when they were in operation.

· We have lost over six million jobs to overseas producers in the last ten years, and 32 percent of our manufacturing jobs since 2000.

· Dell, America’s largest computer company, has closed its last significant manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem. Nine hundred jobs were lost. The company is investing $100 billion in China during this decade.

· In 2008 1.2 billion cell phones were sold worldwide. Zero were manufactured in the United States.

· In 1959 manufacturing represented 28 percent of the US economic output. In 2008 it represented 11.56 percent.

· By the end of 2009 less than 12 million American workers were employed in manufacturing--the lowest figure since 1941.

· In 2001 the United States ranked fourth in per capita broadband internet use. Today we rank 15th.

· Manufacturing employment in the US computer industry is lower than it was in 1975.

· Asian workers produce over 84 percent of all printed circuit boards used in thousands of products.

· The United States spends almost 4 dollars for Chinese goods for every one the Chinese spend for goods from the United States.

· Forty-five million Americans are living in poverty. This is the highest figure in the 50 years that such date has been collected.

There is much more, but you get the idea. None of this comes as news to anyone following what has been happening. Among the dire results is a published unemployment rate at 9 percent, and a real rate well over 12 percent when you factor in those who have given up trying to find jobs. It gets even higher when you consider the underemployed and the part-time workers. Anyone who thinks these jobs will be coming back is harboring an illusion. Dell is not about to return its plants to the United States, nor are other corporations. We’d better get it. These jobs are not returning when the economy loosens up. They are gone!

This does not mean there is no money to be made. The stock market continues its upward trajectory. Companies are reporting solid profits—particularly the big investment banks. Corporations are flush with cash. They are not waiting around until Washington assures them that tax policies will move in their direction. Wall Street produces more billionaires every year, while the rest of us sit shattered and depressed by a dismal housing market, a manufacturing base in free fall and an employment disaster that does not promise to improve any time soon.

It is not in big money’s anti-government interest to see that things change, and since big money controls what goes on in Congress, government is at a standstill. But perhaps government is the only force that can address the problems. The President talks of investing in the future through education, technology, R&D and newly designed energy systems. But the Republicans call what he terms “investment” just more spending, and shoot it down.

When America has been at its best it was encouraged by seeing what industries and jobs were coming on line, not those already on the downhill slope. We found oil, and through joint ventures between private industry and government, land was made available for exploration and subsidies awarded this new industry. We discovered electricity and wired the entire continent, from the Tennessee Valley to the most remote farmhouse—all through joint efforts between government and the private sector. Privately funded railroads were paid federal grants for every mile of tracks laid. The federal highway system is exactly that—federal.

It is now essential that government and private ventures engage in new forms of cooperative planning. The government must fund the research and help the new capitalist enterprises get established. The private sector must generate the jobs.

The miracles of the recent decades have produced television, computers, the internet and all that goes with them. We might have had the original ideas but we have stood aside and let China, Korea, Germany, Brazil and others cash in, because we seem increasingly hesitant to let government be involved. Business has, on its own, dumped most of these jobs overseas. It might have been good for the quarterly profit and loss statement, but it’s been bad for America.

What are the industries and the jobs on the horizon? My guess is they include ways to save the environment, new non-fossil sources of energy and new ways to employ them, new modes of transportation, bio-research ushering in a whole new way to live more creatively. And much more. What will it take for us to move aggressively into these areas? That’s for next week.

Charles Bayer

Charles Bayer is a somewhat retired theological professor and congregational pastor. He and his wife live at Pilgrim Place in Claremont, Calif., where he is still involved in writing a newspaper column and a variety of other jobs, boards and activities.

More articles at:

http://www.seniorcorrespondent.com/articles/2011/03/09/a-new-vision-for-america-part-v-challenges-we-must-address.170342