Former Wall Street executive and auto bailout czar Steve Rattner wrote an editorial in the Sunday New York Times called The Myth Of Industrial Rebound. I'm a little puzzled because I don't expect to read phrases like "let's get real" from guys like Rattner, but I'll take it wherever I can get it.
WITH metronomic regularity, gauzy accounts extol the return of manufacturing jobs to the United States.
One day, it’s Master Lock bringing combination lock fabrication back to Milwaukee from China. Another, it’s Element Electronics commencing assembly of television sets — a function long gone from the United States — in a factory near Detroit.
Breathless headlines in recent months about a "new industrial revolution" and "the promise of a ‘Made in America’ era" suggest it’s a renaissance. This week, when President Obama gives his State of the Union address, he will most likely yet again stress his plans to strengthen our manufacturing base.
But we need to get real about the so-called renaissance, which has in reality been a trickle of jobs, often dependent on huge public subsidies. Most important, in order to compete with China and other low-wage countries, these new jobs offer less in health care, pension and benefits than industrial workers historically received.
Read Rattner's editorial if you want to read further deconstruction of this "manufacturing renaissance" bullshit.
There is of course some Good News in that second chart. All DOTE readers will be comforted and reassured by rising wages in Financial Services (not to mention the bloated but growing health care and college education industries).
One can only assume that the folks running investments for medical education establisments must be just rolling in the green.
We should all retrain and do that... now!
Posted by: Brian | 01/27/2014 at 02:13 PM