to Roy Wilson 336103 - Where were you in 2007 and 2008 when Bush was president and gas was up to $5.00 a gallon???

The decline in manufacturing jobs started 20 years ago. At first, we didn't even notice-it was the 1990's and computer guys in their mom's garage were becoming millionaires overnight. Then it was the housing boom-who needs manufacturing when we can build houses? All the while, jobs were being shipped overseas to China. Now that everything came crashing down, we are left with a hollowed out economy. Want to fix manufacturing-fair trade, not free trade. Simple.

Amazing that Aplle is lauded as the great American success story while having so much of the products made with cheap labor in other countries, It's not like these Apple products are inexpensive as a result of cheaper parts and labor!

How can Germany and Japan continually be the world's biggest manufacturing exporters? Granted, having the USA foot the bill for their defense helps, but there has to be more to it.

We should emulate them, even if it means restricting imports - like Japan and S Korea do. While we're at it - start charging this bunch for their protection. A broke economic has-been shouldn't be footing the bill for our biggest lenders.

Most new 'Manufacturing jobs' being added in America today are really 'Assembly jobs' where they take the foreign made parts and put them together. Minimum wage or piece count are normal and land people at or below the poverty line.

Just look at the ever declining domestic content of cars that are assembled in America. 5 years ago the F150 was 90% domestic, now its 65%.

Manufacturing took a nose dive since 2000. i wonder why?

You want manufacturing jobs back you have to start with economic profit all sectors of the economy..people need real big money in their pockets to buy goods.... That means transition to natural gas and using government subsidies to retrofit services stations- 100 billion will do it--peanuts. We would have jobs over half of this country and get us off foreign oil by about 50 - 70%.The us has a 100 year plus supply..... Obama can tell the car companies to start building and give them a credit. Build another 20 nuclear plants with private money and subsidize 5-6 nuclear waste reprocessing plants and clean up the waste on half the country. have an independant ecnomist group go over china's currency manipulation as well as other countries and basically install tariffs. For health care --- Get rid of obama care, privatatize medical schools and quintuple the providers. Shut down 1/2 half the hospitals so that surgery is centralized, Tax the internet, figure out the fraud in the housing market and write checks directly to homeowners that were affected by the market fluctations --- fannie and freddie can pay it off in profits the next 100 years.This stablizes that market. Kick out the illegals---10 million more jobs...send them all home on buses if you have to. Just some ideas. nothing will ever happen though because we idiots in the white house and a lot of folks that just are very small thinkers that run this nation ..too bad..

You cant put tariffs on imported goods. the smoot-hartley act did just that and probably caused the start of the depression in the 1930's. When a 30% tariff was enacted on all goods imported into the US, canada japan, england and all other countries followed suit, which caused an immediate stop of international trade.

decades ago to have this great world economy nafta was enacted to have free trade between countries. what happened was that business realized that it was cheaper to pay a vietnamese or mexican cheap money so they could make more. Thing was the products that were produced in america when taken overseas the prices did not reduce in cost. Jeans still cost $20. It just cost $4 to make them instead of $10.

One example is Alabama. In the last 20 or so years alabama has lost 100,000 manufacturing jobs. Now otoh, Alabama made a sweet deal to Honda and Mercedes to build a car manufacturing plant there. NO TAXES FOR 20 YEARS. And the interesting point is that the people that started working there will receive pensions from Honda and Mercedes, except for one small part. If Honda say gets up to the point of having to pay pensions and closes the plant then no pensions for those workers.

So why cant alabama make the same sweet deals to american companies to bring back their manufacturing plants? Cant answer that question.

The state cant fix it and the govt cant fix it.

Lesson in business 1. In the past a person would start a business and work it themselves. Then when business improved they would hire workers. It was called american inginuity.

So if say for instance doors for houses. solid core, hollow core, which are made in china now, why cant a carpenter or someone with the experience and knowhow start a business making doors and sell them to say lowes and home depot. There is probably room for profit as even thought the doors are made with cheap labor they still have to be shipped from china which adds to the expense. So someone could start a business making doors. And windows, and clothing, and shoes and take back the business from china. Thats how to beat the jobs leaving make companies that hire americans here and use materials made here. If some entrepreneur person would do that we could get jobs.

Sorry but the govt does not make jobs. But we could. So why dont we?

"By the way, the price for a gallon of gasoline when Obama took office was $1.84, and it is now $3.40, an increase of $1.56 per gallon (85%)."

Really? What part of the world do you live? I remember the Summer and Fall of 2008 when we were paying around $4 a gallon, even though there was an abundance of gasoline sitting in the refineries.

'We the People' no longer are in charge of the government, it's the multi-national corporations, Wall Street, the Fed and our foregn policy is being dictated by Apartheid Israel.

Republican or Democrat, there's really no difference, we've just been brainwashed into thinking there is one.

As for your statement that "America has more fossil fuel reserves than any other nation on Earth," that includes coal, which is a very toxic way of producing power and shale oil, which takes an enormous amount of water and harsh chemicals to break free the oil bound to the shale. And let's not leave out 'fracking,' a process that extracts NG by injecting toxic chemicals and again, drinking water into the ground, which eventually works its way down to aquifers, where many get their drinking water.

We need to be more energy efficient, giving tax breaks for people installing solar cells and wind turbines and slowly wean ourselves away from driving SUV's big as a tank.

Interesting how when Shrubby was POTUS... it was ALL his fault.... now... from many postings.... Nothing is Mr. Obama's fault. High Oil and Gas prices was Bush's fault when it spiked.... but now that gas is almost double.... we hear that the POTUS simply doesn't have any control over it. As manufacturing was dropping (the article said 2007) it was Bush's fault... now... Mr. Obama doesn't have control over those things.....

OK LIBS.... DOES or DOES NOT the President of the US have control over the economy? Careful how you answer..... think long and hard....... is it the President's fault or not? If Mr. Obama isn't to blame because he doesn't have control it.... so how come it is Bush's fault. He was just the President too....or was he far more powerful, smarter (doubtful) or maybe "magical" that his influence was super strong and destroyed things. Dems had control over Congress his last two years. Dems controled Congress for the first two years of this "Administration."

I'm not saying that there is no blame... Shrubby was no prize... but no matter what you say.. no matter what happens.... this Idiot in Chief is the boss. He needs to take posession of the problems and find solutions... not point fingers and lecture us on sacrifice. When I see him flying around and his wife on a separate plane to the same place... when I see him playing more golf than Arnold Palmer..... it's hard to take him any more serious than those before him.

I guess that I was fortunate to be able to retire with a decent income, even though I had to fight for it.

In the 70's, I saw things happening in manufacturing that told me to get out. I ended up going to work in an aerospace companies engineering lab. Carter killed the production, and ended that effort. A friend offered me a good position within the same company on a different project located in Germany. Suffice to say, I took it. Some years later, I was transferred (my choice, due to tax law changes) back to a related project in the US. Eventually, I started working various contracts providing classified and unclassified technical services to the government side of the aerospace industry.

That is a far cry from what is available today to those my son's age, and those returning from military service. My son is working in a highly technical job, with no benefits, and on a part time basis, since there are no comparable full time jobs in the area.

One of several reasons I was successful in my career was simply that as a result of military service, I held a clearance, and this helped insulate my field from the competition of foreign workers. As a result, the recessions that occurred in past decades may have reduced raises, but they did not result in job loss.

The root problems are unsustainable high levels of USA Federal debt, historical low savings rates and an American society that continues to march toward expanding socialism. No socialist society has ever achieved sustained improvement in the peoples lives. USA has become a socialist society and with it the ever demanding requests of its citizens for more programs from the government. So let's all set back and enjoy the ride until we collapse.

Must impose taraffs on all imports of 65%, then factories will reopen and foreign trade will almost stop! China out--USA in! That must be done and now. 2nd--dissolve the IRS and EPA! Not needed at all. Tax any salary over $200,000 at 40% no deductions, lower salaries no tax. That is the fix Congress and impeech or impale obama. I do not care but get this idiot OUT!

Obviously the Author did not read the rest of the story nor coordinate with her fellow Journalists before she wrote this piece of fiction.....

With UNSOLD goods piling up in Warehouses, as stated in story next to this one, one the same page,,Manufacturing jobs are going to hit bottom again..

No use wasting money stockpiling goods that the Demoncrats are going to punish you for and the Company for with an Inventory Tax on unsold goods. So again the hardworking taxpayers are going to be the ones suffering from the Demoncrat incompetence and Job killing policies...

Republicans blocked any chance of keeping jobs in the USA, for the last 30 to 40 years, up to the recent past when Nancy Pelosi, when Speaker, tried to give American businessess tax incentives to bring jobs back to the USA. Repubs call this "isolationism" while we all know they mean "free market means unregulated capitalism which means profits before people" which is very UN - "We the People"

For once, I'm going to be serious in this post. I admit most of mine are not from the heart, but this one is.

I have a 4yo granddaughter. She says to me she wants to be a cop when she grows up.

I'm like "great we need those in the future". But the future appears to be changing very rapidly. With the states cash strapped and cutting cops, teachers, and firemen trying to stave off bankruptcy, now I'm not sure her career choice would be so good for her.

I'm wondering if her choice should be swayed toward the financials sector. Seems thats about the only thing we manufacture in America anymore. Money making money; not widgets & wingnuts.

Sure, I know there are still things manufactured here now, but what will their status be when she joins the workforce around 2030-2034? Will America make anything other than money off of money?

I worry for her future.

Stop all immigration. All of it.

Just that would be huge. In Colorado they are constantly raiding plants and hauling out the illegals and just come back. Wages are in the 8 buck an hour raise.

Graph is misleading: two scale lengths for total non-farm jobs vs. manufacturing, PLUS non-farm jobs start a 0, while manufacturing starts at 10 Million. With variations, manufacturing stayed around 18 million until yr 2000, whereby it dropped to around 12 million over the next decade. "Comeback" looks like a fluctuation that is not statistically significant. That is a loss of about 1 manufacturing job out of every 3. Non-farm employment has grown fairly steadily since 1960 until 2000, rising from 50 million to around 140 million, and continued moderately steady at around 140 million from 2000 to 2011. In 1960, the fraction in manufacture was 36%. In yr 2000, it was around 12%. THAT drop was due primarily to the growth of non-manufacturing employment, not yet by then due to loss of manufacturing. Since then, the total employment was stagnant, with loss in manufacturing, resulting in a drop to 8.6% of total non-farm employment.

The real breaking point appears to be at yr 2000. There is very little sign of the housing bubble, except for the relatively small shift in overall non-farm employment. Instead, the big break occurs where the .com bubble burst. It seems it wasn't just .coms, but reflected a real break in how the economy worked. Greenspan lowered interest rates, and the real estate market seems to have been the only really strongly responding market. It, the associated self consumption of assumption of large debt loads since service charges on debt looked low enough, underlay much of the other economic activity. Things were starting to saturate when people couldn't take on much more debt, at which point the speculative market went to energy/oil. That sucked up any remaining disposable income, and job losses followed in remarkably short order. It didn't take long before the assets banks and investment houses were holding in the form of mortgage debt were based on robosigned vapor.

Meantime, while people felt like they were rich with all this cash around (even Kona coffee was looking cheap), we were loosing a real lynchpin of the American dream: manufacturing was off-shoring anything having to do with labor to places without the load of rapidly increasing health-care and retirement benefits, not to mention relatively higher take-home payroll. Seems nobody really wanted to pay attention - it would be like someone spoiling the party.

The world is flat. To be competitive, you have to source to the most productive location in the world today which for labor generally is NOT going to be the United States. US also is terribly behind in developing sophisticated supply chains; most companies still operate as individual entities here, not collaboratively.

Amost everyone has facts to barf out but very few can prove what they are saying is true by supporting it with a reliable sources and ways so others can find out for themselves.

How about a 36 hour workweek as promoted by me, and thousands of others, since the early '70's, that frees up space for 4 hours a day for several million workers, like they do in France and Germany, and adds to about a week of holidays for workers who can then find time to explore the universe, go to Disney World, and actuatually enjoy the freedoms we all thought we had ( and spend money which ecomomy is all about). Freedom from working to support the 1/0 percent, who benefit from a good economy, is ultimately what it's all about, since we are there for them, but not to provide for them. I think Occupy was all about: we are here for you...are you here for us , or just the stock market? Let's make use of unoccupied office space and municipal and government building space, already paid for, and for a seperate set of file cabinets, run two or maybe even three shifts a day in the facilities we already have and PRODUCE. At the end of the day if you don't USE what you have, you lose it, everyday.

Sad to say, but Americans have little to say about about world situations. Stop sending your "twits" and your useless " blogs" These are not the solution to the problem. Focus more on who you elected; get them to make your problems known, and then shut up. You as an individual, in the states, or otherwise, can't even make a yellow mark in a snow pile. Shut up and then, maybe vote, with money(buy some stock) or get out of the way. Vote with your shares, because, your vote is only as good, as your use to the general country at large, as a taxpayer...no more no less. I guess we need more immigration taxpayers to support the lifestyle, to which we have been accustomed. " Bring your rich, bring your untrodden, bring your money" has been the backbone of America.

Man dominating man to his injury. Critical times hard to deal with, will be here.

Too little too late is right! Who is going to man these manufacturing plants? Find me a "Skilled Worker" and I'll show you someone that will retire in less than 10 years!

We need to start NOW!!!!!!!! in training the next generation on how to work! I'm not talking on flippin burgers at McD. I'm talking about taking a concept from an Engineer and turn it into a real product! About going home dirty every day, scrubbing dirt from under your fingernails, working until your damn tired, and even if you hurt and are tired you do it again tomorrow, having a work ethic, being proud about what you did, what your part of, that what you did will make life better for your grand children!

I make a 6 figure income as a tool maker, and I want someone to take my job when I retire in 7 years, Hell, I'll retire right now if someone wants my job and was qualified!

Try finding a good paying job after 55, I'm 61 with a new one year technical degree in package & label flexographic printing. The only job I can find is busting my but at $7.25 per hour.