Manufacturing's Ground Zero

[David Blanchard]

Detroit has long been a punchline-in-search-of-a-joke type of city, even for those like me who live in an equally cachet-challenged city like Cleveland. Even so, I was unprepared for the feeling of profound sadness I felt after reading this article by Richard McCormack. To get the full impact, you need to check out the Google Maps sites McCormack mentions in the article, and then do a few random searches on your own. It's truly nightmarish.

While the Twin Towers in New York were reduced to rubble by a foreign enemy, the wholesale destruction of Detroit can be attributed to an unending pattern of self-inflicted wounds. As McCormack says, "What a condemnation of America's political and corporate leadership and the economic policies of the past 40 years that remain in place to this very day."

Speaking of America's politicians, here's a quick snapshot analysis of the manufacturing jobs situation, compiled by Alan Tonelson, research fellow at the U.S. Business & Industry Educational Foundation. He refers to it as "crumbs from the Obama stimulus program":

* Number of U.S. jobs Obama administration claims were created or saved by the stimulus program: 640,000

* Number of U.S. manufacturing jobs Obama administration claims were created or saved by the stimulus program: 2,500

* U.S. manufacturing jobs as share of total U.S. jobs Obama administration claims were created or saved by stimulus program: 0.39%

* Number of total U.S. jobs lost during recession: 7.21 million

* Claimed stimulus-saved or -created jobs as share of total U.S. jobs lost during recession: 8.88%

* Number of total U.S. manufacturing jobs lost during recession: 2.06 million

* Claimed stimulus-saved or -created manufacturing jobs as share of total U.S. manufacturing jobs lost during recession:
0.12%

[Rog]

Hi David,

Your post begins with a link to a quite plausible proposal that the US manufacturing base has suffered untold, self inflicted damage over the last 40 years due to economic and industrial policy. You then go on to quote 'statistics' from only the last 10 months. Why?

If the current situation is the result of 40 years of mis-management what bearing does the last 10 months have on that? It has taken Ford many years to turn around their image for producing quality automobiles and even now would they would doubtless like to be much more financially successful. If it takes that long to do it with a car company how long will it it take with a diverse economy several orders of magnitude greater in size and complexity that has a habit of changing it's management team every 4 to 8 years?

Rog

[wesdavidson]

I read your post last week, it has kept me awake at night since then.

People ask why I don't worry about loss of land to development, maybe it because of what I have seen.

Before Detroit was built, before Ford's car was born, Nevada was in the middle of an economic boom. Railroads, mines, new cities, mining equipment firms, manufacturing.
There were half a hundred towns in Nye County alone. Over the next few decades the state built up. Metropolis, Rhyolite, Manhattan, Belmont, Large developed towns, Kelton, Terrace, Lucin, and Wells were thriving cities on the Central Pacific line.

Now those towns and cities are gone, with a thousand others, and the million or more that lived in them across the west. Many are not even marked by one stone left on another. some have a ruin or two. Wells is still partly there, a truck stop on I -80. an earthquake took most of the old town a couple years ago.

Pavement laid in the 60's is gone, concrete from the 40's crumbled. Bricks gone back to dust. Steel and iron rusted and swollen.

I used to heard cattle in Wyoming where towns had been, we knew that only because the maps said so. There were no traces left. We used to go jeeping in the Utah desert, the map would show a town, just a few shards of broken glass now.

[David Blanchard]

Originally Posted by Rog

If the current situation is the result of 40 years of mis-management what bearing does the last 10 months have on that?

Those that do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them. Otherwise, we'll be looking back in 40 years to 2009 and asking, "Why didn't we try to fix things when we had the chance?"