The dollar sank to a new low against the euro Wednesday on pessimism about the American economy and speculation that Washington will cut interest rates again.
The euro spiked to $1.4856 before retreating slightly to $1.4829 in afternoon European trading. It broke the $1.48 mark for the first time on Tuesday, when it settled at $1.4815 in late New York trading.
Time to start becoming a net exporting nation once again. Those ‘cheap’ foreign imports in the ‘big box’ stores are going to cost more.
This should encourage the labor-efficient manufacture of consumer products within the USA.
Let’s further automate our manufacturing plants and make the American man-hours put into American-made products diminish sharply. This is one way to counter the manufacturing sector’s head long rush to have what used to be “Made in America” made overseas.
We can make everything that China makes. Most of their productive capability comes from technology and entire manufacturing capabilities that we exported to China.
Further, to state the obvious, let’s start a major, Manhatten Project-size, national effort to sharply reduce the USA’s dependence on foreign imports. This must include serious development of all domestic energy resources available to us. Let’s discredit the opponents of reducing foreign energy dependence for what they are, nothing but a bunch of ‘issue-oriented’ political activists. These are people who are activists just for the sake of being involved in activism. Let’s expose them for what they ‘really are.’
Will this require me to buy only crappy GM and Ford autos?
Steven,
i drive a Honda that was 70% made in the usa. My wife’s toyota is 100% made in the USA.
Most Fords are made in Mexico now….
#1, I work in automation and you are so right. You can’t believe some of the things I see in American manufacturing plants, how inefficient and labor-intensive processes still are. I walked into a Maytag plant a couple of hours from here and knew their days were numbered…it was elbow-to-elbow people doing things machines should have been doing. Sure enough, it closed a year ago.
Our company is on a mission to correct that, but manufacturers are chasing low wages, not high tech. And that leaves a lot of US labor out of the picture.
Jeffersonian, how interesting. My husband is now “fixing factories” worldwide for a large company that also makes automation equipment. A few years ago he went ballistic when I chose a nice sofa table for our living room. They promised a 12-14 week delivery time for an item made in the USA. 12-14 weeks, for a stock table from a major line! He wrote a letter to the company CEO, pointing out that the Chinese could probably deliver the same, over the ocean, in far less time, and that if he didn’t want to lose his business, he’d better look at his manufacturing and supply processes and make some big changes. His opinion is that many US manufacturers could save US jobs through better engineering and better management.
I agree completely, Katherine. Unfortunately, so many American manufacturers have been looking for the easy way out by just picking up their antiquated, labor-intensive processes and depositing them in low-wage locales. This works for a while, but eventually wages rise based on the demand, competition increases productivity and the manufacturer is stuck again, this time with even older and less productive equipment.
A lot of companies are behind the 8-ball now, and they know it. It’s going to take a lot of investment to catch up but the alternative is going under.
Why should we expect American companies to employ American workers. As a stockholder, I desire profits. That’s the capitalist system.
We’ve decided, as a country, not to invest in the resources that make a country strong. We invest little in education or health care. instead lots of tax cuts. We deserve what we’re getting. We think we can have a strong country without paying for it. The fact is that liberty requires paying for it.
We reward people who are greedy (take a look at this month’s Fortune), while the poor become excess population. As one wag put it, we live in a country where there is capitalism for the poor, and socialism for the rich.