Interacting with busy manufacturing workers-Political

[Spock]

I wonder how much interaction SSS and the Bobs have with actual manufacturing workers. Manufacturing workers are busier than a one-armed paperhanger and crediting President Trump with it.

We have a guy that worked full-time for us on the farm from 1991-1997 and then went to work for a manufacturer. He still helps us out on weekends and evenings and they are extremely busy at work.

Per him, the entire manufacturing complex is really humming as he sees from supply chains and future orders and so forth. The credit is going to President Trump.

I remember that a major SSS theme is that manufacturing jobs are gone forever and why even bother trying to rebuild and encourage that sector.

FTR-It is kind of odd given the relatively low population here, but within 40 miles of my house, there is a world-class manufacturing segment. Among many other things, there is the "Silicon Valley" of the packaging industry, and that is not just hyperbole.

[jarnon]

The Obama administration made progress in this area compared to its predecessor, and I’m pleased it’s continuing. (As with other issues like defeating Daesh, I don’t hope Trump fails so the Democrats look better.) I wish Congress would pass infrastructure funding. You’d think it would get wide bipartisan support.

[silverscreenselect]

Here's what is probably as close to an impartial discussion from Bloomberg on the growth of manufacturing jobs under Trump as we're likely to find. After the recession bottomed out in the early months of the Obama administration, manufacturing jobs started coming back as did almost every other sector, but the growth had essentially flatlined in the last two years of the Obama presidency. It has picked up again under Trump, and this article discusses some of the reasons, as well as the specific sectors in which manufacturing has picked up.

These are primarily food and beverage products, plastics, and oil/gas equipment machinery. Sectors like the auto industry are not included.

What's changed? Here's a quick list:

As already mentioned, the domestic oil and gas industry is back to growing, after a brief swoon.

The rest of the global economy, especially Europe, is much stronger than it was two years ago.

The dollar has been weakening, making American-made products cheaper abroad.

Business taxes in the U.S. just got cut, by a lot.

Congressional Republicans have stopped caring about the budget deficit.

There's some guy in the White House now who talks about manufacturing a lot.

The role of President Donald Trump in all this is something of a contentious topic. He did sign the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law, which if Hillary Clinton had been elected would not have happened. I tend to think the tax act will have lots of not-so-great medium-to-long-term consequences, but it would be churlish to deny it any credit for what's happening in manufacturing now. Also, with a Republican in the White House, congressional Republicans have generally stopped trying to slow down growth with debt-ceiling brinkmanship and budget cuts.


As for the president's tough talk, and some tough action, on tariffs and trade agreements, I think it's just as likely to hurt manufacturing in the U.S. as help it. Consider the manufacturing sector that saw the biggest jobs gain over the past 12 months, fabricated metal products. Those companies are consumers of the steel and aluminum that the president is about to make more expensive. Also, if the U.S. really has just become the most competitive manufacturing location on Earth, is this really the time to start a trade war likely to raise barriers to U.S. exports around the world?

One thing President Trump has done, though, is make clear that manufacturing jobs matter a lot to him, and that he thinks the U.S. economy can produce lots more of them. In terms of concrete actions to aid manufacturing, I'm pretty sure Barack Obama did more than Trump has so far, 5 but Obama was also a guy who went around saying (true) things like "some of those jobs of the past are just not going to come back." Sometimes a cheerleader, even one who doesn't fully understand the game he's watching, can do wonders for team spirit -- or animal spirits.

Trump is always very good at running victory laps and claiming credit for anything that goes right under his administration while denying responsibility for anything that goes wrong, and, as the article points out, one of the things that has improved is a Republican Congress changing its tune about budget deficits under a Republican president. But it's fair to say he does deserve some credit for the improvement although not as much as his backers would claim, and, considering where the jobs haven't returned, it may not help him that much among those workers who swung to him in 2016.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles ... tough-talk

[mrkelley23]

I wonder how much interaction SSS and the Bobs have with actual manufacturing workers. Manufacturing workers are busier than a one-armed paperhanger and crediting President Trump with it.

We have a guy that worked full-time for us on the farm from 1991-1997 and then went to work for a manufacturer. He still helps us out on weekends and evenings and they are extremely busy at work.

Per him, the entire manufacturing complex is really humming as he sees from supply chains and future orders and so forth. The credit is going to President Trump.

I remember that a major SSS theme is that manufacturing jobs are gone forever and why even bother trying to rebuild and encourage that sector.

FTR-It is kind of odd given the relatively low population here, but within 40 miles of my house, there is a world-class manufacturing segment. Among many other things, there is the "Silicon Valley" of the packaging industry, and that is not just hyperbole.

One thing that doesn't get discussed much on this topic is the regionality of growth. Because of where you are, Spock, you are much more likely to perceive the manufacturing sector as healthy. Proximity to the Bakken has made lots of jobs pop up in secondary markets. In the Rust Belt, manufacturing progress is much slower, and often non-existent. And now the farmers (grain farmers, around here) are in the beginning stages of panic about tariffs. They're not panicking yet, because they're smart enough to realize the difference between talk and action, but they are on high alert, as it were. Many of them are having to hedge their bets on what to plant this year, and they're not happy.

[Bob Juch]

I wonder how much interaction SSS and the Bobs have with actual manufacturing workers. Manufacturing workers are busier than a one-armed paperhanger and crediting President Trump with it.

We have a guy that worked full-time for us on the farm from 1991-1997 and then went to work for a manufacturer. He still helps us out on weekends and evenings and they are extremely busy at work.

Per him, the entire manufacturing complex is really humming as he sees from supply chains and future orders and so forth. The credit is going to President Trump.

I remember that a major SSS theme is that manufacturing jobs are gone forever and why even bother trying to rebuild and encourage that sector.

FTR-It is kind of odd given the relatively low population here, but within 40 miles of my house, there is a world-class manufacturing segment. Among many other things, there is the "Silicon Valley" of the packaging industry, and that is not just hyperbole.

Ask a former Carrier worker.

[BackInTex]

Ask a former Carrier worker.

There are always pluses and minuses. More pluses since Trump has been in office.

[silverscreenselect]

Ask a former Carrier worker.

There are always pluses and minuses. More pluses since Trump has been in office.

That is debatable, especially when many of the "pluses" were things continuing on the same trend as they had been the last number of months under Obama.

[BackInTex]

Ask a former Carrier worker.

There are always pluses and minuses. More pluses since Trump has been in office.

That is debatable, especially when many of the "pluses" were things continuing on the same trend as they had been the last number of months under Obama.

The stock market would disagree with you.

[silverscreenselect]

There are always pluses and minuses. More pluses since Trump has been in office.

That is debatable, especially when many of the "pluses" were things continuing on the same trend as they had been the last number of months under Obama.

The stock market would disagree with you.

The 2017 stock market or the 2018 stock market?

[BackInTex]

That is debatable, especially when many of the "pluses" were things continuing on the same trend as they had been the last number of months under Obama.

The stock market would disagree with you.

The 2017 stock market or the 2018 stock market?

The Trump stock market.

[Bob Juch]

The stock market would disagree with you.

The 2017 stock market or the 2018 stock market?

The Trump stock market.

Do you mean the one that's going down?

[BackInTex]

The Trump stock market.

Do you mean the one that's going down?

Quit looking at the end of your nose.