Can America compete in with the rest of the world in manufacturing? We must compete if we are going to grow our economy, and employ the unemployed, and the recipients of our “Entitlement” programs.
I worked for a while helping design a new state of the art carpet manufacturing plant. When the design work was done I was retained to assist in startup and de-bugging operations. While much of the actual work was automated a sizeable crew of workers was still required.
Some of the carpet was in the form of square pieces about three feet square. This plant had a robot that packed these pieces into boxes and sent them on to the shipping department. The robot required no breaks for snacks or cigarettes; it worked steadily 24 hours every day.
The employees were well paid and enjoyed their work. They were well trained in order to operate the automated machinery safely and efficiently. They did no piece work; everyone was a specialist who played a vital role in the operation of this plant.
The grunt work, the hundreds of mechanical operations required to convert the raw material of fibers and chemicals into carpet was done by those tireless machines.
In order to be profitable the company needed a profit margin between its operating cost and the selling price of their carpet. The expensive automation equipment provided sufficient productivity to enable that plant to compete with any plant in the world. Salaries were insignificant compared to the cost of the automation machinery.
The remaining obstacles to a profit were taxes, export/important duties, worldwide competition, and government regulations.
Both political parties are now talking about doing things to aid manufacturing. We have to decide who is serious, and who will say anything to get elected. The incumbent president is talking about reducing corporate and manufacturing taxes, but he has had three years to do that and it has just come to mind during an election year.
What needs to be done is to set a tax policy that allows American businesses to compete worldwide. We need to take a hard look at our regulatory structure and get rid of government regulations that hamper our ability to build new plants.
We must pin down all of the candidates for president and US congress and be sure they are committed to rebuilding America’s manufacturing base. Each of us must decide whether these individuals are really committed to working for the USA, or committed to getting elected at any cost.
We cannot afford to elect a candidate and just hope he or she will do the right thing. We must do our best to be sure the people we elect will put party agendas aside and work for the USA.
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