As far as I can tell, it’s more anti-union bullsh*t.

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.c…..most-gone/

Great Comment. I wish I heard more people talking about the “Hyper-Outsourcing” of not just Manufacturing Jobs, but All types of Jobs that left the US in the last 10 years.

And the entire supply line only needs one or two production disruptions to punctuate the point.

Maybe somebody didn’t want gas prices to go any higher and compel the torches and pitchforks to be brought to bear before January 20?

Gasoline prices aren’t going higher for reasons that are beyond the control of the Saudis. Speculative money has dried up and the worldwide recession is decreasing demand relative to supply. Oil producers are in a classic bind. They need to pump as much as they can to keep the cash flows on which their economies depend going but doing so at this point further depresses prices.

With the coming Depression, there are going to be fewer cars sold no matter what. There’s nothing that can be done about it. It would be nice if Detroit could get into the tram business, which has a future if the government decides to subsideize urban transit systems. Schmidt is analytically right, but heartless or at best thoughtless. The people losing their jobs need something more than a hand-out. They need new jobs, which don’t grow on trees.

China manufactures components for weapons the U.S. uses to blow up things and kill people. The main U.S. exports are hubris and death.

Manufacturing is a web of activities. It is actually making a product, of course. It is also the design of that manufacturing process, its machines, software, people, and how they work together to turn materials into products people can and will buy. It encompasses continuing modifications to that system, constant tweaking of product and component materials and design. That, then, involves sourcing and cost information, which leads to distribution and marketing.

The most successful manufacturers, including Japanese car companies, understand how interrelated such things are. Cut out manufacturing from a company’s skill set, and you completely alter business ecology. Outsource it poorly and you alter it more completely and irreversibly. For those not having the Wal-Mart’s sumo wrestler’s leverage, that can be fatal to productivity and profitability.

The US economy is outsourcing manufacturing in a mad, lemming-like rush to outsource apparent cost, damn the consequences. It is outsourcing much of it to China: its prime supplier, its prime creditor, its prime economic competitor, its budding military competitor. That will permanently alter, lower, our leverage, our ability to compete and to sustain our standard of living. Except, that is, for Globatrons like Schmitt. He doesn’t need a country, he fantasizes, only a place to put his money.