Reply #113: re: "We don't make anything anymore"

[SoCalDem]

Not only did we "close" factories, we DISMANTLED them and sent the parts & pieces overseas...or we just razed the empty buildings and paved the space for "mall parking"..

All we need to do is to look back, to see where we went wrong.

The major industries of America were built with cheap imported labor (German, Irish, Chinese, Italian,etc). The plants/factories were "top of the line" cutting edge WHEN THEY WERE BUILT...but after WWII we switched tracks. We did not want "foreigners" coming in anymore./ Our businessmen decided that upgrading and modernizing would take a back seat to PROFIT-making.

Add to that, the fact that we rebuilt Europe and Japan with truly modern facilities that were 50 years newer than our own. We encouraged "labor-saving" here at home, and opened the floodgates to the cheaper goods from our former enemies. turned trading partners.

Once that happened, we were destined to never again be self-sufficient,Job providers.

Look at the rhetoric from that era.. It was all about "saving time", saving steps", "working smarter,easier".. The "lucky ones" (the older factory workers of that era) at least had retirement plans and pensions, so that when their industries phased out, they could still live decently.

That is no longer the way things are. People bounce from job to job, not because they WANT to, but because they HAVE to. When people cannot afford to buy more than plastic Walmart junk, they are not even really consumers anymore. They are just subsistence customers, spending all their available income to "just get by". There is no future for this kind of economy..