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Maybe It’s Time to Boost American Manufacturing

The trade deficit has just hit a 16 month high.  Despite the boost in exports, we are still importing more than we are shipping abroad.   Job cuts are predicted, and it is expe cted he economy may get worse.

Maybe it is time to think about manufacturing here again.  Perhap when we measure the true cost of goods and services we import, it would be cheaper in the long run, overall, to just make them here.   With the changing paradigm of the world economy it’s time to rerun the numbers and take another look at what we truly spend on imports.

We once made stuff.  Not just a few things.  We made a lot of stuff.  Our cars were among the best.   We made durable goods that were actually durable and didn’t fall apart.  Same for garments and other goods.  Our service was among the best in the world.   We were good at our game.

And then we started to believe we shouldn’t manufacture so much.  The lowly manufacturing should be left to the other, developing countries, as this was now a global economy.   We outsourced and imported.   We found where we could make it cheaper and had it made.  Quality control and the toxicity of the materials and chemicals used in the products made in China and elsewhere cased to be a large concern.

And now it’s coming back to bite us.   As the Congress explores loaning money to the auto manufacturers to make them competitive again, perhaps it is time to look at other industries as well.   We could go back to manufacturing shows and even textiles, hard goods.   With the knowledge we have, we can make them technologically viable and environmentally secure.   We could make product that would be better quality than a great many of our imports.

Perhaps it means modifying our consumer mentality.  Rather than buying a dozen cheap acrylic sweaters from China that fall apart with a couple of months, we buy instead a couple of good wool sweaters than could last for years.   We could again review the quality of what we buy and not just the quantity.   We can train domestic workers and cut down on the cost of energy and transportion by making it here and shipping it here, as well as abroad.

It’s an idea.  But may it’s an idea whose time has come.  Again.

By Gordon Basichis

Gordon Basichis is the Co-Founder of Corra Group, specializing in pre-employment background checks and corporate research. He has been a marketing and media executive and has worked in the entertainment industry, the financial, health care and technology sectors. He is the author of the best selling Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story, a non-fiction novel that helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century. He is the author of the Constant Travellers and has recently completed a new book, The Guys Who Spied for China, dealing with Chinese Espionage in the United States. He has been a journalist for several newspapers and is a screenwriter and producer.

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