Obama Advisor in Danville: Traditional Manufacturing is “A Thing of the Past”…Except, It Isn’t
By Jason Johnson | Friday, January 27th, 2012 | Economics, Politics, SouthsideYesterday, Dr. John Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, was in Danville to tour the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research (IALR). A research center with ties to multiple universities, IALR seeks to be a “catalyst for economic and community transformation” through its work in such varied fields as motorsports engineering, robotics and horticulture.
Dr. Holdren was impressed by the IALR and said that he would tell President Obama about it when he returns to Washington. What Dr. Holdren told assembled guests at IALR was perhaps more interesting. Speaking of the changing nature of American manufacturing, Dr. Holdren told assembled guests that traditional manufacturing is “a thing of the past.” He reaffirmed President Obama’s stance that the future of manufacturing is in emerging technologies–some of which could be discovered by technicians at the IALR. According to Roanoke NBC-affiliate WSLS: “Holdren added that America has never been good at competing for the cheapest jobs, ‘and we don’t want to be.’”
Dr. Holdren has a point: many of the jobs that were outsourced throughout the 1990s and 2000s will not come back and entrepreneurs are right to view emerging technologies as the “frontier” of manufacturing, yet there are also two problems with his statement. One, like President Obama’s decision to ax the Keystone Pipeline project, when nearly nine percent of Americans are unemployed, saying that we don’t want to compete for jobs–even if there aren’t many jobs or great jobs–is incredibly tone-deaf, especially when speaking in a city with one of Virginia’s highest unemployment rates.
Second, it’s not entirely true. At the same time that Dr. Holdren was touring IALR, not far away in Galax, officials at the Vaughn-Bassett Furniture Company were announcing that the company will embark on an $8 million expansion that will ultimately create 115 jobs.
”You can’t compete with China and Vietnam and Malaysia unless you have the finest equipment money can buy and the best employees in the world,” [John Bassett] said to roaring applause.
Meanwhile
…In Henry County, the birthplace of Virginia furniture making, Hooker Furniture Vice President Art Raymond said he’s more optimistic than he’s been in a decade about the return of manufacturing to America, in light of China’s shift toward manufacturing higher-tech products and higher wages, along with its growing consumer class.
One factor contributing to the Southside’s chronically high unemployment rate was the failure to diversify the region’s economy when the times were good. Limiting ourselves to emerging technologies, exclusively, and saying that we won’t compete for traditional manufacturing jobs seems just as shortsighted today.
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A lifelong political junkie, Jason caught the political bug as a fifth grader after meeting George Allen in 1993. Since then he has studied political science at both the undergraduate and graduate level. When not perusing the blogs or volunteering for conservative Republicans, Jason enjoys cheering on his beloved Virginia Tech Hokies and spending time at his Bedford County home.
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10 Responses to "Obama Advisor in Danville: Traditional Manufacturing is “A Thing of the Past”…Except, It Isn’t"
Is it really such a bad thing that we have fewer manufacturing jobs today than we did three decades ago?
After all, nobody complains about the 100 million farming jobs that have disappeared in the last 100 years. I don’t hear any calls for reinvigorating agricultural employment and replacing all those “lost” jobs.
Just as in agriculture, the major reason manufacturing jobs have diminished is economic efficiency. It’s more efficient to mechanize, robotize, and outsource than it is to pay for humans to do outmoded jobs in a 21st century American economy.
Fantastic post!
And then, wow RS takes a potshot at US agriculture, which is not only a huge employer, but big net exporter, helping to hold down the US trade deficit and reducing the need for foreign lending to support Obama’s colossal debt regime. You know, I have actually worked many of the jobs that RS and the elites in the Obama adminstration hate, on the way to, and in support of becoming a pointy-headed intellectual professional employed in high wage positions in line with their elite views. If it had not been for the job opportunity stepping stones that Barack Obama and his know-it-all pals hate, which provided a path up from the bottom quintile to the top quintile, in this supposedly impossible to advance income mobility society, there is no way I could have been where I am. It is nothing less than astounding how those who complain the most on the public policy stage about the lack of income mobility do the least in the reality stage to support the economic ladder at the bottom rungs that are necessary for people to raise themselves productively without imposing unsustainable burdens on the economy and society at large.
Economic mobility and economic growth are processes where people can earn their way up by dint of hard work and creating value in response to real world demands — not something that can be granted by top down socialist, command and control contrivers, like Barack Obama and his pals.
“Let’s Be Free,” I don’t think that Rick was bashing agriculture jobs at all. He was just pointing out that trying to reclaim agriculture jobs would be counterproductive, which actually makes a lot of sense. Today, almost every farm in the nation has advanced harvesting/planting technology that can do that work of 100 men. The agriculture industry lost (human) jobs because they were just getting so dang efficient. Yes, of course losing all those jobs was a disappointment…but food prices have fallen because production has expanded so rapidly! (http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/08/over-100-years-food-prices-have-fallen.html) Likewise, all those ex-farmers moved to urban centers to create new economic opportunity.
Completely agree with Rick. Why do we want to cling to jobs that the markets have shifted elsewhere? I thought conservatives were all about free markets? Globalization has shifted the vast majority of manufacturing jobs overseas and that’s ok. While I will most definitely be voting against Obama, I do agree with him that our future manufacturing base lies in the sectors of the markets that people in China can’t be paid a nickel an our to do like cars, aircraft, computers, green technology (there is a market for that you know), medical devices, etc. No need to force a “dumbing down” (no offense implied) of the manufacturing base just so we can say the kitchen table we bought was made in America. We need to re-tool our manufacturing industry for highly technical production in order for it to survive.
Investing in Greek bonds and “green technology” carries about the same amount of risk.
As for the idea that manufacturing jobs are a thing of the past and obsolete, that is ridiculous. Goods, goods are everywhere.
Free markets means accepting whatever kinds of jobs markets demand. The elites don’t declare what kind of jobs are good or bad. Agriculture in particular is an area that was little affected by the recession and where there are more jobs now than there were before the recession — in other words a traditional area where the jobs are coming back. It is also an area where the United States has a competetive trade advantage.
It is sad that people don’t understand the strategy of Obama and the elites. They want to eliminate jobs through regulation, taxation and demonization that they don’t like because they think certain jobs are dirty and/or beneath people — they would rather have those people on the dole and under government control than working in low wage positions. They want to preserve jobs that contribute back to the Democratic Party. These policies are economically destructive and work to the benefit of no one other than the government officials whose political power is enhanced.
I certainly was not “bashing agriculture,” just pointing out that 100 years ago, the vast majority of jobs in the United States were on farms or farm-related. Today fewer than 2 percent of Americans are engaged in agriculture, but output is greater than ever before.
That’s true in manufacturing, too: fewer people are needed to produce more goods. That makes us all richer, because it opens up opportunities for other kinds of jobs and other kinds of products and services.
We are post industrial and socialist models have tried and failed for long enough to know why. 50-60 years about 2-3 times more people made a living making things in this country. Our “new” model makes the working class poorer.
We have the richest poor people in the world.
I agree with Rick about the manufacturing and farming. Part of the “creative destruction” of almost any free economy.
By the way, Isn’t John Holdren the same clown who clings to “Population Bomb” theories of science (and I use that term loosely), as well as the guy who advocates fairly stringent population control measures?
I didn’t necessarily mean that we should try to resurrect the manufacturing sector, but when the unemployment rate is stuck at approximately nine percent, if you work for the current administration, you certainly shouldn’t want to be heard saying that we’re not even going to compete for certain types of jobs.
One thing you have to bear in mind, unlike most of Virginia which has a relatively diverse economy, Southside’s entire economy was based almost exclusively on agriculture and manufacturing. When those sectors fell apart in the 1990s, it was really a one-two punch to the region’s economy and it has been trying (with little success) to recover from that ever since.
Dr. Holdren is correct that IALR is developing the type of products that can help Southside emerge from its own mini-recession, but in the meantime–and until local and state leaders can help to foster a more business-friendly climate environment in the region–I don’t see where allowing Southside to compete for yesterday’s jobs is a bad thing. It would certainly be better than unemployment.
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