Democrats Dont Have an Easy Answer for the Rust Belt

[Red Oak]

43. You are still wrong, and an uninformed defeatist. Buck up and lets do something.

I'm not talking about jobs from the 1800's or even the 1980's. I never said "old factory jobs". I very much do mean "new factory jobs".

It may only take 400 people to produce the steel of 4000 from the 1970s, but those 400 can be employed here and not in China.

An iPhone can be made here. Most of the assembly is pick and place robotic, but someone installs those robots, writes the code, repairs the bots, feeds the parts, builds the factory the robots go in, makes the parts that the robot assembles into something. Someone installs and keeps the AC running in the factory, someone feeds the factory power. There are many good jobs in and around a "robotic" factory. Look at Tesla. Heck, look at GM and Ford.

I am amazed at the number of people that buy into the "the jobs aren't coming back" defeatism. Maybe younger people that have never experienced a vibrant economy (not just a financial shenanigans Wall Street BS one) or that can comprehend a time when all the items they used in their daily lives were marked "made in USA"?

The US is hugely involved in our so called "capitalism". Ever hear of the ethanol mandate? Government involved just a bit? How about the tariffs on sugar, you may want to look those up. We have had tariffs over the many years of our founding and started the country as high tariff so as to start and then protect our industry. Since he is popular, go Google Alexander Hamilton and "tariffs". The issue has been going on a long time. (It was Alexander Hamilton on one side of the issue and Thomas Jefferson on the other). How about the government bailout of GM? The government told GM how the business would be run, even who would run it. How about the government involvement in finance. How about the involvement in renewable energy? How about the support of big pharma (Medicare part D and then the non-negotiation of drug prices). How about the creation and support of Space-X. Don't tell me China has a "different" type of government. You think our government isn't involved in the creation and sustaining of MIC industries like Lockheed or Boeing? Look up Ex/Im bank. Our government makes and breaks industries, for a variety of reasons, all the time and has for the past two hundred years.

In many ways our government is just like China's in that it takes care of the wealthy. And our loss of jobs has been all about the wealthy.

It is true that if I am a business owner or a CEO, that I can make more money by off-shoring. All I need is for the government to look the other way on balancing trade and I am home free. See, tariffs were in vogue in the US when it helped the business owners here. It protected us from European competition to help grow the factories here and make business owners more money on higher priced products. When this model changed and it was found that even more money could be made by off-shoring as a multi-national, that's when NAFTA, CAFTA, the TPP and the like started lining up. These bills were to help increase the profits of the business owners. They were never for the American worker. They specifically hollowed out America for the express intent of increasing multi-nation profits.

I am strongly suggesting that the US government use the powers it already uses every day, to support the voter and the American working family. It will cause some increase in priced goods, tariffs do that, but hey, the Fed is wanting to increase inflation anyway. We can at least put millions back to work and increase the tax roles at the same time.

China had about 100 million people directly involved in manufacturing in 2009: http://www.bls.gov/fls/china.htm#charts
Let's take 25 million or so of those and put them back where they came from. If the Democratic party pushed proposals and then turned to concrete actions that employed even five or ten million new people here, image how revolutionary that would be and how helpful for the people of our country.

We can do this. It is not smoke and mirrors.

Manage trade for the benefit of the American family, raise tariffs on imports, build it in the USA, put people to good works!

Why does it take an orange idiot to understand the power in offering solutions to this problem?

P.S. Let's also look at Germany. They have some ideas of a vibrant manufacturing society that we can also use to our benefit.