About Me

In writing the "About Me" portion of this blog I thought about the purpose of the blog - namely, preventing the growth of Socialism & stopping the Death Of Democracy in the American Republic & returning her to the "liberty to abundance" stage of our history. One word descriptions of people's philosophies or purposes are quite often inadequate. I feel that I am "liberal" meaning that I am broad minded, independent, generous, hospitable, & magnanimous. Under these terms "liberal" is a perfectly good word that has been corrupted over the years to mean the person is a left-winger or as Mark Levin more accurately wrote in his book "Liberty & Tyranny" a "statist" - someone looking for government or state control of society. I am certainly not that & have dedicated the blog to fighting this. I believe that I find what I am when I consider whether or not I am a "conservative" & specifically when I ask what is it that I am trying to conserve? It is the libertarian principles that America was founded upon & originally followed. That is the Return To Excellence that this blog is named for & is all about.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Made In America

"I wish they would make cars (or anything) like they did in the old days" is a nostalgic call for the return of manufacturing to America. In truth the number of manufacturing jobs has declined in America but not manufacturing output.

America's manufacturing sector is tantamount to the 4th largest economy in the world based on GDP in 2008 - source Professor Williams:

1. USA = $14 Trillion

2. Japan = $4 T

3. China = $3.7 T

4. USA Manufacturing = $3.7 T

5. Germany = $3.7 T

The growth of international competition in industries such as steel may make it easy to forget that America continues to be a major exporter of aircraft, paper, instruments, plastics, chemicals, software, pharmaceuticals, & high tech components of machinery & equipment. China, who recently surpassed Japan in the above rankings, has much low-cost-unskilled labor so it will export to the USA goods for which large amounts of unskilled labor is used such as apparel, footwear, toys, & the final assembly of electronic machinery & equipment. Source Professor Robert Carbaugh.

As we wait for the January unemployment statistics to be released on Friday I refer you to the March 8, 2010 posting on ReturnToExcellence.net entitled "All You Need To Know About Creating Jobs" - the situation described therein has not changed & won't change any time soon like for the next two years. This posting details how to get Americans back to work so that output & employment both increase.

But getting back to our products the above photo of the 1959 Bel Air is the result of a 40 mph crash test conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) using a 1959 Bel Air & a 2009 Malibu. Please click on this link to see how far automobile safety has come in 50 years

According to safety engineers @ the scene the driver of the 2009 Malibu would have suffered a slight foot or knee injury in the accident. The driver of the 1959 Bel Air would have died instantly.

The quality of our engineering progress seen in the above mentioned video should make us not long for the old manufacturing days but rather yearn for days of higher productivity that advance our living standards. In this global economy we'll know we really have something when the IIHS tests our products against those from Europe & Asia.
Posted by ReturnToExcellence.net at 7:17 PM

2 comments:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 1, 2011 at 11:28 PM

    How interesting!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousFebruary 2, 2011 at 11:24 PM

    Isn't it ironic that to us libertarians, the fact that our cars are by far the safest in the world is because of the federal government's safety demands and not because the automakers had a conscience!!!!

    ReplyDelete

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