The National Association of Manufacturers has not been a friend to domestic manufacturing.  Consider this comment in an article today speaking of a surge in U.S. food exports that is not accompanied by a surge in manufactured goods exports.

“We have achieved a worldwide manufacturing base, and we are not going to shut down our factories overseas,” said Franklin J. Vargo, vice president for international economics at the National Association of Manufacturers. “But on the margin, we will shift a little bit of manufacturing back to the United States.”

We can still produce food in this country, though long term U.S. farmers are on the decline due to silly trade policies.  Thus, with the change in the dollar, our food exports can increase again.  But manufacturing has been decimated here, and will take a while to come back when we fix trade policy. 

Josh Bivens provides a sobering perspective on food exports:

“The historical data tell us clearly: don’t get too used to commodity export booms; as any third world country will tell you, they tend to go away pretty quickly,” said L. Josh Bivens, a trade expert at the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute.

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Hard Working Ordinary Citizen
written by Common Joe , August 20, 2008

Most events (whether good or bad) have both an upside and a downside for all the affected parties. I am beginning to think that this mass exit of big company manufacturing might reopen the door to Mom and Pop businesses all over this country. If the federal government would endorse such an initiative with relaxed laws, SBA money and tax credits, and, if retailer's and consumer's would get behind the idea, we, as a nation could rebuild.

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written by China Watcher , August 19, 2008

NAM's idea of a pro-manufacturing agenda is: more "free trade" agreements to foster off-shoring; miscellaneous tariff bills to do the same by forgiving tariffs on selected imports; and a cheap dollar -- they cynically call it a "sound" dollar -- that temporarily promotes exports at the expense of users of imported energy and other inputs -- even the offshorers. This jumbled, self-contradictory "program" reflects the confused thinking of Gov. Engler's Republican masters. Thank God that wrecking crew will be forcibly retired by January. Someone should put NAM out of its misery, too.

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