...finally gives some concrete answers to the question of what
manufacturing workers should be retraining for, if they're expecting to
work in a growing sector of the economy:

"Why do presidential candidates touting their concern for the economy
pose with factory workers rather than with ballet troupes? After all,
the U.S. now has more choreographers (16,340) than metal-casters
(14,880), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More people make
their livings shuffling and dealing cards in casinos (82,960) than
running lathes (65,840), and there are almost three times as many
security guards (1,004,130) as machinists (385,690). Whereas 30 percent
of Americans worked in manufacturing in 1950, fewer than 15 percent do
now. The economy as politicians present it is a folkloric thing."

So, the answer is clear: It's time to learn to dance or shuffle.
Practice those pirouettes, and always deal from the top of the deck,
ya'll.

http://www.wikihow.com/Do-a-Pirouette

Bleh.

OTOH, those 15 percent are more likely to be good at what they do. I
bet
a lot of those mill operators in the '50s just knew how to work at the
level of "turn the big handle over there until the number 55 is on top"
where the ones that are left can not only build to print just fine, but
hand you back a print with redlines to make the part better or less
expensive to build.

Maybe. Maybe not. There are lots of former machine operators who are
flipping burgers today, but the 15% you're talking about includes
everyone.


There's another thing to consider, if I'm not mistaken: The federal
agency that tracks these things classifies ones job as a "service job"
if
one isn't actually putting stuff together with ones own hands -- so if
you hold a job as an engineer, draftsman, planner, or any other vital
job
that requires practical experience and knowledge but doesn't have you
touching the machines, then you're not considered to be "manufacturing"
anything.

It's just the opposite. They count everyone who works for a company that
has
a manufacturing or manufacturing service (machine shops, custom molders,
etc.) NAICS code. They don't miss much. And that includes salesmen and
office clerks who work for manufacturing companies.


That 15% of folks who are actually running the machines and bolting
things together aren't standing out in the forest picking raw materials
off the trees, and there aren't any shy woodland creatures carrying the
finished product to market -- so "manufacturing" is bigger than the feds
make out.

Yeah, it includes the people who carry the finished product to market --
as
long as they work for the company. Independent trucking firms aren't
included. Neither are people out picking things off of trees. g

The percentage of people who work in manufacturing is simply down, Tim.
That
should be no surprise. What surprised me is how many choreographers we
have.
I don't really see that much dancing going on.


Well, it's a damn good thing there is because we're not making things
anymore. I see two things going on here. One is that we are repeating
history. Endland was the world's manufacturing king at one time. We
instituted protectionist policies to build our own industries to compete
with them and eventually we took the job of making things away from them.
Leaving them screwed basically and us in fine shape. Now China and to some
extent India are doing the same thing to us. Actually, they've already done
it to us. Same with the Japanese, they protected their markets from us,
dumped products on our open market, stole our markets and now they own them.
When we made everything we were the richest country on earth, same with the
Brits when they were making everything. Now everything is being made in the
East and they are going to be in the great financial position we used to
hold. Looks to me like the same thing that has gone on since the Industrial
Revolution. But you would have thought our people would have been smarter
and not allowed it to happen. The Japanese haven't let their manufacturing
base go away like ours has. Clearly they are smarter, and less corrupt than
we are.

The second thing is the financial situation which is really dangerous. A few
years back the real estate in Tokyo was valued at an astronomically high
amount, I don't remember what it was but supposedly the value of all the
real estate in Tokyo was worth more than in all of the United States. That's
obviously crazy but it's a sign of what happens when finance doesn't reflect
reality. Now with more money in finance than exists in all the material
things in the world something is truly wrong. It's a situation that is ripe
for a worldwide meltdown as real values will eventually bring down the false
market values. Unfortunately, the only way to get control of it is for
governments to jump in and strongly regulate the financial markets. Sadly,
that's not going to happen when financial interests control the governments
of all the wealthy nations. Therefore, the odds are that at some point there
will be a worldwide financial meltdown. The good thing is that it is mainly
going to hurt the richest among us since it's they who own all the assets.
Which says a lot for having the bulk of a nation's wealth held by the
majority of it's citizens and not a small privileged class like it is now in
most of the world.

Hawke