On Fri, 02 Apr 2010 08:50:29 -0500, the infamous Ned Simmons
scrawled the following:

On Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:04:10 -0700, Tim Wescott
wrote:

Steve Lusardi wrote:
(top posting fixed)
"Ignoramus23298" wrote in message
...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...739806306.html

(referenced article snipped)


Iggy,
I'm amazed by your statement. When was the last time any product in the
stores said "Made in the USA"? There is virtually no serious
manufacturing left in the States. You don't need statistics to witness
this and in point of fact, without seeing US products on the shelves,
you have absolutely no justification for believing them. The same thing
is happening in Europe and Japan. We have already exported almost all of
our manufacturing to the third world to remain competitive in the world
market. Don't believe the **** you read....look on the shelves.
Steve

For an alternate set of data, consider my customer list -- with a few
exceptions, I do all of my work for US manufacturing companies, and they
support me very well indeed. No one hires a design consultant if they
don't intend to be manufacturing what the guy designs, and relatively
soon. While my business isn't booming it's certainly picking up
steadily but slowly.

Only another anecdote, but my situation is similar. I design and build
automation, tooling, and misc manufacturing equipment. I ran out of
work for the first time in 25 years around the end of 2008. There's
been enough to keep busy since, but no backlog. More recently demand
has increased to the point that I've started refusing work again.

My buddy (Terry in LoCal) does similar work and is having feasts and
famines throughout the year for several years now.


On the other hand, employment at my largest customer is still way
down, and the folks that are there are working harder than ever. In
other words, they're spending on capital projects, but seem to be
waiting as long as possible to rehire production workers.

So, Ned. What do you hear? Are they saying that expansion is from
Obama's fabulous job so far, or is everyone saying "Well, it doesn't
look as if he's going to take the country down this year, let's invest
and expand for awhile."


--
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent,
but the one most responsive to change.
-- Charles Darwin