By
Michael S. Opitz

Manufacturing is the foundation of the America’s middle class as well as providing the economic, social, and political stability that has kept our country strong and growing for over 200 years. It is important to recognize that manufacturing has a jobs multiplier effect. For every manufacturing job created, six to eight additional good paying blue and white collar jobs are created. That is a Bell Labs statistic which applies to both large and small companies. Manufacturing is more than assembly line work; every manufacturing concern also has job functions in the following areas: executive management, operations management, product development, engineering, production, marketing, sales, distribution, customer service as well as human resources, information technologies including software and hardware support.

Of course someone has to design the website and keep it running, and there are the collateral legal and insurance services. The job creation list goes on and on as can be seen. In smaller companies one person may wear multiple hats, but as the company grows more people are hired to meet expanded requirements of a successful organization. There are also a multitude of associated supplier companies each of which has departmental functions listed above, and on it goes providing lots of good paying middle class jobs and stable families.

Let’s now consider service companies and jobs. Service companies are essential, but services can’t be exported, and exported products generate substantial profits and taxes that benefit all layers of government. (For a moment let’s note the role of excessive government regulations that have driven manufacturing off shore; however, that is a subject for another article.)

Where did our jobs go and how did we lose them? Ross Perot warned that with the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), we would hear a great sucking sound as jobs moved south of the border. The congressional passage of NAFTA set the stage for America’s “Free Trade” scam. The Globalists’ promotion of Free Trade encouraged CEO’s to move manufacturing to China and other countries with low cost labor and virtually no local government regulations. In third world countries, bribery is just business as usual, and personal profits are the order of the day, but that too is a subject for another discussion.

Manufacturing was still strong in America prior to the 1990s. Christmas retail sales were very important because those activities benefited American Manufacturing jobs in textile and durable goods. Retail sales and American manufacturing were an incredibly strong synergistic employment force resulting in a strong tax base for government. Now the Christmas retail sales season primarily benefits foreign manufacturers and their countries’ employment. We are left with lower paid unskilled service workers as a tax base.

So when we hear the retail stores had a strong sales season, the foreign manufacturers reaped most of the profits. Let me correct that statement. The globalists’ investors and the big banks reaped the lions’ share of the profits benefiting from low wages paid in third world countries through the scam of “Free Trade” and access to America’s declining markets. Donald Trump was correct when he called for a 25% tariff to be placed on Chinese imports due to in part their continued manipulation of their currency negatively affecting our trade deficit. They buy virtually nothing from America.

Yes, Virginia, “Globalists” do exist the global enterprise was created by those elites in and out of government without regard to our country and citizens’ well-being. Hillary Clinton said it so well in the first year of her husband’s first term, “Americans will have to lower their standard of living while we raise the standard of living in other countries.” Their goal was and is to balance the economic power structure while creating the dynamic, so they cash in for themselves. This greed crosses all political boundaries, and their rhetoric continues to confuse the average American.

Our founders understood the importance of protective tariffs and their positive effect on jobs, and American manufacturing. We as a country grew strong and prospered. With the advent of “Free Trade” as a national policy, we have continually grown weaker with a shrinking middle class and greater social, political, and economic instability. If we want a return to prosperity, we must understand the economic dynamics and apply the lessons learned.