Why Doesn’t America Build Things?
vice.com
vice.com
The typical builder class is better off importing, subcontracting or outsourcing key value add operations. This creates several vacumms: local talent, cheap infrastructure (since decreased consumers increase prices) and, finally, weaker supplier networks.
Over time, these loops combine and grow, making it harder and harder for companies to compete. Incumbents exit the market unless governments step in and provide incentives that either offset externalities or reduce operations costs for corporations. As an example please check this article about the Mac Pro production in America: https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/23/tech/apple-mac-pro-united-sta...
Or at least, we did a few months ago. We seem to be hitting a recession this year specifically but our GDP from manufacturing is better today than from the 2010s, 2000s, 1990s, 1980s, etc etc.
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While other counties struggled to get COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing, US companies mass produced highly effective next-generation MRNA vaccines thanks to a combination of supercomputer analysis, genetic analysis/sequencing, and high end health care testing in record time.
Then the formula was mass produced, largely in USA (though requiring lots of supplies from Europe).
We are making things, we are making new useful better things, etc etc. It's less gloom and more hope if you actually look at the numbers.
Higher valuation != "more things".[1] Our manufacturing has shifted toward high-value products, which is typical for advanced economies. Manufacturing's share of GDP has remained roughly steady: https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2017/april/us-manu... But the share of manufacturing employment has dropped from 1/3 (33% circa 1950) of the population to about 10% (circa 2019). See earlier link as well as https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-9/forty-years-of-falling...
I believe Boeing alone accounts for something like 10% of manufacturing GDP (no link handy, but at one point Boeing was reported to account for 1% of total GDP). In any event, the reason people are convinced that we don't build anything is partly a consequence of the fact that so few Americans participate in the manufacturing economy; and of course partly a consequence of the fact that so many durable goods used in daily life are imported.
[1] I can't actually dispute "more things" as I'm not sure what we're measuring. I suppose it's possible some industries have become super efficient at pumping out some cheap products (e.g. paper cups) and could pad the numbers if we counted number of individual items made or exported, but that doesn't seem to be in the spirit of things. I believe the U.S. does have a brisk trade in specialty parts, though. Lots of boutique firms doing light manufacturing, AFAIU, helping to buoy employment in some places.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/100615/4-cou...
It's tough to compare a pound of rice to a pound of corn in how useful they are. But by price we're #3, and on a per-capita basis, likely #1.
I know farming isn't "building things", but lets not pretend it doesn't count as producing something. We're also the #3 exporter of oil worldwide.
Other exports: Mineral fuels including oil: US$239.8 billion (13.7% of total exports) Machinery including computers: $209.3 billion (11.9%) Electrical machinery, equipment: $185.4 billion (10.6%) Vehicles: $122.2 billion (7%) Optical, technical, medical apparatus: $91.7 billion (5.2%) Aircraft, spacecraft: $89.1 billion (5.1%) Gems, precious metals: $82.3 billion (4.7%) Pharmaceuticals: $78 billion (4.4%) Plastics, plastic articles: $74.3 billion (4.2%) Organic chemicals: $42.9 billion (2.4%)
Thomas Sowell
What percentage?
Unemployment rate only looks at those 'looking for work'. Those who 'drop out of the labor force' are hard to account for.
We'll know they're serious when Eminent Domain/Public Works laws have been strengthened and are routinely used to forestall dissent.