Long-Term Trend #1: The Deindustrialization Of America
Image: AP
A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 69 percent of Americans now believe that free trade agreements have cost America jobs. Ten years ago the majority of Americans had great faith in the new "global economy" that we were all being merged into, but now the tide has turned.
So why have Americans lost faith in "free trade"?
Well, it turns out that the current system is neither "free trade" nor "fair trade". Many other nations impose extremely high tariffs on U.S. goods and put up ridiculous barriers to American products and yet the United States has generally let everyone else openly manipulate currency rates and flood our shores with whatever cheap products they want.
The results have been disastrous. Jobs and factories have been leaving the United States at a blinding pace.
The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001. Approximately 75 percent of those factories employed over 500 workers while they were still in operation.
An economy without a manufacturing base does not have a bright long-term future. Yet our politicians have allowed our manufacturing base to be systematically dismantled.
As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time that less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.
How is the United States supposed to have a bright economic future if it consumes everything in sight and yet makes very little?
Something needs to be done.
In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of all U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented only 11.5 percent and it continues to fall.
Needless to say, millions of blue collar workers now find themselves unable to find jobs. Today, 28% of all U.S. households have at least one person that is looking for a full-time job and there is no sign that things are going to improve much any time soon.
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