National Association of Manufacturers Blasts ... American Manufacturing?

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Last week Harold Meyerson wrote a great column in the Washington Post, Just One Word: Factories, promoting American manufacturing. Meyerson wrote,

"Since 1987, manufacturing as a share of our gross domestic product has declined 30 percent. Once the world's leading net exporter, we have become the world's leading net importer. In 2007, we exported $1.2 trillion worth of goods and services but imported $1.8 trillion. If there were a debtor's prison for nations, we'd all be in the clink.

[. . .] What makes the decline of American manufacturing particularly galling is that we're not falling behind because we're inefficient: American factories are among the most productive on the planet, as McCormack notes. But alone among the world's industrial powers, we have left the task of enticing manufacturers not to the federal government but to state and local governments, which try to attract factories and research facilities with tax abatements and public investments that are dwarfed by the efforts of national governments in other lands. ...
It's not just that the United States uniquely lacks an industrial policy. It's that the United States uniquely has an anti-industrial policy."

This sounds good to me. If we are going to restore American economic power we need to promote American manufacturing.

So who comes out to blast Meyerson for his column promoting American manufacturing? Was it the European Manufacturers Association? Was it the China Manufacturers Association? Was it the Korean Manufactures Association? No, it was America's own National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). Yes, the American NAM, not the European, Chinese, Japanese or Korean NAM, but the American NAM. They say American manufacturing is in fine shape and doesn't need any help from the government to keep it strong.

WTF?

Why is the NAM blasting Meyerson for writing a column promoting American manufacturing? A clue might be the source of the anti-American-manufacturing information they use. They quote Daniel J. Ikenson of the Cato Institute. Cato is an anti-government "libertarian" think tank that supports "free trade" and is against any kind of regulation of business, including any restrictions on imports. This could be because Cato receives a great deal of financial support from non-manufacturing interests including commodities and securities traders, tobacco companies, communications companies, software companies and oil companies. They also receive support from non-American manufacturing interests, including the Korea International Trade Association.

What I want to know is: Why is America's National Association of Manufacturers echoing the Cato Institute's views against American manufacturing? Has this organization lost its way? Does the NAM membership know about this?

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Comments

[kate456]

I'm not at all suprised that the National Association of Manufacturers would hire their own funded "Think Tanks" like CATO to publicly reaffirm their negitive statements about American Manufacturing. NAM is headed by the former governor of Michigan, who was in office for 12 miserable years. From 1991 to 2003 he was in office when NAFTA was signed into policy and then he left office as Michigan's manufacturing sector and jobs were imploding. He supported NAFTA and the outsourcing of Millions of jobs by the people of Michigan. Our current governor, Jennifer Granthom has spent the last 7 years trying to clean up the mess he left behind. She continues to be held responsible for his mess trying to bring jobs to Michigan after John Engler sold us out in favor of Corporations leading Michigan to become the #1 state in the nation with highest unemployment (around 20% now) and one of the highest home foreclosures in the nation. He was elected to head NAM in 2004, largely because of his connections in Washington to promote Manufacturers interests. So anyone who reads anything about John Engler, DON'T BELIEVE ANYTHING HE SAYS..... HE LIES....

[therealredstateblues]

As the famous line in casablanca:

"I'm shocked, shcoked that NAM doesn't acutally support US mfg"

NAM is nothiong more than a shill group for multinational corporations, with a clear outsourcing agenda

[DuganS1]

Manufacturing employment as a percentage of total employment peaked in the mid-1950s. As for the US steel industry, the author must not realize steel prices hit all time highs and steel companies saw record profits from 2004 to mid-2008. He must also not realize that China has accused American companies of dumping on many occasions as well. Are any of these companies really damaged when there's record prices and profits? Barely. The reality of the US steel industry is that US companies have shed their low margin business and focused on their high margin business, like

"Mills restructured to cut costs, spinning off high-cost operations and pulling out of low-margin markets like rebar. Their divestment of distribution and processing operations contributed to the growth of the independent service center industry as it is today."

This trend is seen in most other segments of the US economy as well. For example, the US has shed most their low margin textile/apparel business and all those jobs have been lost. Jobs in the furniture industry are also being shed. Low margin electrical products businesses have been shed, as have tires and low margin car parts. US companies this decade have been successful at expanded high margin businesses, which is why companies like Cat, MMM, UTX, Terex, Emerson, US Steel, Deere, Valmont Industries, Allegheny Tech, RTI, Nucor, Ingersoll-Rand, Oshkosh, Illinois Toolworks, Danaher, etc saw record profits from 2005 to mid-2008.

[RedneckDem]

Low margin, high margin... a profit is a profit and selling good American jobs offshore is an act of treason if it is done for the sole purpose of enriching oneself. There used to be a social contract with American workers that led to us being the greatest industrial nation on earth. We paid good wages and even learned to work with the environement. Guess what, the rich still got rich and the middle class was buying. Then came Reagan and the first salvo of de-regulation, laissez-faire style economics and bam, after almost 5 decades of non-bubble growth, the boom-bust cycle started all over again, just like before the great depression.

There are ways to make money without selling your soul, but those days are gone. The sad thing is that most of the people defending this hypocrisy are not benefitting from it.

[therealredstateblues]

All of those companies you name dugan have had major layoffs and have outsourced jobs

In dugan's world outsourcing jobs and gutting industries is OK.

the problem of course its never OK

trade defit shopw why this is - we are funnel not only jobs but wealth out of our country

you need high volume, low volume high margin and low margin industries to sustain a manufacturing economy - you are hard pressed to do so without.

Geramny seems to be aquite ble to do this - and with a higher wage, higher tax and higher regulatory environment than the US

[DuganS1]

Germany has also had much higher unemployment than the US. As for the trade deficit, it has occurred because of high oil prices and US consumers over-spending. If consumers hadn't overspent, then trade deficits would have been much smaller. About the US economy and manufacturing, this is not a command economy, or even a socialist economy. If it is not profitable to produce something, the govt can not force a company to produce it. The simple fact is that companies tend to focus on their high margin businesses. they don't want to be involved in low margin commoditized businesses. There's too little value and too much competition there, especially if there's high capital requirements. Margin is very important for businesses. Investors don't invest in companies to lose money. they don't invest in companies just so people have something to do either. This is a capitalist economy. If you don't like it, move to Venezuela.

[FoonTheElder]

The National Association of Manufacturers is nothing but a lobbying organization that is led by Michigan's Republican ex-governor John "Kick 'em When They're Down" Engler.

They are nothing more than a front for funnelling money to Republican candidates. To have Engler as its President is a political joke at best, seeing that he did absolutely nothing for Michigan's manufacturers as governor.

They continue to ship money to politicians that are responsible for policies that continue to ship manufacturing jobs and factories overseas. I don't know why any manufacturer would give them a dime.

[altohone]

NAM seems controlled by the Wall Street gang working with communists in China to kill our middle class.

National Association of Offshoring would be a better name.

[zaneblue]

Wake up and smell the coffee--it's the multinationals vs everybody else