American Manufacturing:

Oxymoron?

From: Robert Borosage

Obama has suggested that America must lead in the green industries that surely will grow in the future — new energy, more efficient appliances, more sophisticated building efficiencies — and the supply chains associated with windmills, solar cells, batteries, fast trains, electric cars and more.

Yet, Obama opposed the weak "buy America" provision put into the stimulus bill. His energy bill contained no serious effort at insuring that these products would be built here. Amendments designed to help manufacturers here were introduced into the bill in the dead of night because the administration needed the votes of industrial state Democrats to pass it. And because Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and the Apollo Alliance had put together elements of a new energy industrial policy that House members could elbow into the legislation.

Contrast that with China. China has determined that new energy will be one of its strategic industries. It is now the largest manufacturer of solar panels — exporting 95% of its production, largely to Europe and the US. While Obama felt it necessary to distance himself from the "buy America" provisions put in the stimulus bill, China has no such compunctions. As the Times reports, "when China authorized its first solar power plant this spring, it required that at least 80 percent of the equipment be made in China. When the Chinese government took bids this spring for 25 large contracts to supply wind turbines, every contract was won by one of seven domestic companies. All six multinationals that submitted bids were disqualified on various technical grounds, like not providing sufficiently detailed data."

The European companies weren't exactly foreigners. They had built turbine factories in China to meet the government's requirement that the turbines contain 70 percent local content. But having no doubt benefited from that transfer of technology and engineering experience, the Chinese contracted with home—grown companies, rejecting the bids of the Chinese based European companies while approving those of Chinese companies that had never built a turbine before. European wind turbine makers have now stopped bidding on Chinese contracts, concluding that their bids had no chance.

We should be rebuilding our manufacturing might, and yet right now Pratt & Whitney is finalizing plans to send yet another "profit center" to Singapore, shedding good union jobs that can actually pay for stuff like jets and tanks.

Replacing them with...?

Nothing.

At some point this is unsustainable, and I argue we've already crossed that line.

Now that these huge corporations are multinational octopi, they can play war games with the civilian populations, bringing the Shock Doctrine Troops to every corner of the world with the exception of their own wealthy enclaves.

We are the wage Slaves of the new world order. Our job is to pay the taxes that keep the war machine oiled and ready to bring living hell down on anyone, anywhere, anytime that the whim takes them.

The rightwingnuts bleat and fuss about public insurance covering abortions...

I categorically oppose the use of MY hard earned tax dollars on wars of choice and convienence.

How far do you think THAT will get me?