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US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent

boston.com

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Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent

#51

Post by yummyfajitas »

nostrademons wrote: post #47
rdouble wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if I buy that. Is there data that shows retail clerk wages declining over time? I happen to have a factory worker, airline stewardess, and retail clerk in my extended family and their wages have all increased over the past 20 years. I mean, not by amazing amounts, but definitely I wouldn't say they are doing worse than they were before.

Wages by industry: ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/empsit.ceseeb2.txt Historical CPI: ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt From 1964-2010, weekly manufacturing wages rose from $102.59 to $765.08/week. "Private service-providing" jobs (which includes retail) went from $98.10 to $606.14. Over that same time period, the CPI rose from an index of 30.9 to to 216.687, an increase of 7x. In real terms, retail wa…

CPI overestimated inflation by 130 basis points until 1996.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boskin_Commission

Correcting for this error, retail wages have risen 33% and manufacturing wages have increased about 50%.

Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent

#52

Post by rdouble »

nostrademons wrote: post #47
rdouble wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if I buy that. Is there data that shows retail clerk wages declining over time? I happen to have a factory worker, airline stewardess, and retail clerk in my extended family and their wages have all increased over the past 20 years. I mean, not by amazing amounts, but definitely I wouldn't say they are doing worse than they were before.

Wages by industry: ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/empsit.ceseeb2.txt Historical CPI: ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt From 1964-2010, weekly manufacturing wages rose from $102.59 to $765.08/week. "Private service-providing" jobs (which includes retail) went from $98.10 to $606.14. Over that same time period, the CPI rose from an index of 30.9 to to 216.687, an increase of 7x. In real terms, retail wa…

That's interesting. I will admit I am a CPI skeptic. I do not understand how it is being calculated. Half the stuff people buy today did not exist 20 years ago. There is such an abundance of the other stuff, it is always heavily discounted. Essential things that have obviously increased in price, like homes and food, are not included in the CPI. Is there a "CPI for Dummies" anywhere out there?

Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent

#53

Post by jacques_chester »

Dramatize wrote: post #27
MarkSimpson wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. My brother just finished his apprenticeship in cabinet making and is already on more than me, a programmer. Unions don't have anything to do with it, either - I don't think he's even in one - it's just that the demand for tradesmen is so high over here. Hence the rise in cashed up bogans.

More so with our natural disasters creating huge demand for tradies.

Yep. Between the resurgence of the mining boom and the floods and cyclones in Queensland and the floods in Victoria, demand for tradies is going to be out of control.

The Reserve Bank have decided not to account for the disasters in their inflation settings, but I reckon they will change their mind to prevent a wages breakout.

Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent

#54

Post by joelmichael »

joelmichael wrote: post #14

I am skeptical of this article because I just looked up this data a month or so ago -- opened the UN's Excel document and everything -- and found that China had recently surpassed the US in manufacturing output. Unfortunately I am limited to the iPhone right now, so can't re-investigate the data myself until later. I have no interest in diminishing the American economy nor in over-valuing the manufacturing sector, bu…

OK, I am back at my computer. My source is the following website, specifically the second link listed: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/dnllist.asp

If you open that up, scroll down to the United States, go to the Manufacturing row, and scroll all the way over to the right (2009) you will find $1.78T dollars. If you search for China and do the same, you will find $2.05T. You may also note that China, with its high rate of growth, only first surpassed the US in 2008.

The next highest country after China and the US is Japan with $1.05T.

Edit: Interestingly, the corresponding spreadsheet for "2005 dollars" shows the US at $1.68T and China at $1.48T in 2009. Now I'm even more confused. Shouldn't the difference between 2005 and "current" dollars scale proportionately?

Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent

#55

Post by nostrademons »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #48
nostrademons wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health insurance.

Is health insurance which only pays for 1970's era medical care really that expensive today? Or did you mean to say that a financial product which pays for an MRI/viagra/chemotherapy today is more expensive than a financial product which paid for X-Rays/dying of cancer at home in the past? Incidentally, I can only find data going back to 1987, but it suggests little change the number of uninsured since then. http://w…

I made the exact same argument as you elsewhere on this thread :-)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2187130

The problem is that health insurance isn't continuously divisible. You typically can't buy a policy that will cover only 1970s-era medical treatments. Even if you could, it brings up a host of ethical issues that many doctors wouldn't be comfortable with. Say a kid gets strep throat. Okay, give him penicillin, it's cheap and he gets better quickly. Now say that the doctors don't realize it's strep throat, or do but forget to give him penicillin, or he's got a drug resistant strain. It gets into his kidneys. Suddenly, this is expensive, requiring hospitals and diuretics and possibly dialysis. But it's 100% fixable. Should the doctors let him die because his insurance doesn't pay for modern medical treatments?

This is the problem with basically all academic economics models. They make certain simplifying assumptions to make the math tractable, so that they can draw conclusions about the economy as a whole. And I have no doubt that the economy as a whole is bigger, stronger, and better than it was in the 1970s.

But that glosses over all the individuals that make up the economy, some of whom are decidedly not better off than they were in the 1970s. When someone is involuntarily laid off, they're strictly worse-off than they were beforehand (otherwise, they would've voluntarily quit). The economist would say "They'll get a job in some other sector of the economy, one that's growing where their talents can be more productively employed, and be better off in the long run." And that's absolutely true, but it doesn't make things any better for that person right now when they need to put food on the table.

Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent

#56

Post by nostrademons »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #51
nostrademons wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wages by industry: ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/empsit.ceseeb2.txt Historical CPI: ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt From 1964-2010, weekly manufacturing wages rose from $102.59 to $765.08/week. "Private service-providing" jobs (which includes retail) went from $98.10 to $606.14. Over that same time period, the CPI rose from an index of 30.9 to to 216.687, an increase of 7x. In real terms, retail wa…

CPI overestimated inflation by 130 basis points until 1996. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boskin_Commission Correcting for this error, retail wages have risen 33% and manufacturing wages have increased about 50%.

It's really funny to have you arguing in one subthread that inflation is overestimated by the official numbers, and then have some other guy arguing in another subthread that inflation is underestimated by the official numbers:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2187047

My position is basically that the CPI, like all statistics, is fundamentally inaccurate, but it's as likely to be biased high as it is to be biased low. I think you're both proving my point on this. :-)

Anyway, the table I linked to was published last month, so presumably they've already taken the Boskin Commission findings into account and retroactively fixed the earlier numbers.

Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent

#57

Post by nostrademons »

rdouble wrote: post #52
nostrademons wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wages by industry: ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/empsit.ceseeb2.txt Historical CPI: ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt From 1964-2010, weekly manufacturing wages rose from $102.59 to $765.08/week. "Private service-providing" jobs (which includes retail) went from $98.10 to $606.14. Over that same time period, the CPI rose from an index of 30.9 to to 216.687, an increase of 7x. In real terms, retail wa…

That's interesting. I will admit I am a CPI skeptic. I do not understand how it is being calculated. Half the stuff people buy today did not exist 20 years ago. There is such an abundance of the other stuff, it is always heavily discounted. Essential things that have obviously increased in price, like homes and food, are not included in the CPI. Is there a "CPI for Dummies" anywhere out there?

CPI for Dummies:

http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpifaq.htm

Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent

#58

Post by rdouble »

nostrademons wrote: post #56
yummyfajitas wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CPI overestimated inflation by 130 basis points until 1996. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boskin_Commission Correcting for this error, retail wages have risen 33% and manufacturing wages have increased about 50%.

It's really funny to have you arguing in one subthread that inflation is overestimated by the official numbers, and then have some other guy arguing in another subthread that inflation is underestimated by the official numbers: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2187047 My position is basically that the CPI, like all statistics, is fundamentally inaccurate, but it's as likely to be biased high as it is to be biased…

I was more arguing that CPI is meaningless. My position on the economy is that if you bought your house 20 years ago, you can sit in it and buy all the junk you'll ever need, on even a shit salary. If you didn't buy a house 20 years ago, you never will, but you can rent someone else's house and buy all the junk you'll ever need.

Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent

#59

Post by uytrhyujkujhy »

gscott wrote: post #46
uytrhyujkujhy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a macro economic point of view it doesn't matter If your stealth bomber uses $100 parts made in the USA or $10 parts from china with the difference going in the CEOs bonus - doesn't make any difference when the taxpayer is billed $1000

Which is part of my point, for that $1000 in value sometimes our only task is putting the pieces together. It can't last, China wants to do that too.

That was sort of my original point, much of the US high value engineering (defense/transport/infrastructure) is for the US government. Which means that the more the taxpayer spends on overpriced defense contracts and cost overruns the better US industrial output looks

Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent

#60

Post by pitiburi »

A commenter in the original article said it better than anyone: "We don't get to qualify as a manufacturing giant just because the defense department gets suckered into paying billions of dollars for a fancy piece of equipment that is built by a small number of folks in a few isolated pockets of the country."

Then again, the numbers (that seem to be incorrect, go check the commments in the original) are however about the money it is made from the manufacturing. Then this is even more worrisome for USA, because that would mean that China has been growing steadily at 9-10 per cent each year, while USA makes MORE money from manufacturing but all it does is barely grow, and produce the biggest debt the world has ever seen.

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