I have been in factories all over the world, we are not just competing with lower salaries, we are competing with sometimes state of the art factories. I have managed to stay in business for 6 years as a consultant, but I am often hired by the bigger companies to manage projects for them (as in transition projects to off-shore suppliers) and supplier contracts (as in start reducing your costs Supplier A or we will be moving your business off-shore), not what I want to do but we all need to pay the bills. Not all companies are totally behind the times, but many, many companies are and not doing anything about it themselves. God helps those who help themselves…to wait for the government to come in and fix this for us will be the kiss of death to American manufacturing. Not only will America not be able to afford their products, neither will the rest of the world! I will feel more sympathy for our American companies when I see that they have done everything in their power to get as competitive as possible. That means spending some money and making some huge changes in the way they run their organizations. I love Thomas Friedman's stand, and I am with him 100% when he says Change or Die. If you are not willing to change, you will not be here anymore, and you don't deserve to be. We have the best workforce in the world, but we feel entitled and have given up the passion behind why we do business. If you are a manufacturing company, and you do not have a WORKING ERP system, Lean Manufacturing principles, skilled supply chain and production operations employees, and either a partner or a sister division in Mexico, Asia, or the Eastern Block to give you a global footprint, you will die. These are hard words, but it is time hard times. There is no more time left. This means getting back in the game and being the absolute best we can be before we cry uncle and beg our government to step in.

Change or die. Get whatever help you need, but get the help. How you did business 20 years ago will not keep you in business tomorrow. We cannot subsidize your inefficiencies.

The World is Flat, and American Manufacturing is Falling off the Edge.

No there is not. Corporations hire Americans and give them opportunities to grow and prosper. Their products make our lives easier and simpler. Just think if companies like Microsoft, GE, Procter & Gamble, Kellogg's, Ford, and many other American companies did not exist. We would be living in the stone ages like billions of other people. Corporations give us jobs that allow us to pay for goods and services and invest. When corporations make a lot of money, they reinvest that money in the form of job opportunities and stock gains. If we did not have corporations and the stock market, America would be no better off than the Darfur region of Sudan. The middle class needs to be thanking Corporate America and Wall Street for providing a means of survival and prosperity. I bet that the billions of people living in abject poverty would have no problem with Corporate America and Wall Street.

If you hate Corporate America and Wall Street so much, move to Africa or Asia or the Middle East where you do not have to worry about the "evils" of capitalism!

God Bless America.

We have been conditioned to buy things no matter the long term costs or consequences. I think the real problem is access to easy credit and access to cheap goods. If credit wasn't so easy to get and cheap goods did not exist, the economy would be in better condition.

But Americans are not going to stop buying things. Since we are going to continue to spend every dime we get and borrow when we run out of money, companies should continue to manufacture goods for cheap and sell them to Americans at inflated prices. Americans' demand is not going to stop. We will continue to buy until we die.

So if you people are wise, you would stop complaining. You would do the smart thing and exploit the weak and gluttoness consumer base here in America. You have to come up with a worthless product that people will buy with debt. This will enable your company to make money. You can even come up with a financing arm for your company. Once the money is made, the company can find ways to reduce costs such as outsourcing labor, buying cheaper raw materials, cutting administrative costs, and fancy accounting practices. The only area that should require some real spending is advertising and marketing. Once the word is out, suckers…I mean consumers will line up to buy your product.

Some may say that this goes against everything that America stands for. But this is far from true. Americans are nice people but they are also self-obsessed and superficial. Americans define themselves not only by who they are but what they buy. We show our power through the money that we have to spend. Since Americans' behavior will not change, it is better for a person to find a way to sell products to people. There is always someone out there who wants to buy something. A person can only be a snakeoil salesman if there are snakeoil buyers.

We make bad cars that no one wants.

We need to relax the laws so there are incentives,new ideas and new people getting into building cars.

When large occupational sectors are eliminated, the employees don't disappear. They move on to other fields. As the number of workers in a given field increases and saturation occurs, pay declines. When external forces such as unions try to prop up wages for a particular company, non-union companies appear and undercut their prices. (think Wal-Mart).

The pressures in our economy are to reduce wages, not increase them. If it is economical for Citigroup to offshore call centers (a non-high paying position) what exactly makes you think that the high-paying positions will not be outsourced?

The vacuum tube reference was amusing. The implication was that the vacuum tube manufacturers did not wish to embrace the superior technology. They did. But at least they had a place to go. They remained manufacturers.

As for the buggy builders, they lobbied congress against Preston Tucker, and sank his company. Ag corps lobby congress every year for subsidies, as do the energy and pharmaceutical industries as well, to great success.

Manufacturers in the US are bound by numerous laws regarding wages, working conditions, and environmental protection. Our competitors in Asia are not. We're not looking for a handout, but we do expect that our elected representatives look out for us as well.

Would it be fair if the the government allowed China to set up shopping centers, beauty salons, fast food joints, etc, locally, but not expect them to operate under existing law? What do you suppose the outcome would be if some stores were required to pay minimum wage, while others were not? Would that be fair? Who do think would remain employed?

Given the current trend, without governmental intervention, there is just no way that this will end well for the US worker, at least until after the bottom is found.