The gaps
in our product development cycles have always sabotaged and stalled the
sustainability of our economy. Development needs to be on-going to give
Engineers the time to keep improving products and processes. When there are no
new development projects on deck, many engineers leave. When revenue drops,
everybody gets laid off. Preserving cash becomes the company’s only hope for
survival. I used to think that Boeing
was the sound that Boeing made as its headcount bounced…boing..boing..
I have
always watched Engineer layoffs. Boeing grew in the 1960s, but lower orders in
1969 and 1971 resulted in massive layoffs of engineers and production
employees. Boeing headcount dropped
1968
100,000
1969
80,000
1971
32.500
1998
104,800
2004 52,763
2008 76,000
In the
1960s, US consumers bought US durable goods like cars, refrigerators,
appliances, furniture, TVs and everything else.
US consumers also bought clothes, shoes, household goods, soap,
beverages and everything else.
US
manufacturing companies were establishing plants in other countries to supply
US products to their local markets. US Labor Unions were demanding more pay and
benefits and obstructing improvements in processes and products. Corporate Tax
was 50% and Individual Income Taxes were 70%. Corporate profits were 5%.
In the
1970s, the US began to lose its basic industries like steel and durable goods
manufacturing. Foreign countries offered
lower taxes, lower labor costs and fewer regulations in exchange for giving
jobs to their local citizens in our manufacturing plants.
US
consumers began to buy fuel efficient, better made foreign cars. US appliance
brands began to disappear. Foreign-made clothing and shoes were well-made and
cheaper. US high taxes, increasing regulations and labor costs were driving US
manufacturing to foreign countries.
By the
1980s the US had worked through many technical issues to allow for a re-tooling
in electronics that created a boom. Electronics advanced to create the PC,
Programmable Controllers,
In the
1990’s the US announced that we were entering the “Information Age” that was a
lame excuse for killing off the middle class.
By 2008,
the US finished off-shoring almost all of its manufacturing and had already
regulated the US economy to extinction. The 2008 meltdown heralded the end of
the US middle class. We had minimum wage
jobs and had 60,000 welfare immigrants. Federal spending doubled from $2
trillion to $4 trillion. The Federal National Debt quadrupled from $5 trillion
to $20 trillion.
In 2017,
we began the slow claim back to prosperity, but most of our experienced
engineers and production employees were retired or working in other industries.
We have been without these folks for 20 years and many have retired. Our recent grads have been trained to be
“social justice” advocates and few have the employable skills in product design
engineering we need to restart our manufacturing industries. We should be able
to fill production jobs as we did in the electronics boom of the 1980s. We need
foreign engineers with experience in designing durable goods, especially
electronics.
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