Do Americans want all the manufacturing jobs? (04-08-2025--Hour2)

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[00:00:29] So Tom Tillis is apparently threatening physical violence against people. I haven't even heard the clip yet. But apparently, the US Trade Representative is testifying before a Senate panel. And Tom Tillis is on that panel. And this is Jameson Greer. Let's take a listen. Again, I haven't heard.

[00:00:56] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ambassador Greer, thank you for being here. Back in the 90s, I was in management consulting. And there was a new platform that came out that promised to transform the business industry, ERP. Some of the early attempts at implementing the system proposed an all-a-prima approach. Let's do it all at once. Let's change the plumbing out. Let's get it all in. Get it done. Rip the Band-Aid off. It proved to be hugely unsuccessful.

[00:01:25] There were a lot of very visible projects. And the industry decided there needed to be a methodical sort of prioritization of what parts of the business needed to perform better sooner and how do you layer onto that a comprehensive strategy.

[00:01:39] It looks like we've got a novel approach here in terms of an all-a-prima approach. I'm not a trade expert. And I'm not going to question it at this point. I do have a question about, at the end of the day, the other thing in management consulting we like to focus on is this concept of one throat to choke. Oh. In other words, when you're finally taking a look at a strategy, someone has to own it. And you can't say that it's the president or the vice president.

[00:02:05] So my first question to you, in this scenario, the decision maker who decided the all-a-prima approach, who has obviously had to have spent time anticipating what we saw in the markets and some of the pushback, I'm assuming this all got gamed out, because it's a novel approach, it needed to be thought out. Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong? Oh, my gosh. Well, Senator, you can certainly always talk to me. But are you at the tip of the spear? Well, I'm at the tip of the spear, certainly.

[00:02:34] Did you propose the all-a-prima approach? So, first of all, I would push back, Senator, just a little bit on this. For now, we've excluded pharmaceuticals and semiconductors to take a different kind of approach. Let's make it another question. And we've excluded USMCU. Section 232 and 301, we know particularly Section 232 is still in aluminum. Section 301 is Chinese imports, where there's no other provider.

[00:02:57] I overheard you say that maybe, or I thought I heard you say in response to another question, that for the near term, there won't be any exclusions. Is that true of China, where they have said the U.S. is unilaterally bullying and completely groundless, and they're going to fight to the end? Are the 232 and 301 tariffs exclusions on the shelves until we get to a reasonable agreement with China? I'm just trying to answer a question that I have several people in North Carolina asking.

[00:03:26] So, the president, again, is the final decision maker on all of these things, and he has directed that there not be exclusions or exceptions? There will not be any exclusions on steel, aluminum, or any products that are only manufactured in China for the foreseeable future until China determines what the end is. Because they said they're going to fight to the end. Again, I'm just trying to communicate questions that I've asked. So, there will be no exclusions. I won't waste your time asking for them. That's the main reason I wanted to ask the question.

[00:03:54] So, again, I'm just trying to get my head around the logic of an all-prima approach, and I'm waiting to see it be successful. But it just seems like we've decided to begin a trade war on all fronts. And that's okay if the person who thought this through has an answer for why you go after partners that we have a very long-story relationship with.

[00:04:22] Maybe we give some developing countries a break because we're trying to actually get their economies functioning, make them look to the West versus to Chinese investment. So, it just seems like I'm getting my head around the all-prima approach. I'm not condemning it because I'm not a trade expert, but I still at some point, and I understand that you are the trade rep. So, if you own this decision, then I'll look to you to figure out if we're going to be successful.

[00:04:48] If you don't own the decision, I'm just trying to figure out whose throat I get to choke if it's wrong and who I put up on a platform and thank them for the novel approach that was successful if they're right. But here's what I'm really worried about. I'm not going to ask any more questions.

[00:05:03] I'm just going to tell you, every time we talk about people having patience, we need to understand that the founding fathers made damn sure that that patience was never more than about 14 months, really. Everything that we need to do to know what the political environment is going to be about next year is going to be done by February of next year.

[00:05:31] So, in your mind, do you believe that over the course of the next 14 months, we're going to have a level of certainty and the people in the trailer park that I grew up in who are going to bear the brunt of some of these short-term cost increases, maybe some job displacement for a period of time, how are they going to be feeling in Groundhog Day 2026? Or 2026. Do we feel like the majority of this will be resolved?

[00:06:01] And I'll be able to thank whoever thought that the all-prima approach was a good idea, because that's about the timeline we've got to work with. Well, Senator, these people who voted for the president is the same situation I grew up in. You know that. I agree. But let me just finish here, because I don't want to get in the way of my colleagues. I'll be 65 in August. Every day, 11,400 people celebrate their 65th birthday. That's $4 million a year.

[00:06:27] So, let's say from 60 to 65, people are looking at their 401k statements. They did vote for President Trump. They voted for me. I hope that they will again in both cases. Well, maybe not the president, but I intend to run for re-election. I'm just trying to figure out if they're going to feel good about this, because a long-term play in American politics and a long-term play in American policy, public policy formation, is about 12 months from the beginning of an administration. I wish you well, but I am skeptical. Thank you. All right.

[00:06:56] So, he's looking to choke somebody. Whose throat do I get to choke? Yeah, and that was the quote that I saw associated with the clip. But what he's asking is who's responsible for it, right? That gets the accolades if it works, and if it doesn't, this is who is to blame.

[00:07:23] And you may not like Tom Tillis, but what he just laid out right there is political reality for anybody that's running for re-election. And so, there is a clock running on this effort. And I asked this the other day, you know, how long is the short-term pain? And nobody knows. And that is a, that's a problem, right? That's a problem when you're trying to sell something and you're telling people to, you know, stay the course.

[00:07:53] This is going to be difficult, but it's all going to work out. But I can't tell you how long it's going to take. And, oh yeah, by the way, if, you know, your groceries and all of your cost of living goes up, maybe you lose your job. Then, you know, just be patient. By people, that's a lot to ask of people.

[00:08:19] And that's, you know, to the question I asked in the last hour, it's sort of like, what is the vision that we're going for here? What does, what does that America look like? Is it everybody going back to work in factories and not being able to afford more than like one car? I mean, I don't know. Or maybe you think that this is going to create all sorts of untold wealth. Even though, as I mentioned last week, this is a data point that people should keep in mind.

[00:08:47] America is the second largest manufacturer on the planet. And we have monthly half a million manufacturing jobs that are unfilled. And so why are we so confident that Americans want to do manufacturing when they're not, they're not filling the jobs that are available right now? They have to want the jobs, you know, for whatever reason.

[00:09:16] Like, I need to work because like this now brings in a whole different discussion about social welfare benefits, right? Unemployment benefits, people not wanting to work, right? I mean, there are all sorts of other questions that now are coming in. And so let me give you some other data points.

[00:09:38] This is from Norbert Michel, the vice president and director of the Cato Institute Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives, who wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the share of households earning more than $100,000 has tripled over the past 50 years. So you're talking about a share of the total households, a percentage of all homes. Of all households. That has tripled.

[00:10:07] And the share that earns less than $35,000, that has declined by 25%. So you have a lot more people moving up in the income brackets than down. And you have a shrinking lower class, lower income.

[00:10:28] For most of this period, workers in the bottom 10% of income distribution experienced stronger wage growth than those with the higher incomes. The middle class has shrunk only in the sense that former middle income earners have moved up the income ladder.

[00:10:51] So if I were to tell you that the middle class is shrinking, but it's shrinking because more people are becoming wealthier, would that necessarily be a bad thing? Would it be a bad thing to have more middle class people moving into the upper class or upper income brackets? Is that part of a positive vision of the American future? Is that what you would want to see?

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[00:12:36] Or check out all there is to offer at cabinsofashville.com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Got a message. This is from Michael who says, When I asked the question about, you know, higher paying jobs coming at the expense of the middle class, and Michael says it depends on where the new financial shift came from, how many of these higher paying positions are in government. I don't know.

[00:13:03] Norbert, Michelle did not provide that information. But being from the Cato Institute, I suspect he's not a fan of growing the government either. But if the upper income bracket has more and more people moving into it, and you have the lower income bracket losing people, and the middle income bracket losing people, because they're all moving up,

[00:13:32] isn't that the goal? I had a... Oh, this... Edward Lawrence. I think he's with... Who is he with? CNB? No. Fox Business. He used to work down the hall here at WBTV. White House press secretary says, 104% additional tariffs went into effect at noon today, because China did not remove its retaliatory tariffs.

[00:14:01] So the 104% additional tariff will be collected starting tomorrow, because they missed the deadline. They slapped us with a retaliatory tariff. We told them to take it off or we're going to hit you with another one. They didn't take it off. And now the additional tariff goes into effect. It is in effect as of like an hour ago. So this is...

[00:14:30] Look, this is one of the things about these types of trade wars, the retaliatory tariffs going back and forth, and they just keep raising the costs and erecting more trade barriers against each other. And you can think that's good. Like, I've made my position on all of this stuff clear in the first day. I know people don't want to hear it,

[00:14:55] but it's like I grew up and came of age at a time where everybody kind of agreed that tariffs were inflationary, protectionist, and drove up costs to the end user consumer. And so we're to be avoided. Now, if this all works out in some different way, I'm willing to let... Let's see how it looks. I don't know how it's going to look. But I hope it works out, because if it doesn't work out, it's going to be pretty bad. That's my expectation.

[00:15:25] It'll be good, or it'll be bad. Or maybe a mixture of both. All right. If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do too. And you've probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources. Why? Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News. It's an app, and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place, so you can compare coverage and verify information.

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[00:16:48] So I have no idea. But remember yesterday we talked with AP Dillon about the Mark Robinson scandal and who leaked all that information, whatever, and the rumors that were swirling around that it was one of his staffers. Well, and it wasn't. But in that piece that AP wrote, and I actually saw after the fact,

[00:17:17] I saw somebody forwarded me the invitation to an event in Claremont, North Carolina, where Mark Robinson appeared. Okay? And people are saying that he's now apparently testing the waters to get back into politics now. So sources who attended a boxcar grill event in Claremont with Mark Robinson

[00:17:47] told Media Right News, or whoever is running this account, here's the scoop. Again, this is a rumor. I don't know if this is true. I want that fully understood here. President Trump is privately brokering a deal to recruit Congressman Pat Harrigan to run in a primary against Tom Tillis and then have former Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson

[00:18:17] replace Harrigan for Robinson to run for that congressional seat. That's a bold strategy. We'll see if it works out for them. I don't know about the Harrigan-Tillis deal, but I mean, I'm not sure. Maybe in a solid Republican district it works. Right?

[00:18:44] Maybe Robinson gets through a primary and then wins in the general because the seat is a drawn safe seat for a Republican. And maybe that's the way that shakes out. It could. We'll see. Back to this piece at the Wall Street Journal. The middle class has shrunk only in the sense that former middle-income earners have moved up the income ladder. All right? With Consumer Price Index Adjusted Income,

[00:19:13] using 1964 as the starting point, that's the first year available data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, you go from 1964 through 2015, and you adjust the Consumer Price Index Adjusted Income. Okay? So this creates a sort of like inflation-adjusted dollars, right? You're now able to kind of look at all of the data and account for the increase in prices due to the devaluation of the dollar

[00:19:43] and everything else. The first year, 1964 through 2015, real wages grew by 39% using the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index. China in 2000, rather, right, they get the trade deal, opens up. Mexico, 1994, right?

[00:20:12] And it is true that those trade deals had an impact. Now, he minimizes those impacts. This guy in the Wall Street Journal, he's vice president and director of the Cato Institute Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives. He says the populist story of the death of U.S. manufacturing is nonsense. He says it wasn't the China deal and it wasn't NAFTA that killed American jobs. It's true, the number of manufacturing jobs,

[00:20:42] and I don't believe that. I do believe there was an impact. It's true that the number of manufacturing jobs is lower than it was in 1970, but that's not because we can make so much more with, or sorry, but that's because we can make so much more with fewer people. Blame technology, not trade. So I would say it's both. Again, I don't have to choose either one of these factors. And say that's the reason.

[00:21:11] I believe it was both. That when you start allowing competition, right, from foreign countries that use slave labor, you're not going to be able to compete with that from a price perspective. Real hourly output per manufacturing employee has been on an upward trend since 1959. Now, these data points, I do believe, real U.S. manufacturing value-added,

[00:21:38] so the manufacturing sector's contribution to the GDP reached its highest recorded level in 2022. Manufacturing output was close to an all-time high in 2022. And the U.S. remained the global leader in manufacturing value-added per worker. Steel is one example.

[00:22:00] In 1980, one steel worker could produce 0.083 tons of steel in an hour. Okay, so less than a tenth of one percent of a ton. One worker per hour. In 1980, fast forward 40 years, and one steel worker can now produce 1.67 tons in an hour.

[00:22:29] So almost two tons per hour. That's a good thing, I think, right? You become more efficient. That's what you want, right? You want to be able to produce more with fewer people. That keeps your costs down while providing the same number or more output. So the assertion is, and this is what I'm curious, what you think, that Americans don't want their kids to have to work punishing jobs in a steel mill,

[00:22:57] and it's evident that they don't have to. So is that true? Americans don't want their children to have to work punishing jobs in a steel mill. Is that true? Do you believe? Is that true for you? Do you believe that? Do you think that Americans want their kids or don't want their kids to have to work in a steel mill?

[00:23:25] American manufacturers now operate more efficiently. They use fewer natural resources. They require less backbreaking labor. They produce less pollution and employ more highly educated people than ever. No tariff or trade restriction is going to reverse those trends, he says. So what do you think? Do Americans not want to have their kids go to work in the steel mills? Because I kind of feel like that is true. But that's just my perception. What do you think?

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[00:24:53] Mail orders are accepted too. Get all the details at createavideo.com. Do Americans want all of the manufacturing jobs? It's a question I ask because I've seen the stat that there's half a million unfilled manufacturing jobs every month right now. And so if the purpose is to ignite a manufacturing renaissance in America, will Americans actually want those jobs?

[00:25:22] I'm just asking the question. I'm just asking questions. I'm curious. Like, how does that, how does that fit into this strategy? 704-570-1110. Let's go to Mike. Hello, Mike. Welcome to the program. Hey, how you doing today? I'm good. What's up? All right. To give you a little bit of information, in 1970, I was three months shy of my 16th birthday. My father put me to work in the largest mill under one roof in the world,

[00:25:52] which was Woodside Mill in Greenville, South Carolina, owned by Dan River Mills. Well, about 1974, the ACTW, BIA, and it was the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union came down from up north and was trying to unionize the textile mills around Greenville, South Carolina. J.P. Stevens, Dan River Mills, and Michael Millican, Roger Millican,

[00:26:22] of Millican Mills, said that they would close the doors and send everything overseas before they would be unionized. And another thing, you're talking about the people that won't fill the jobs today, the manufacturing jobs, people will not work today like we worked when we were younger. You know, like, I mean, I'm 70 years old now, so we grew up working.

[00:26:52] Kids now, they don't work, they play on video games. So you don't think people will take those jobs? No, I absolutely, no they won't. And I know, I have worked over the last few years, I've been retired, but I have worked a lot of people from overseas in South America. They'll come here and they'll work their cans off for the money that we make and they will, they'll live a lot lower than what we live,

[00:27:22] so to speak. Right. So it sounds like this is a problem if that's the strategy is to keep, is to bring more manufacturing into America, but we don't have the people to fill the jobs then. Do we have to import them? We have the people, we have the people to fill the jobs, but we have so many people that their mindset is I'm not working my can off for $15 an hour.

[00:27:51] I don't care if he was paying them $40 an hour, they'd still be saying the same thing because people are basically lazy anymore. Right, so again, this sounds like a problem with the strategy. Well, I agree with you there to a certain extent. Yeah, because I don't know what way around it. Right, because like, I don't know, because I'm seeing the same thing you're saying and I don't see how you fill the jobs if they're not being filled right now. I see, look, I live right near

[00:28:20] a bunch of manufacturing facilities. They've all got signs out in front of their buildings that say, you know, we're hiring and they're like hiring for like $30, $35 an hour. No experience necessary. So like, I know what I'm going to do when the day comes when they tell me that I'm not welcome at WBT anymore. I'm going to walk, I'm going to walk on over to the plant. I'm going to go work there if they'll have me. If I, you know, I don't know how old I'll be at that point. They may not want me, but I don't know. Like, that's,

[00:28:50] that's what I would do, but I don't know if, I don't know if other Americans will. You know, I don't know how many other Americans will. It takes initiative. It takes drive. People that want to work, people that want to succeed. We have too many freebies and giveaways in the United States for people. And people are much too easy on their children anymore. No, I got you. Mike, I appreciate the call, buddy. Thank you. Yes, sir. All right, take care.

[00:29:20] Let me get to Jim. Hello, Jim. Welcome to the program. Hey, Pete, thanks for taking my call. Yes, sir. My grandfather, my father, two brothers and niece either worked or still work at a steel mill in Cleveland, Ohio. My brother, Kenny retired as a millionaire and has a very, very nice retirement income.

[00:29:47] Thanks to his retirement pensions. My brother, my brother, who currently works at the same mill makes way, way beyond 100,000 a year. Granted, he's a hardworking guy and works every overtime hour. He lives a life. He lives a life of Riley. He lives a life of Riley. He lives two homes, vacations in Alaska and Florida because he loves fishing. He managed to get his daughter in the same mill,

[00:30:16] my niece and granddaughter. It transformed her life. She has a very nice life, makes a very nice income, bought her mom a brand new car. Um, so I, but it's not about, it's not about the compensation levels for the manufacturing gigs. Like I've never talked about the manufacturer or the, the compensation levels, because depending on what kind of manufacturing you're doing, you're going to be well compensated,

[00:30:45] especially modern America right now, because, um, the high tech manufacturing is really all that's, that remains that, you know, the, the low tech stuff's automated, right? They're not paying people to do that. Or the low tech stuff is probably manufactured in, um, uh, in, you know, China. So what you have in America is this manufacturing, uh, base that is higher tech and higher skilled, higher paid. But the problem I'm seeing though,

[00:31:13] is that there are these half a million jobs every month that are not filled. And I don't know if there is going to be this cultural push to, cause we've said the same thing about electricians, right? Uh, about, uh, people in the trades and those professions, you can make a lot of money doing that work, but they were always looking for more people in those lines of work because Americans, they don't, they don't take those jobs.

[00:31:41] I don't know how many openings there are at Cleveland Cliffs in Cleveland, but for the kids coming out of high school, who doesn't want to go to college, it's a fantastic opportunity to make a very nice living. Yeah. I got you, Jim. I appreciate the call. Sure thing. All right, buddy. Uh, let me get Kathy on real quick. Hello, Kathy. I have about half a minute, but it is all yours. Okay. I'll make it real quick. First of all, I love your show. Thank you. You need to run for, you need to run for office. No, no, no, no, no.

[00:32:12] Um, quickly, I think a lot of it, I see the younger generation, hopefully if I'm right, um, kind of waking up a little bit. Uh, again, if, if the people out there, the parents out there say, look, if we really love our kids, we're going to make them get out there and we're going to make them become good people. And I think that they're getting at a point where they have to, they can't afford to raise adult children. I know I can. Yeah. And, um,

[00:32:41] I pushed mine out and said, you're done. I'm done. I, I worked my butt off. I've done my time. It's your turn. Kathy. I appreciate it. I appreciate the call, Kathy. It's a fair point. But I mentioned earlier, the bulldozer parents, right? These were parents that cleared away all the obstacles for their kids. I'm not sure they're going to be the ones to say, go work in the steel mill. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening.

[00:33:08] I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to the, pp calendar show.com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.