{"id":577,"date":"2013-01-15T06:55:38","date_gmt":"2013-01-15T12:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/allenergyconsulting.com\/blog\/?p=577"},"modified":"2013-01-15T08:30:39","modified_gmt":"2013-01-15T14:30:39","slug":"strong-manufacturing-producing-sector-needed-in-a-vibrant-economy-of-our-size","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/allenergyconsulting.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/15\/strong-manufacturing-producing-sector-needed-in-a-vibrant-economy-of-our-size\/","title":{"rendered":"Strong Manufacturing \/ Producing Sector Needed in a Vibrant Economy of Our Size"},"content":{"rendered":"

My last few blogs, I have indicated the need for the manufacturing\/producing sector. <\/span><\/span>I want to directly addresse the reason <\/span>why<\/em> \u2013 beyond the statement “the sector will not make everyone wealthy, but it will allow those who are willing and capable, the pursuit of happiness”.\u00a0 If you are as curious as me, I would continue to be that annoying kid and ask, but WHY?\u00a0 Why can they not pursue happiness in other areas? Why not a service economy? The key words in the title are \u201cOUR SIZE\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 We have diverse group of people in the country. \u00a0Also take note that I ended the statement with the pursuit of happiness.\u00a0\u00a0 As much as we all have different concepts of religion, we vastly have different concepts of what makes each of us happy.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are many scholars who believe our economy can be a service economy driven by our minds and intellect.\u00a0 This reminded me of a dinner conversation I had with Dr. Nariman Behravesh, Chief Economist at IHS Global Insight.\u00a0 Nariman has always been very cordial with me and I do believe we have entertaining conversations; so I hold a very high regards for his opinions and thoughts. <\/span><\/span>I did have to ponder and eventually confront him on the statement he once made \u201cwe (referring to the US), can be a service industry because we have our minds\u201d. \u00a0I will take a risk in my statements to perhaps be considered an elitist, but my real life experience is where my response comes from.\u00a0\u00a0 At AEP, we served some of the worst economic territories in the country.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

The people in those regions are still happy and they do things for which many parts of the country should take note.\u00a0 Consumption does not necessarily drive their happiness. \u00a0I noted to Nariman, not everyone has ambition or even the desire to drive a fancy car. \u00a0There will always be people who just need something to do, no matter how mundane the task from 8-5, Monday-Friday. Their enjoyments come from hunting, TV watching, raising their kids, enjoying the outdoors, etc\u2026We cannot transform to 100% service industry because of this.\u00a0 If we lived in Cambridge, MA for many years, I can see perhaps how one can envisioned this.\u00a0 However the US is vast and its own vastness offers a plethora of individuals who hold their own goals in life.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

And as our Declaration of Independence state \u201cLife, Liberty, and the <\/span>pursuit of happiness<\/strong>\u201d \u2013 to each his own on what happiness is.\u00a0 There is something admirable when the pursuit of your happiness is not part of the rat race to accumulate wealth.\u00a0\u00a0 This reminds me of a recent clip I saw while channel surfing from the movie Con Air \u2013 \u201cGarland Greene: What if I told you insane was working fifty hours a week in some office for fifty years, at the end of which they tell you to piss off; ending up in some retirement village, hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time? Wouldn’t you consider that to be insane?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I never stated we need to be 100% manufacturing, but I think it is reasonable to say we have dwindled our capabilities of manufacturing too low.\u00a0 I understand productivity advancements and automation reducing the amount of people required to do a task.\u00a0\u00a0 This actually supports my thesis for having to create more of a manufacturing base.\u00a0\u00a0 People cannot be allowed to sit around and lose hope and desire to be productive.\u00a0 And then be expected to be able to jump back on the ship as it passes by.\u00a0\u00a0 As much as prisoners can be institutionalized to their environment, people can be institutionalized to their routines.\u00a0\u00a0 They need to know how to work.\u00a0\u00a0 They need the pattern of waking up Monday-Friday while adding some productivity to society. \u00a0With that added productivity, they will be allowed to pursue their happiness on the weekends and nights.\u00a0 The manufacturing sector gives this capability.\u00a0\u00a0 A service industry is lean and mean. \u00a0It cannot ever measure up to the scale that a manufacturing sector can do whether it is chemicals, textile, paper, etc\u2026<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The latest thinking among many economists is that the US economy will grow sub 3% for many years to come.\u00a0\u00a0 This creates increasing unemployment each year by 1%+ with the status quo setup we have.\u00a0\u00a0 We need to think about creating jobs that create an added value and some social stability.\u00a0\u00a0 This means you can\u2019t just create jobs by creating inefficient process \u2013 spoons instead of shovels or even bulldozer in moving and clearing land.\u00a0\u00a0 Jobs cannot be priced way above the net value to society.\u00a0 We cannot have a job paying $40K\/yr for a mundane task – e.g. screwing in bolts.\u00a0\u00a0 At the same time executive compensation is also taking many of the jobs away and forcing outsourcing in order to balance the unequal productivity to capital. \u00a0CEO\u2019s not bringing new ideas and concepts that actually work, but being paid at 800 to 1 their average worker is unsustainable. \u00a0Mass institutional holding and crony boards are much to blame for this trend.\u00a0 I digress slightly, but I did not want to be picking on the lower class exclusively. There is much blame to pass around in all parts of society for our lack of \u201creal\u201d productivity.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I hope I have rationalized to some extent of my thoughts on the value and the requirement of a strong manufacturing base.\u00a0\u00a0 We are not all over-achievers, in fact there are probably more under-achievers.\u00a0 These people, for society sake, need to be part of the productivity cycle, so their kids can have the opportunity to be over-achievers, if so desired.\u00a0 This is the American dream in my mind – To be given the opportunity to be successful and to create the most fair and balance system to make sure those who cheat the system do not sustain themselves in the upper class. \u00a0The last part we have failed given the lack of prosecution in the banking sector. \u00a0We can still right the ship by re-aligning our economy from less financial engineering to real engineering.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps we don\u2019t always agree on seeing things, but it is always good to continually examined different viewpoints.\u00a0 I look forward to hearing your views.\u00a0 In the meantime please do consider All Energy Consulting for your consulting needs.\u00a0 We will always have you in mind once you are our clients.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Your Energy Consultant,<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

David K. Bellman<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

614-356-0484<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My last few blogs, I have indicated the need for the manufacturing\/producing sector. I want to directly addresse the reason why \u2013 beyond the statement “the sector will not make everyone wealthy, but it will allow those who are willing and capable, the pursuit of happiness”.\u00a0 If you are as curious as me, I would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[34,190,191],"class_list":["post-577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-market-insights","tag-economy","tag-manufacturing","tag-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allenergyconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/allenergyconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/allenergyconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allenergyconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allenergyconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/allenergyconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":581,"href":"https:\/\/allenergyconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions\/581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allenergyconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allenergyconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allenergyconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allenergyconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}