Trade War Delivering a Sharp Hit to American Manufacturing
“Either you manufacture things or you’re leaching off the people you do,” a kid I knew in college told me. “You mean the dentist who keeps my teeth from rotting out of my head is leaching off some guy who makes coat hangers or brake shoes?” I asked for clarification. “Yep,” he replied. “Well that’s totally asinine,” I pointed out, walking away in self-hate that I couldn’t have gotten into a better school than this moron.
It’s a damn good thing he was wrong, i.e., that there are many other sectors (totally legitimate, btw) that make up our economy. The Dow is off more than 250 on the news that U.S. manufacturing is collapsing at an even faster rate than we suspected. From the article linked above, Manufacturing activity in the U.S. continued to contract last month, the Institute for Supply Management said. The ISM Manufacturing PMI dipped to 48.1 in November. That’s below an estimate of 49.4. Stocks hit their session lows after the data was released.
Obviously, the trade war with China, which has driven up the cost of raw materials for most manufacturing concerns, is the principal culprit. Even my hedge-fund managing, Trump-supporting friend I met in kindergarten wishes our president would stick to things he’s good at, perhaps disassembling the government or imprisoning children, and stay away from reckless trade policies that he knows nothing about.
It seems like the insanity never ends. Of course, that’s the way it always looks, until it ends.
Craig,
Rant, snort, rant rant.., morons, snort, rant…
Oh how you want America to fail! That would be a suitable punishment for America daring to elect Trump President!
What on earth are you on about? Your country has finally said “enough” to losing a decades old trade war with Asia and started to rebuild the American blue collar and manufacturing base (In 1955 the manufactured 2/3rds of the world’s goods).
The US economy, while hurting from the trade war slightly, is bearing up astonishingly well.
The most important economic indicator is always unemployment. US employment, especially among blue collar, low income workers, is at an historic high.
Millions of workers are better off in the “Trump’ economy.
Obviously, your irrational hatred of President Trump is far more important to you than the well being of the national economy, an American Victory in the trade war, the livelihood and prosperity of your fellow Americans, or even your love of America.
That’s really sad.