Manufacturng Renaissance?

The least I can say is that the topic does not lie within my ken. And yet, why not present some contrarian views about the coming manufacturing renaissance, from a seasoned economist by the name of Rebecca Patterson. 

Her essay appeared in the New York Times. The thrust of her argument is that engineering a manufacturing renaissance, not to mention a revival of the American middle class, is more of a pipe dream than a real possibility.

The problem is human capital. We do not have the people needed to man these industries. The people we have available are largely incapable of doing the jobs. 

So, we are going to be obliged to import foreign workers, which is well and good, except that these workers in most cases will be required to hold a bachelor’s degree from university.

How many of the subliterate masses who are coming into the country from the third world can read, write or count, not to mention, do algebra at college level.

Begin with the demographic problem:

In 1950, when manufacturing was near its peak as a share of total employment, the mostly male working population was growing at a steady clip, thanks in part to a fertility rate of 3.1 children per woman.

The complexion of the working population and its growth rate has since changed. While women and immigrants helped offset the slowing growth of the native-born population, it hasn’t been enough: Two-thirds of respondents to a National Association of Manufacturing survey this past spring said that their biggest challenge was attracting and retaining employees.

Aside from the fact that Americans are not reproducing enough, they are educating more females than males. More women receive college degrees than men do. But, ask yourself this, how many of said women want to work in manufacturing? And, how many of them have majored in fields that qualify them for such work.

By now, we have fallen behind and depend on foreign countries for too many products:

While the United States is working to reduce its dependence on China, particularly in certain strategic sectors, it cannot succeed in its national security goals by doing so alone. In numerous industries, such as semiconductors, where key parts of the supply chain are dominated by one or a small handful of companies in countries including Taiwan and the Netherlands, the United States has to partner with companies overseas. It doesn’t have the needed expertise at home, at least for the foreseeable future.

Now, Patterson notes that some of these jobs can be taken over by automation. This is true. And yet, considering the rancorous strike of the longshoreman’s union, among whose issues is a refusal to automate, and ask yourself whether American unions will ever allow such a thing to take place. Otherwise, the solution will be to move factories out of the country. 

But, Patterson notes, we can try to deal with these problems by imposing tariffs on imported goods. Everyone loves tariffs. They sound like a great idea:

Tariffs are likely to spark a trade war that puts at risk needed overseas’ investments in the United States — which would likely work against manufacturing employment. A 2019 Federal Reserve research paper found that U.S. tariffs levied under Mr. Trump in 2018 and 2019, along with retaliatory tariffs from foreign countries, led to a 1.4 percent reduction in manufacturing employment, or roughly 175,000 jobs that would have otherwise been created.

This assumes that the tariffs on foreign manufacturing open shelf space for American products that are of equal quality and that are not overly costly.

The moral of the story is that we should not take what politicians are promising at face value. It will take more than some new legislation, even a new industrial policy, to bring us back from that brink.

A little skepticism will do us well when thinking through these issues.

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What a Piece of Work Is a Man

The first rule is this: if you want to know what masculinity is, don’t ask a woman. 

Ruth Whippman is certainly a competent journalist, but her mind runs afoul in her recent New York Times essay on masculinity. The reason is simple. Aside from the interspersed studies, she tries to understand masculinity in terms of feelings, emotions and her own capacity for empathy.

The truth is, a man who claims to feel your pain is lying to you. If you insist that he become more empathic he will teach you a new kind of pain.

As we have occasionally pointed out, research has shown that the best way to enhance empathy circuits in the brain is to get pregnant. Most men miss out on this experience. 

Besides, being a man has to do with what he does, not how he feels.

It is basic sociology that when a society is feminized, when men are deprived of their rules of protecting and providing, the only form of masculinity that seems viable is a grotesque caricature called machismo.

Machismo involves thuggery. It involves being a man by beating on and abusing women. The alternative is manliness as gentility, whether the gentility of the Victorian gentleman or of the Confucian gentleman.

It involves acting responsibly and reliably. Being someone women and men can count on. Being someone who protects and provides. And especially someone who follows the rules, even when they contradict how he feels or what he really, really wants.

Naturally, the problem has been feminism. Once feminism persuaded women that making homes was a form of enslavement, they chose to develop careers outside of the home. They could provide for themselves and could protect themselves-- because they are strong and empowered.

This meant first that women were now competing with men in the marketplace and the battlefield. The notion of protecting and providing for such a being became superfluous. 

But it was also disruptive. Feminists imagined in their fever dreams that men would compensate for women’s unwillingness to do housework by becoming house husbands, by spending more time doing laundry and chestfeeding babies. Men felt that the demand was an indignity and they either went on strike or else walked away from the home.

Moreover, men who are competing against women are not in a relationship of cooperative complementarity. This fostered hostility between the sexes. 

When household roles are not defined, this creates confusion and chaos. Disrespecting traditional male roles leads men to become resentful.

Among the other rules that define masculinity is this: A real man does not marry a courtesan.

That is to say, a woman who wants to be respected must act as though she respects herself. Everyone knows what that means. I will not explain it in more detail. 

In addition, a third rule is this: a real man does not marry an idiot. Clearly, men should respect women for their minds, not just their physical attributes. That means that they should marry women who have minds, who do not dribble word salads while giggling like schoolgirls. 

Some men might find this form of mindlessness to be attractive. One would not be surprised to discover that said men mistreat women.

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Wednesday Potpourri

First, it was a cold day for the radical left when their champion, that would be Noam Chomsky, was asked about his views on the war in Ukraine.

Noam Chomsky, in an interview this week, says "fortunately" there is "one Western statesman of stature" who is pushing for a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine rather than looking for ways to fuel and prolong it.

"His name is Donald J. Trump," Chomsky says. 

Second, strange things are happening at CBS. First, there was the vice presidential debate, conducted by two suitably biased females.

Now, Heather Mac Donald wrote in City Journal that the questions and the lines of argument were completely feminized. What a shock and surprise:

No, it was the choice and presentation of topics that most revealed the feminization of the elite world view. The moderators turned subjects that should have been landmines for the Biden–Harris record into indictments of Trump–Vance. This transformation was driven not just by contempt for the GOP ticket. It grew out of a reflexive focus on putative victims of conservative policies. More abstract questions of costs and benefits and less favored victims were all ignored.

Third, but then CBS interviewed Kamala for their 60 Minutes show. By all accounts the interviewer did an excellent job. His name was Bill Whitaker:

60 Minutes: "What I was asking was, was it a mistake to kind of allow that flood to happen in the first place?"

Kamala: "I think-- the policies that we have been proposing are about fixing a problem, not promoting a problem, okay?"

60 Minutes: "But the numbers did quadruple under your watch."

Kamala: "Because of what we have done-- we have cut the flow of illegal immigration by half. We have cut the flow of fentanyl by half. But we need Congress to be able to act to actually fix the problem."

Fourth, as though that was not bad enough, CBS ran an interview with the anti-Semitic Ta-Nehisi Coates. As you know, Coates just brought forth a new book denouncing Israel for being an apartheid state and for being racist. He has done his best to make it safe to be anti-anti-Semitic. He has helped mainstream the question of whether Israel has a right to exist. 

So, in a brilliant move CBS chose Jewish journalist Tony Dokoupil to interview Coates. He called Coates an extremist and was later called to account by CBS News’ female CEO”

Ahead of their blockbuster interview with Kamala Harris, CBS News has lurched into chaos over Tony Dokoupil's tense interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates over the author's anti-Israeli views in his new book. 

Dokoupil accused Coates of being an 'extremist' during a tense on-air chat about his latest release, 'The Message' on CBS This Morning.

CBS News' CEO Wendy McMahon reportedly dragged Dokoupil - who converted to Judaism and whose ex-wife and children live in Israel - over the coals, claiming he 'did not meet editorial standards for impartiality.' 

Dokoupil was quick to criticize the author for not including an Israeli perspective in his work claiming it delegitimizes the pillars of the country.

'The content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist,' Dokoupil said.

'Why leave out that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it? Why leave out that Israel deals with terror groups that want to eliminate it?

'Is it because you just don’t believe that Israel in any condition has a right to exist?'

Fifth, in her 60 Minutes interview Kamala tried to put some distance between her and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Apparently, her nonsense has been edited out of the version that was shown.

Amid friction with Israeli leadership, Vice President Kamala Harris sidestepped a question about whether she considers Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be a “real, close ally.”

“I think, with all due respect, the better question is, do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people? And the answer to that question is yes,” Harris told CBS’ “60 Minutes” in a preview clip.

Since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas massacre in which 1,200 Israelis were killed, the Harris-Biden administration has, at times, found itself at loggerheads with Netanyahu over his response.

To which Morgan Ortagus replied on Twitter:

Refusing to stand by the democratically elected leadership of an ally state is quite literally breaking norms and institutions she is supposed to protect. The left loves to undermine democratic leaders around the world if they get in their way.

Sixth, meanwhile, New Zealand, more woke than thou, gave a woman command of a naval vessel. Her name was: Yvonne Gray. The result, the vessel sank:

The Royal NZ Navy ship’s HMNZS Manawanui sank this morning after running aground on a reef near the southern coast of Upolu, Samoa, last night and catching fire.

To which Roger Kimball responded:

But at least the NZ Navy (like, unfortunately, the US Navy) gets good grades on hiring females and promoting them beyond their capability.

Seventh, remember when Joe Biden, our commander in chief, told the Israeli government that it should respond to Iran’s attack proportionally. 

Myron Magnet responded on Twitter:

An analogy: Japan destroyed our naval fleet in a sneak attack. We obliterated two of their cities with atomic bombs. Overwhelming force, not “proportionality,” wins wars. War is not ping pong, where you just volley.

Eighth, now that Columbia University has allowed itself to be embroiled in anti-Semitic violent protests, lo and behold, its donors have been cutting back on their giving.

The New York Post has the story:

Columbia University saw donations at its annual fundraiser drop nearly 29% after the spate of anti-Israel protests on campus earlier this year.

The annual “Giving Day” event brought in $21.4 million in 2024, compared to $30 million in 2022, the last time the event was held, according to campus newspaper Columbia Spectator. Giving Day was postponed in 2023 due to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and the ensuing protests.

The Ivy League university also saw a nearly 28% drop in the number of gifts, falling from 19,229 in 2022 to 13,870, the lowest since 2015, the paper said.

Ninth, just in case you missed the earlier stories of Doug Emhoff’s misogyny, the Daily Mail has more details:

Kamala Harris's husband was 'inappropriate' and 'misogynistic' at work, his former colleagues tell DailyMail.com.

Attorneys who worked with Doug Emhoff at his former firm Venable say he yelled expletives, held a men-only cocktail hour in the office, revoked work perks from women who didn't flirt with him, and took only young, attractive associates in a limousine to a ball.

A 2019 lawsuit also claimed sex discrimination by other partners in the LA office Emhoff ran, and that while engaged to Harris, he hired an 'unqualified' part-time model as a legal secretary 'because she was young, attractive and friendly with the powerful men in the office'.

A true feminist, don’t you think?

Tenth, we are so accustomed to our mealy-mouthed president telling Israel not to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, that the following remarks, from the Canadian opposition leader, come as something of a shock.

When asked whether he would support Israel striking the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear facilities, Canadian opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, responds: “It would be a gift by the Jewish state to humanity.”

Eleventh, apparently Joe Biden is not a full throated supporter of his vice president.

Collin Rugg reports:

This is hilarious. Kamala Harris told reporters that Ron DeSantis was being selfish and ‘utterly irresponsible’ for not taking her call regarding Hurricane Milton. Hours later, Ron DeSantis says in her 3 and a half years in office, Kamala Harris hasn’t called him once to offer assistance. “She has no role in this. In fact, she's been vice president for three and a half years.” “I've dealt with a number of storms under this administration. She has never contributed anything to any of these efforts.” “She's the first one who's trying to politicize the storm, and she's doing that just because of her campaign.”

And then, someone asked President Biden about his work with Ron Desantis:

“The Governor of Florida has been cooperative. He’s said he's gotten all that he needs. I talked to him again yesterday and I said — a — boy — I said I know you're doing a great job. It’s being all — being done well, we thank you for it and I literally gave him my personal phone number to call, so I don't know — there was a rough start in some places, but every governor — every governor — from Florida to North Carolina, has been fully cooperative and supportive and acknowledged what this team is doing and they're doing an incredible job. But we got a lot more work to do.”

Twelfth, apparently transmania is big business. Billboard Chris reports:

Between 2019 and 2023, U.S. hospitals charged at least $120 million for sex-change procedures on 14,000 children! Actual numbers are even higher. These numbers don’t include self-pay, Veterans Affairs claims, or patients covered by Kaiser Health Plans.

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Knowing Who Your Friends Are

Jewish Americans have traditionally been good liberals. After all, if that paragon of liberalism, FDR, had not been president during the Hitler years, there might have been a Holocaust of European Jews. So to speak.

Now, with the current events in Israel, Jews have discovered that their erstwhile allies, the groups they stood up for, have abandoned them.

Bret Stephens described what was tantamount to a betrayal:

At some point, an awakening of sorts occurred. Perhaps not for every American Jew, but for many. I’ve called them the Oct. 8 Jews — those who woke up a day after our greatest tragedy since the Holocaust to see how little empathy there was for us in many of the spaces and communities and institutions we thought we comfortably inhabited. It was an awakening that often came with a deeper set of realizations.

One realization: American Jews should not expect reciprocity.

Few minorities have been more conspicuously attached to progressive causes than American Jews: Samuel Gompers and labor unionism; Betty Friedan and feminism; Harvey Milk and gay rights; Abraham Joshua Heschel and civil rights; Robert Bernstein and human rights. A proud history, but whatever we poured of ourselves into the pain and struggle of others was not returned in our days of grief. Nor should we expect much understanding: In an era that stresses sensitivity to every microaggression against nearly any minority, macroaggressions against Jews who happen to believe that Israel has a right to exist are not only permitted but demanded.

Often, the denizens of the political left have aligned against Israel. From Tommy Friedman doing his best to undermine the authority of Israel’s wartime prime minister to Kamala Harris refusing to declare Benjamin Netanyahu a valued ally, the writing is clearly on the wall. The more they talk about a cease fire, the more they make it the basis for their policy, the more they are calling on Israel to surrender.

A Harris administration will sell out Israel, perhaps by putting an arm embargo on the nation, without fearing any backlash from American Jews.

Now, Karol Markowicz looks at the problem from a slightly different angle. Our nation has had large numbers of Christians who have stood up for and defended Israel. And yet, Jewish organizations, she says, have largely ignored them.

It is useful to know who your friends are. And it is even more useful to treat your allies well. 

But where were the invites and awards for the conservatives who had unwaveringly stood by us? Where was Megyn Kelly? Where were Clay Travis and Buck Sexton? Dan Bongino? Xaviaer DuRousseau? Erick Erickson? Dana Loesch? Glenn Beck? Guy Benson? Sohrab Ahmari? Stephen “RedSteeze” Miller? Kurt Schlichter? Mary Katharine Ham? Pretty much everyone on Fox News?

She paints a portrait of ingratitude:

These people went above and beyond and got no official thank you from the American Jewish community at all, not a single Jewish organization celebrated them. It’s sickening. These mensches didn’t benefit one iota from standing with Jews and with Israel. They took shots for us, they suffered abuse for us. They’ll say they don’t need the praise. They did it because it was right. But how dare we not say thank you?

Support for Israel extended to Republican politicians. Democratic politicians, not so much. Yesterday, Senator Elizabeth Warren droned on about how bad the Israeli attack on Gaza was. 

Nearly every Republican politician effusively stood up for Israel and demanded the protection of American Jews. Where is Ted Cruz’s award? Ron DeSantis’s? Tom Cotton’s? Where is Donald Trump’s? 

What explains the ingratitude? Why Markowicz explains, it is party loyalty:

Most Jewish organizations are dinosaurs, committed to Democrats just as the Democrats make clear they are not at all interested in them. That’s the problem with tying your religion to a political party. The political party can tell you that your enemies, who want to destroy you and murder your children, “have a point” and you’ll just take it.

You have to performatively hate Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, and celebrating the successes of Israel would place you on the wrong “side.” Your politics have separated you from your people. It’s pathetic. I feel sorry for you for having to live your lie.

The case of Donald Trump is most indicative. Has any American president done more for Israel? For that, Jewish groups have declared him to be Hitler. It takes a special kind of stupid to consider Trump as Hitler:

The American Embassy is now in the capital of Israel, in Jerusalem, where it should be, because of Donald Trump. You don’t care about that? You’re into peace? The Abraham Accords normalized relations between Israel and UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. There hadn’t been a peace agreement in nearly 30 years but Donald Trump got one done. Democrats see Israel as a problem to solve. Donald Trump sees Israel’s enemies as the problem. They are not the same.

What will it take for American Jews to wake up? It is a good question. Hats off to Markowicz for raising the issue.

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Kamalafornia

Joel Kotkin has offered a picture of Kamala Harris’s new administration. If such occurs, of course. He indicts her and the political powers in Sacramento and declares that she would do to America what she and those like her did to California.

Since we do not really know what Kamala believes, we are reduced to examining the consequences of her policy agenda, in California, which he calls Kamalafornia. 

The state, by Kotkin’s analysis, is a living, breathing calamity. It has suffered a series of losses, to the point where it has become feudal, with working class peons servicing plutocrats. It leads the nation in lost business and in poverty. 

For the record, Kotkin does not see California as a socialist paradise. He sees it as a return to feudalism.

And California has been losing its middle class:

Since 2000, this state of unmatched attractions has managed to lose a net 3.5 million domestic residents. Critically, it ranks toward the bottom among US states in drawing newcomers, who have always been the critical fuel for its economy. Many of those leaving, according to an analysis of IRS data, are middle-income families in their childbearing years; many are college graduates. Forget Harris’s youthful “vibe”: The state, according to data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, is aging 50 percent more rapidly than the nation—gradually ditching the surfboard for the walker.

Once upon a time, things were better in California:

California boasted a remarkably diverse economy that included not only Silicon Valley and Hollywood, but also some of the country’s largest banks, a highly diversified industrial sector, and thriving oil and aerospace industries that employed hundreds of thousands of largely unionized blue-collar workers. At the turn of the millennium, California job creation was well-distributed in terms of regions, job types, and incomes. This economy proved to be a powerful engine for upward mobility and social progress.

California was done in by over-regulation:

The progressive regulatory tsunami—notably on labor, climate, and energy—hammered all businesses outside the elite tech sector. Harris talks about creating an “opportunity” society by aiding small businesses, but according to the Small Business Regulation Index, progressive California has the worst business climate for small firms in the nation.

At the least, California is unfriendly to business.

Many large companies have simply picked up and left for other fields. A Hoover Institution report found that in 2020, California had only one-seventh the number of company-initiated capital projects than did the leading state, Texas. Since 2022, moreover, all the jobs created in the state were in government or supported by the public sector, while private employment dropped. With the state suffering deep budget shortfalls, even government employment is beginning to drop.

As for the Harris promise that her opportunity economy will produce good paying jobs for middle class workers, it has certainly not happened in California:

Increasingly, California fails to produce the mid-wage jobs that support families. The terroir of choice for tech billionaires, venture capitalists, and home to three of the world’s five leading tech firms, the state ranks near the bottom when it comes to creating jobs that pay above average. Since 2008, it has created five times more low-wage jobs than mid-wage ones.

Among the culprits are environmental regulations:

In this case, the state’s climate diktats are most to blame. Any industry that uses carbon-based energy is targeted, including ports and logistics industries. At the huge Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex, regulations aimed at terminating gas-powered trucks endanger the jobs of the primarily Latino workers, as the port faces stiff competition from places like Houston, Tampa, and Norfolk, which impose no such rules. 

The results have been positively feudal.

California may be home to the highest number of billionaires. Despite its enormous wealth, it is also home to a third of the nation’s homeless people. The Golden State also suffers the highest share of residents living in poverty and the widest gap between middle- and upper-middle-income earners of any state.

After noting that the poverty levels in California are unacceptably high, Kotkin adds this, a propos of making housing more affordable in her opportunity economy:

One recent study found the median family in San Jose or San Francisco would need 125 years—150 years in Los Angeles—to save enough for a down payment; in Atlanta or Houston, it takes 12 years on average. Even the skilled, unionized working class doesn’t have much of a chance. Not one unionized construction worker can afford to buy a median priced home in any coastal California county, according to a recent study by economist John Husing.

So, what would Kamala’s America look like?

Under her rule, America would look more like failing Europe than itself, with the same tendency to raise taxes, regulate, and destroy the material economy.

California has feudalized itself by embracing trendy woke policies.

Kamlafornians will focus on gender, abortion, and race—virtue signaling that doesn’t threaten oligarchic elites. Expect to see a push, either through Congress or the executive, for such California legislation as mandates for stores to have gender-neutral baby sections or for allowing children to change genders without parental approval.

To compensate, the government will get more deeply into the business of offering handouts.

Working and middle-class people might soon realize there isn’t much of a future for them in a national Kamalafornia. Rather than good jobs and affordable houses to buy, handouts will be the order of the day, expanding what Marx described as “the proletarian alms bag” for the increasingly economically irrelevant masses. In her campaign literature, Harris pledges vast sums for starting business and buying homes, but she places little emphasis on the economy that would sustain them. Ultimately, most would most face a property-less, serf-like future in a system that resembles, as one Silicon Valley wag put it, “feudalism with better marketing.”

California once represented aspiration. Today, the state seems more an avatar of national decline. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen recently compared California to the late, decaying Roman Empire, also characterized by low birth rates, ever greater regulation, and an ever widening class divide. Exactly right.

Better to be an informed voter. 

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Giving Sunday

We no longer tithe, so we request donations.  

Obviously, it takes time and effort to write these posts. I have been posting on this blog every day for around sixteen years. It is not self-evident. I could not have done it without the financial support of you, my readers.

If you would like to encourage me to continue, a good way would be by contributing.

I try to make my writing sound effortless, and, as the old saying goes, it takes a lot of work to make anything seem effortless. From where I sit, it deserves some compensation. 

The internet is awash in blogs. I am grateful to those who have chosen to spend a small part of their days reading mine. I have tried to be worthy of their confidence, by presenting reflections and analysis that are unlikely to be found elsewhere. 

If you would like to express your gratitude by donating please make use of the Paypal button on this page. If you prefer, you can mail a check to 310 East 46th St. 24H. New York, NY 10017.

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