Yellen: American Manufacturing Is a ‘Pipe Dream,’ May Not Be a ‘Desirable Goal’

[Muhammed]

There are plenty of far better jobs here than working the line in a factory.

Exactly. They could be astronauts, for example. Or play in the NBA. Or be a rock star!

Anyone would rather be a rock star than work in a factory.

 

[LeftofLeft]

And that is why it is a pipe dream. In addition…all the benefits, health insurance, pensions and union bargained pay rates are gone forever. Manufacturers aren’t going to bring them back and Republicans are anti-worker. Most of the work will be automated.

You say “Republicans are anti-worker” when Democrats have been struggling earn the votes and endorsements of voters who put jobs ahead of social issues and the environment in the elections over the past 20 years. Harris could not even secure the Union endorsement in 2024.

 

[BluesLegend]

Yellen: American Manufacturing Is a ‘Pipe Dream,’ May Not Be a ‘Desirable Goal​

Yes well not everyone can have a government taxpayer funded MOOCH job like her. Most people have to work for a living. Tell her to shut her big stupid mouth!

 

[BluesLegend]

You say “Republicans are anti-worker” when Democrats have been struggling earn the votes and endorsements of voters who put jobs ahead of social issues and the environment in the elections over the past 20 years. Harris could not even secure the Union endorsement in 2024.

Democrats continue to run the pro working class ads when they abandoned the working class decades ago. The American people and even unions have figured this out. You know, after Democrats screwed them over for the 100th time.

 

[Doc7505]

They will, but maybe for reasons the Republicans won't like especially.

Or maybe not. The GOP has changed a lot, and now cares much more about the working class, i.e. relies on their votes.

The reason that manufacturing jobs tend to be high-paying secure jobs is unions. The reason unions are successfull in manufacturing is that factories are so easy to successfully strike. The wealth production via classic capitalism is concentrated in one building, which requires constant input of parts and materials, and constant outputs of assembled products.

A strike can devastate a factory, and it is very difficult to break that strike with non-union workers, or by having management do the work. Every day that a factory sits idle, completed units are not moved out, and meanwhile parts and materials keep being delivered, or at least attempted delivery and stopped by the pickets.

For this reason, the executives are willing to offer higher pay and benefits. The problem is that, regardless of Trump's efforts, the owners may simply move the factories back to foreign countries. Unless Trump's tariffs make that less profitable than paying union wages.

~~~~~~
The blue collar jobs are coming back and their wages will rise as each new manufacturing plant goes into operations.
Don't forget this nation was built be the blue collar worker and he will do it once more if given the opportunity. by Trump.

 

[task0778]

Kids don’t graduate hoping to work on an assembly line

I hoped I could get a job on an assembly line when I graduated high school. 'Course, that was back in 1966, and I grew up wanting to earn a living by working rather than by getting welfare. But in those days, jobs like that were scarce indeed cuz everybody else wanted the same thing and openings were scarce. But times change I guess. The BLS tells us that approx 480,000 jobs are open as of Feb 2025, and since not enough Americans want those jobs or have the required skills to do them, employers have turned to foreign workers to fill them.

So, even if Trump's tariffs result in more domestic manufacturing, how does more open jobs help anything? I highly doubt more of those jobs are gonna happen and manufacturing isn't going to increase by that much, employers are mostly gonna automate or they just ain't coming back. So yeah, it's a pipe dream and this ain't the 1st time we've been sold that crap. It's more politics than anything else, the democrats pushed tariffs 30 years ago and now Trump is doing it. But it didn't work everytime it has been tried and it ain't gonna work now either.

 

[task0778]

In addition…all the benefits, health insurance, pensions and union bargained pay rates are gone forever. Manufacturers aren’t going to bring them back and Republicans are anti-worker.

I would have thought most people would have realized by now that all the benefits, insurance, pensions, and union-bargained pay rates are/were unsustainable. In order for those things to happen, the price of the product has to be too high to turn a decent profit. Domestic manufacturing cannot compete with products imported from other countries where labor costs are so much lower than here. No doubt our ridiculous taxes and regulations are also a factor, plus insurance and the threat of lawsuits, all of which means it's too GD expensive to manufacture a product in the US. IMHO, you can raise tariffs on whatever you want to but you're not going to see a revitalized domestic manufacturing sector.

And it makes no sense. Say a consumer can buy an imported product for 30% less than the same product made here. It might not have as much quality but sometimes it does and that should be the choice for a consumer to make. So now a tariff is applied and let's say the price of the imported product is about the same as the domestic one. Is the consumer going to pay the higher priced domestic product now? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it depends on his/her need for that product. Maybe they'll live without the new product, wherever it came from. And maybe the manufacturing businesses that moved offshore won't be willing to pay the costs of returning to America based on a 'maybe'. Maybe instead they'll just lay low and wait for the tariff to be rescinded. Or maybe they'll go out of business and invest their money in something else.

And as far as being anti-worker is concerned, ask yourself why the democrats are losing union support. Both sides talk a good fight, but under the current circumstances there really isn't much either party can do about the disappearing manufacturing jobs.

 

[Blaster]

Yellen was a disaster as Treasury Secretary.

 

[g5000]

~~~~~~
Yellen has been one of the key players for decades dating back to the Clinton era in moving manufacturing from America to offshore and primarily to China.

Most manufacturing, and I mean literally most, has been automated out of existence.

Those jobs did not go to China. They were replaced by machines.

Even Trump's idiot Commerce Secretary Howard Lugnut let it slip on Face The Nation:

SEC. LUTNICK: --the armies of millions of people- well, remember, the army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little- little screws to make iPhones, that kind of thing is going to come to America. It's going to be automated and great Americans- the tradecraft of America, is going to fix them, is going to work on them. They're going to be mechanics. There's going to be HVAC specialists. There's going to be electricians, the tradecraft of America. Our high school educated Americans- the core to our workforce, is going to have the greatest resurgence of jobs in the history of America to work on these high-tech factories, which are all coming to America. That's what's going to build our next generation of America.


Lugnut claimed the jobs currently being done by "millions and millions of people" will be replaced by a similar number of jobs taking care of the machines which will take over making iPhones.

Why automate if you are still going to need "millions and millions of people" to take care of the machines?

Lugnut is an idiot.


Here's an American auto factory from the 1970s. Look how many workers:

Here's an American auto factory today. See if you can find the humans:

 

[Mac1958]

Even Trump's idiot Commerce Secretary Howard Lugnut let it slip on Face The Nation:

I don't know what they think they're getting for this global chaos, economic instability, Treasury bond collapse and loss of allies/credibility.

It has to be something great. But it's not reality. And I'm not asking them. The answer would almost certainly be depressing.

 

[Coyote]

I would have thought most people would have realized by now that all the benefits, insurance, pensions, and union-bargained pay rates are/were unsustainable. In order for those things to happen, the price of the product has to be too high to turn a decent profit. Domestic manufacturing cannot compete with products imported from other countries where labor costs are so much lower than here. No doubt our ridiculous taxes and regulations are also a factor, plus insurance and the threat of lawsuits, all of which means it's too GD expensive to manufacture a product in the US. IMHO, you can raise tariffs on whatever you want to but you're not going to see a revitalized domestic manufacturing sector.

And it makes no sense. Say a consumer can buy an imported product for 30% less than the same product made here. It might not have as much quality but sometimes it does and that should be the choice for a consumer to make. So now a tariff is applied and let's say the price of the imported product is about the same as the domestic one. Is the consumer going to pay the higher priced domestic product now? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it depends on his/her need for that product. Maybe they'll live without the new product, wherever it came from. And maybe the manufacturing businesses that moved offshore won't be willing to pay the costs of returning to America based on a 'maybe'. Maybe instead they'll just lay low and wait for the tariff to be rescinded. Or maybe they'll go out of business and invest their money in something else.

And as far as being anti-worker is concerned, ask yourself why the democrats are losing union support. Both sides talk a good fight, but under the current circumstances there really isn't much either party can do about the disappearing manufacturing jobs.

Just on your last paragraph, the Democrats have been losing some Union support,but it isn’t really flowing to the Republicans. IMO,the Democrats have gotten lost in the weeds catering to too many special interests and lost sight of a large portion of America.

On manufacturing though, it isn’t simple and tariffs are not being used strategically here. I DO think we, tbe IS ought to subsidize some sectors (such as the chip industry), but for others, how can we compete with the low wages paid in other countries and should we? I listened to this the other day on NPR, and it drove home several points, namely bring back manufacturing takes years even decades of planning and building tbe necessary infrastructure to determine what should still be outsourced and what be brought back. In the meantime, many businesses who do not have the cushion and resources of the giants (Amazon, Walmart etc.) will go under from the tariffs.

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/17/nx-s1-5366723/tariffs-impact-baby-products

 

[task0778]

Just on your last paragraph, the Democrats have been losing some Union support,but it isn’t really flowing to the Republicans. IMO,the Democrats have gotten lost in the weeds catering to too many special interests and lost sight of a large portion of America.

On manufacturing though, it isn’t simple and tariffs are not being used strategically here. I DO think we, tbe IS ought to subsidize some sectors (such as the chip industry), but for others, how can we compete with the low wages paid in other countries and should we? I listened to this the other day on NPR, and it drove home several points, namely bring back manufacturing takes years even decades of planning and building tbe necessary infrastructure to determine what should still be outsourced and what be brought back. In the meantime, many businesses who do not have the cushion and resources of the giants (Amazon, Walmart etc.) will go under from the tariffs.

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/17/nx-s1-5366723/tariffs-impact-baby-products

I can't argue with any of that. Me, I'm just not seeing the manufacturing renaissance happening and the growth in corresponding jobs. I'm sure that Trump will trumpet (see what I did there) how many countries he got to rework trade deals, but he isn't going to say much about how many manufacturing jobs were created thanks to his tariffs cuz there won't be very many of them to boast about. And he also won't talk about how many downstream manufacturing jobs were lost thanks to the higher costs of steel and aluminum. Prices for stuff like washers and dryers, bicycles, and construction are going to go up for anything that requires S&A.

I do not see the imbalance of trade changing much and it won't be permanent. Once the tariffs go away, so will the imbalance of trade go back up. So I think many companies that moved offshore will just hunker down and wait for the tariffs to disappear. And some of them will just close up shop.

 

[Arresmillao]

Janet Yellen: American Manufacturing Is a 'Pipe Dream,' May Not Be a 'Desirable Goal'

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen blasted President Donald Trump, saying the return of American manufacturing is a "pipe dream."

www.breitbart.com

Janet Yellen: American Manufacturing Is a 'Pipe Dream,' May Not Be a 'Desirable Goal'

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen blasted President Donald Trump, saying the return of American manufacturing is a "pipe dream."

www.breitbart.com

These Democrats do not want the American working class to recover EVER. They want everyone on the Democrat welfare state plantation.

Yellen is absolutely right, for a example, the biggest manufacturing facility in my home town, which is a small city, has an extremely difficult time attracting people to work, even when they pay acceptable wages, instead you can see young people begging for money in street corners and people wandering around doing nothing or high on drugs.
Attracting manufacturing to our country is not a reality in many cases. America needs to change the culture of laziness and drug addiction before we are suitable again for progress...

 

[DonGlock26]

Yellen is absolutely right,

 

[Arresmillao]

"It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere"

 

[DonGlock26]

"It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere"

We freed ourselves from Bidenomics.

 

[Arresmillao]

We freed ourselves from Bidenomics.

Haaaaaa, ha , ha straight into recession and collapsed markets, magatard cult member are beyond dumb

 

[DonGlock26]

Haaaaaa, ha , ha straight into recession

You hope.

 

[Rambunctious]

This woman has not been right about anything... you would think she would realize that and stop talking... just remember one thing whatever advise she gives do the opposite...

 

[Leo123]

And that is why it is a pipe dream. In addition…all the benefits, health insurance, pensions and union bargained pay rates are gone forever. Manufacturers aren’t going to bring them back and Republicans are anti-worker. Most of the work will be automated.

In Silicon Valley, 30 years ago, I worked in a PC manufacturing plant. It was all automated, no one actually worked on an assembly line most monitored the automated robots, did statistical analysis to ensure tolerances were maintained and make statistical predictions when a machine/robot was needing maintenance. We had at least 1,500 employees. In addition, many NC machines needed programming or needed programming glitches cured. You are living in the early 1900's. In America things have advanced since then. Your country must be behind.