On Manufacturing

We learned in Economics 101 that a successful business must offer the customer the best quality product at the lowest possible price. In the past little consideration was paid on how or from where the product came. So companies, quite naturally, scoured the world for the cheapest materials available that could be manufactured in the cheapest places possible. That seemed to be a win-win for everybody – – – at least in the short run. In essence a choice was made between prosperity and security, and prosperity won. This became all too apparent in the pandemic when we suddenly became aware of our near-complete dependance on simple everyday items like sanitizers and face masks, to say nothing about our foreign reliance on essential prescription medicines, like antibiotics. 

It wasn’t always like that, and it needn’t be now. We have in the past demonstrated great determination, innovation and skills, rising to challenges and threats to our country. It took a world war to bring out our true capability and determination. In 1942 automakers turned their focus from domestic motor vehicles to weapons of war, enlisting housewives onto the assembly lines and working three shifts a day.

• Aircraft manufacturing went up from 3611 in 1940 to 96,270 by 1944
• Between 1942 and 1944
  • Chrysler made 25,000 tanks
  • Dodge made 255,193 ¾ ton trucks
  • Ford built 277,896 tanks, armored vehicles, jeeps and planes
  • GM produced 120 million artillery shells, 206,000 aircraft engines, 97,000 bombers, 300,000 aircraft propellers, 2 million machine guns, 854,000 trucks.
  • Shipyards built 28 aircraft carriers, 23 battle ships, 377 destroyers, 232 submarines.   (All per Wikipedia)
• Many other industries rose to the challenge producing countless uniforms, C rations and other essential military gear.
• And the rest of us made untold sacrifices at home to support the war effort.

All of this was before robots and with little automation and at a time when our population was 2 ½ times smaller than today’s 334 million, when people with little training but with much determination volunteered to work doing anything they could.

Time and again Americans have risen to any trial that confronted them. 

It’s time to even the balance between prosperity and security. It’s time to bring the manufacture of essential products back to America again and to train and employ our own people to meet our own needs, to assist our own allies and extend help to those facing crises. 

It’s time to be the shining example for the world that we once were.

• – – Just the view of a common man