IBM (IBM), Oracle (ORCL), Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Microsoft (MSFT), Intel (INTC) Taking Up MFG Slack

IBM (NYSE:IBM), Oracle (Nasdaq:ORCL), Dell (Nasdaq:DELL), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ), Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT), and Intel (NYSE:INTC) are all doing their part to take up the loss of manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

Danger is when something can be stated as fact, without facts backing it up, and still be accepted by most.

Take, for example, the rampant fear that our manufacturing muscle has eroded over the years. Just yesterday, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) bemoaned that this country "needs a real strategy on making things. We ought to make things in this country." Implying, of course, that we don't.

We hear these comments all the time. So often that they don't need to be questioned. We used to build things. We don't anymore. Manufacturing is dying. That's what we've come to believe.

Problem is, it's not really true.

We're making more things today than almost ever before. Even adjusted for inflation, manufacturing output is near an all-time high. In real terms, we're making more than twice as much today as we were in the early 1970s.

Why such a disconnect between perception and reality?

When people bewail manufacturing's decline, what they really mean is manufacturing employment.





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