The Cold War ended nearly 20 years ago, but apparently no one has clued in the National Association of Manufacturers.  The NAM, dominated by outsourcing multinationals, is apparently so desperate to give cover to its paymasters that it is seeking to obfuscate the glaringly obvious reality that U.S. trade policies have seriously weakened domestic industry.  To that end, the NAM has stooped to making its case with pseudo-economic measurements taken seriously only in former Communist countries.

In its latest report, The Facts About Modern Manufacturing, the NAM complains about the “conventional wisdom” portraying manufacturing as a sector of the U.S. economy in structural decline.  Their major new argument made in response?  The “quantity of manufactured goods has kept pace with overall economic growth since 1947....”  

Sounds compelling – until you realize that no thinking student of the economy emphasizes the overall number of manufactured goods turned out by a nation’s factories.  The reason is obvious:  in a largely capitalist economy, what matters is price and value.  Clearly, economists try to separate out the effects of inflation.  But even that’s controversial, since free market economics teaches that industries without pricing power, all else equal, are industries with questionable futures.  

As for counting and bragging about total number of widgets and gizmos produced by a national economy regardless of price of quality –  that’s what we used to hear from the former Soviet Union and its ideological kin.  

In a way, however, the NAM’s choice of such obsolete methodology is fitting.  If Washington keeps following NAM’s outsourcing-dominated policy advice, America could be headed for the ash heap of history, too.

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