I am a bit confused. Tom replies that the figures are value added and
Doug replies that they are gross. Despite Tom's long discourse on the
figures, I accept that Doug is right. Now his figures indicate that
roughly 2/3rds of manufacturing output comes from components and other
inputs, though there are no figures for what is domestically sourced and
what is off-shored. Does this not allow for a kind of compromise
conclusion that much of the labour-intensive manufacturing is going out
of the country while the knowledge intensive final assembly (e.g.
Boeing) or knowledge intensive new-product development manufacturing
(microsoft, Apple, military development) with a high 'knowledge based'
value added and high gross value of output remain in the US? Such an
interpretation would allow for the decline in 'good' manufacturing jobs
for blue-collar workers with a continuing strong information-intensive
manufacturing sector. Of course, the impact on jobs would be very
different than the impact on the gross value of output.
Paul Phillips
Doug Henwood wrote:
paul phillips wrote:
Doug, just a query.
Are the figures you quoted net of outsourced components?
No, those are gross output numbers, which include purchased
components. For manufacturing, gross output was about $4.3 trillion,
intermediate inputs about $2.9 trillion, for a value-added of $1.5
trillion (the numbers don't add because of rounding).
Doug
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