Your point deserves wide dissemination, Michael. Please let us know of any feedback. Gene Mechtly.
---- Original message ---- >Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:54:58 +0000 >From: "Michael Payne" <[email protected]> >Subject: [USMA:46497] All Things Considered (NPR) >To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> > > Listened to a talk Tuesday on how to create jobs in > the US. > > I wrote the following email to the producers of the > radio show All Things Considered which air in the > afternoon where I live in Northern Virginia. I wrote > this in a hurry hoping it might get on the show > before it ended so might have a few errors! > > Has anyone ever considered that one reason jobs in > the US have declined is that we don't manufacture > stuff we can sell to other countries? A high > percentage of manufacturing in the US is in inches > when the rest of the planet is metric, exclusively > metric! We run two systems here in the US, both > metric and pound inch based. The big 3 in Detroit > and every other car manufacturer is 100% metric in > design and manufacture, but big trucks, they are > inch based, Caterpillar is metric, others, for > example trailer manufacturing is inch based. Germany > where labor is expensive has a trade surplus; we in > the US have a trade deficit. I think it's time we > got on with the job of converting; it will mean more > jobs for Americans and a reduction in the trade > deficit. Plus it wastes a lot of time and money to > convert from inches to feet, pounds to ounces and > fractions to decimals. What we loose every year due > to the inefficiency of using a system invented by > the Romans is tremendous, when the much simpler > metric system is used by everyone else. Are we > stupid or is it just Congress who seem to abrogate > their responsibility to mandate a transition. The > Reagan administration de-funded the metric > transition board and individual members of congress > have inserted language into various bills to water > down the conversion of this country. Congress has > done a tremendous amount of harm to the American > economy in this respect. > > Michael Payne
