China

Not that many young guys in school to be a machinist. Also school is only 10% of the knowledge needed to be a machinist . Better to pay a little more and have good parts than to go cheap and have scrap.

Right On! So where does the other unemployment come from?? China???

I do not know how your company is set up, but with how you stated that, this is what eventually leads companies to go to China. Scrap is a part of it, why don't companies want to take the time to further train people how to do a job? Eventually, you are going to have to do something, and we can almost assure you that they will go overseas. If not your company, HD will, they are already in China, what's to stop them????

Know a lot of people that work in the gulf and in the oil industry.
We have companies that are not drilling cause of permits and the price of oil isn't high enough.

There is huge amounts of Oil in the Gulf and the midwest .
Think China even said if we don't want to drill for it they will.
There is a lot of oil in Alaska. I was told that there is GPS cordinates that they drilled in Alaska and there is nothin but a pipe stickin up in the middle of nowhere. And the Oil find is huge. but nobody knows about it.
Its just sittin there.
If the price of Oil don't go up and we don't need it, they ain't gonna pull any oil from it. Plus the animal rights activists.
We got a lot of oil here and a huge amount of companies that are directly related to the Oil industry and do work for the oil industries.
Oil is a super huge industry.
My wife has worked for a few oil companies. She works for a company right now works for like her 3rd or 4th oil company.
Wished I had of moved to Texas when I was much younger and got into the Oil industry. There's a lot of money to be made in it if you got the knowhow..
Got a man down the rode that was the president of oil companies for about 40 yrs.
ABout 7 yrs ago him and his brother drilled a couple oil wells in South Texas.
They are making at least 30,000 a month off them. And I don't even think they are trying to work them that hard.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/06/business/worldbusiness/06oil.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/business/energy-environment/24oil.html

Make sure you read this one Johnny.

Re: US OIL DISCOVERY~LARGEST RESERVE IN THE WORLD

I'm glad to hear a plant manager speak as such but the unemployment benefit must be out of this world to convince a person to stay unemployed as opposed to being gainfully employed..unless the medical benefits being on UI exceeds that of the package being offered by the employer..either way it isn't good.

I guess I am still wondering how this fits into China and manufacturing jobs??

But to respond, has it ever occurred, or even a possibility that we are conserving our resources for when the other supply runs out and this could be a source of capital for the U.S.?

A machinist is considered a skilled trade up here four years of practical with two months of schooling per year and the first year is shared with millwrighting..A good machinist I'm never going to be but a lot of the work is going computerized which de-skills the work and hence drives down the compensation and the desirability of the job..this is reflected in the numbers of machinists entering trade school as opposed to millwrights but boy have I heard a ton of millwright jokes.

I've heard that

There is no simple answer to this, but what do you suggest that the U.S. does to get away for the service industry stigma??? Decrease the wage which reduces the standard of living that we all have become so dependent on. What??

So do you agree with that??

The mentality of American people has changed . So many people want the government to take care of them and make their decisions for them. Watched a special on China and the whole country is obsessed with being #1 in the world. Their education system is blowing the doors off the US. They have kids in school to learn we put them in school for free daycare. The US makes it easy to graduate. In China they have to learn to get ahead. Here if you don't learn and can't get ahead the government will step in take my money and give it to you to help you out.

It's tough going from being a producer to being a consumer. I'm sure there are solid financial reasons in many minds to outsource the manufacturing and both the U S and Canada have waltzed down that road..for whatever reason and we all accepted it..or at least we accepted it collectively but I would ask the question that how many of us try to shop local where possible..it's tough, trust me, but the local product in some cases isn't a whole lot more money than the imported one..even food..you'd be amazed what comes from China. i'm not perfect in my attempt but I try very hard to buy Chinese made products ....it's hard not to but every little bit helps

Mfg.

What products are made out of OIL....................

Anything in the Hospital by chance. So there are no MFG jobs there.
Where does Plastics and Mfg jobs in the plastic industry jobs come from............
No tools being mfg here for the Oil industry. No drilling platforms and related equiptment being mfg here.

Doesn't matter whether I agree or not..can I prove it would be a better question

I am in no way disagreeing with certain policies that are predominate in the U.S. But being a plant manager, does this not mean that it is incumbent on leaders, not only in politics, but in industry as well to teach. maybe it is the boomer generation that is guilty as well because maybe they have grown complacent?

I think that sitting back and blaming the government on what is happening is easy as well as fashionable. I not am saying that they carry no blame, but a leader needs to find ways to make it work. Our history was developed by people who wanted to lead and could lead. To me, the definition of leading has changed to by what position or title one holds. The ultimate responsibility is still in the hands of those that are charged with that responsibility, whether it be a plant manager, a CEO or whatever, we need to get back to being smarter than the average guy.

People are so use to good times. How we come out of this recession is what is going to define us as a country and a people. We, the people are just as responsible for the downfall of this country as is the government! That is the truth!

You say that it is hard to get the labor that you need? That may be, but what happened taking that person and showing them how to do it?? "Can't do that, that takes effort." That is what leaders do. to take somebody who knows nothing and show them the way.

BTW Steve, I do not know you personally, and I have no idea if this is true as far as you are concerned, but I see this within my own place of employment.

First you have to have a person willing to learn and work. The few that will come in and learn and work are few and far between.

I think that there are those kind of people. How about me?? Want to give me a job, a person that is willing to learn, work and lead???

Since I work in both the rubber and plastics area, I know for a fact that most of today's rubbers and plastics are synthetic. the company I work for does a lot for the medical industry, you would be surprised how much of the material we use is synthetic. I bet you couldn't tell the difference from synthetic rubber to natural rubber.