Manufacturing made America great

Feb. 1, 2011
I just finished reading the December 2010 In the Loop editorial and can't quite figure out if you are condoning or condemning manufacturing. Manufacturing

I just finished reading the December 2010 In the Loop editorial and can't quite figure out if you are condoning or condemning manufacturing. Manufacturing and the Industrial Revolution were what made America great. However, we are raising a generation that knows nothing about manufacturing and thinks that we can exist without it. As you mention, manufacturing creates pollution. However, even people do so, when we exhale CO2. We cannot have our prosperity without some penalties.

Case in point: I once worked as a manager of a local iron foundry, which was closed due to shifting work overseas and the extremely high cost of meeting environmental regulations. I purchased many a ton of steel from Republic, about which you write, back in the 1960s. It helped us conquer space and go to the moon. Now we rely on China for almost everything, and Russia to get us to the Space Station. It's not too hard to see the direction we are going — for some of us, anyway. As an aside, America recently lost the greatest leader it has ever had for championing manufacturing in America: Mr. Roger Milliken died in December. Go to milliken.com to learn more about his life.

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