I couldn't agree more, Phil, and I see these results in my neighborhood almost weekly. I'm the only guy in a neighborhood of 23 homes that has tools and the knowledge to use them, the only one! I broke a slide-puller working on the Cutlass last year and went to a couple of neighbors asking if they had one, I may as well have spoken latin to them, it was mind-blowing to me.
My Dad built homes and my grandpa was one of those depression era kids who learned how to fix things, he had no choice. I learned from both of them, have amassed a pretty heathy collection of tools and knowledge of my own, but the guys who come over when I fire one of the cars up (hell, they all do) just have no idea how to do anything mechanical and were amazed when I timed the Cutlass ignition by ear. Yes, I verified the tune with a timing light afterward and that was even more amazing to them. What gets me is that for all the enthusiasm they display when watching me do these things none of them show the slightest interest in learning how to do anything I show them.
I went to college and got a degree, I don't have to work with my hands, and for that I feel grateful, but I could (and have) if I had too. The company I work for, and who I sell for, is owned by a guy like me... But with money. He is a staunch believer in being a manufacturer and making things here in the USA and it costs him money and business every day. Our main retail product is manufactured, by hand, right here in Minnesota using as much US-made materials as possible. We compete with a dozen very well known and highly marketed products in our market, mostly made by robotics, with many made overseas. Our production cost is easily double that of the competition yet our retail prices are roughly the same so our margins are very small. How long can he afford to do it this way? Hard to say. Is there pressure to move production out of country? All the time. BUT, the good news is that we have experienced double-digit sales growth the past 3 years and when I put our product in a potential customers hands the difference in quality is obvious to them, but I can do that with only so many customers.
This really started with Nixon taking us off the gold standard. We had been spending so much money on Vietnam and "the great society" that we couldn't maintain the gold reserves that other countries depended on as the basis for their currency. Before the dropped the gold standard we made agreements with many of those countries that eased our import restrictions, remember the explosion of "Made in Japan" transistor-radios in the mid-70's? It has continued since then and become worse and worse with poorly thought-out, short-sighted trade deals and our dollar continually weakened by that and our government spending. The equal-rights and civil-rights laws that were passed in the late 60's and early 70's also added to the available work-force too and that had a depressive effect on the wages of labor, including the craftsmen who historically gave America it's manufacturing edge in the world. Add in the sorry state of education in our country, and that more people can identify Beyonce but not Thomas Jefferson, it only get's worse the more you look.
I hate that we, as a country, build very little of anything with value these days. I hate that my neighbors are so dependent on others to fix things they could easily do themselves. Instead of making things the world wanted we have become a country of money traders with people taking their "cut" throughout each hand-to-hand trade. It's made many very wealthy, and I have no issue with that at all, but hasn't really done anything to advance America as a whole.
I do think it will change, it will have too. We as a country may go bust and people may HAVE to learn to do for themselves again. In China they keep moving factories around since every time a large plant moves to a region the economy blasts off locally and people start demanding higher wages. It's a hard road we have ahead but like a good salesman, I'm always in a positive mind-set and hopeful for our future.
If it all goes to hell I am incredibly well-armed as well. I know how to use those tools too!!! lol
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