Monday, October 12, 2009

Can't we just make something?

If you look at projections for careers in the next decade, they tend to say for the U.S. that manufacturing will decline, but service sector jobs will increase. This means, mainly:

Health care
Education
Accounting and Finance

Now, the problem with this is that a service-sector economy has to service some people (eventually) who get their money from manufacturing and selling things. We know what's happening(ed) to automobiles; we don't make cell phones here; and green technologies also require someone to buy them. Now, thinking of Copenhagen, maybe we could entreat China and India to buy some of our advanced-technology green items in exchange for not putting binding targets on them -- not that they were going to accept any in the first place.

Searching a bit, I discovered some speculation about where manufacturing could be enhanced.

+ Green technology (solar, wind, fuel cells, etc.)
+ Nanotechnology
+ Aerospace (as long as everyone keeps flying on airplanes)
+ Medical high-tech (but this ties into the insurance/health care debate)
+ Food service technology
+ High-speed rail (but generally the Feds have to foot some of this bill)
+ Specialty drugs
+ Advanced textiles

That's a mixed bag. Obviously the iron & steel era is over. The next generation is certainly silicon, aluminum, and Kevlar.

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