"In "The Biden-Trump Economy of Nostalgia" (op-ed, April 2), Robert Zoellick argues that U.S. manufacturing is doing fine because its output is greater than that of Germany, Japan, South Korea and India combined. He fails to note that, excluding India, which has a lot of people and not much manufacturing, the population of these countries combined is far less than that of the U.S., as is their total GDP. U.S. manufacturing output should be bigger than theirs.
As a percentage of GDP, U.S. manufacturing's 10% is far below South Korea's 25%, Singapore's 21%, Japan's 19% and Germany's 18.5%. Mr. Zoellick tries to overcome these statistics by arguing that software production is really manufacturing.
But the key secret of manufacturing is economies of scale -- the more you make, the lower the cost of producing each item.
Software writing isn't characterized by economies of scale, unlike production of steel, semiconductors, autos, airplanes and son on.
Mr. Zoellick fantasizes over recent growth in U.S. trade in services such as consulting, accounting and legal, but services aren't characterized by economies of scale either. This suggests it is much more desirable to have growth in exports of manufactures than in services.
Clyde Prestowitz
President, Economic Strategy Institute
Potomac, Md." [1]
Competitive production is the basis of military efficiency (see World War II). By drowning German production in the chaos of energy starvation, we are drowning NATO and Western civilization in general.
1. There Is No True Substitute for Manufacturing. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 04 Apr 2024: A.14.
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