March 11, 2004
Bush Pulls Plug on Manufacturing Czar at Last Moment
Talk about egg on your face (boy it looks good). Just hours before the Bush Administration was set to announce the nomination of its long awaited manufacturing Czar, or the new Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Manufacturing and Services the Kerry Campaign revealed that the nominee, one Anthony F. Raimondo, chairman and chief executive of Behlen Manufacturing Co. of Columbus, NE had himself shipped U.S. jobs overseas to China. It seems Raimondo’s company laid off some 75 U.S. workers in 2002, four months after publicizing plans to build a 3 million dollar 150,000 sq foot factory in northwest China, which employees 180 people.
I wonder if the Bush Administration will be able to find a viable Republican “Captain of Industry” candidate without the stain of manufacturing and or service job loss on their hands? And what exactly with the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Manufacturing and Services do anyway? Will the position be mostly symbolic, or will it actually produce a workable blueprint to keep U.S. manufacturing and medium to high wage service jobs in the U.S.? Here’s a hint: start with a workable reform of the U.S. Health Care industry; in case you (Republican’s) haven’t noticed, for the average American it is no longer working. Hello!
Posted by V. Edward Martin at March 11, 2004 01:38 PMYep, gettting difficult to find a clean capitalist these days who is willing to work for Bush.
Posted by: David R. Remer at March 11, 2004 05:32 PMI suppose we should insist on shutting down the BMW plant in South Carolina since it is clearly a case of BMW outsourcing to the US work that should be done in Germany.
Posted by: J. Leake at March 12, 2004 10:32 AMI suppose we should insist on shutting down the BMW plant in South Carolina since it is clearly a case of BMW outsourcing to the US work that should be done in Germany.
Wouldn’t that be the job of Germany’s manufacturing czar?
In seriousness, J. Leake’s comments about the BMW factory do raise a question regarding Raimondo’s China factory. If he was moving the factory to be closer to his customers, reduce transportation costs and speed up delivery of goods to those customers, etc. that’s more acceptable than if he was simply manufacturing in China due to labor costs and then importing the goods back to the U.S.
Posted by: blipsman at March 12, 2004 12:54 PMIn reference to Anthony Raimondo, it should be known that he employs around 1,000 US workers in 4 separate plants. The following quote from the St. Louis Dispatch gives more information about his company:
“Behlen, founded in 1936, has four U.S. plants employing 1,000 people and a 150,000-square-foot plant in China employing 180.
A senior administration official, who asked not to be named because Raimondo has not been nominated, said Behlen has exported products to China since 1984 but was losing market share to other U.S. firms. The official said that half the equipment used to build the factory was made in the United States. “
I don’t see this guy as someone who is “outsourcing” jobs, but rather someone who is running a business in an intelligent fashion. Yet, in politics, it is the perception that seems more important than the reality.
This is one of these subjects that you cannot really understand unless you study all of the topic. I think that John Kerry can’t judge every little thing done by Bush because, then what Bush can do the prior job that Bush is doing. President Bush while in position has contributed to many a good thing. However, I don’t think that all that he was prepared to do turned out according to plan.
Posted by: keri at March 13, 2004 03:43 PMHello all you wacky democrats. Now on e-bay is the cigar used by President Clinton to get his freak on with Monica Lewinski. (actually he inserted into her vagina, according to the Starr Report) Now you can own this bit of history by surfing over to e-bay and using keyword “democratic_keepsakes”. Good luck and happy bidding.
Posted by: terry@dnc.com at March 15, 2004 12:18 AM
