Heather Cox Richardson writes a blog about national affairs, often drawing upon her background as a historian. In this post, she writes that Biden is not getting credit for his successful legislation. In the excitement about the Georgia race, I didn’t see any mention of what happened in Arizona, which she describes here.
Today, President Joe Biden traveled to Arizona to highlight how the CHIPS & Science Act is bringing innovation and jobs to the country. He visited a facility that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is building north of Phoenix, where he met with chief executive officers from several companies and with lawmakers. TSMC has recently committed to investing $40 billion in Arizona to produce advanced semiconductors, the very sort of investment the CHIPS & Science Act was designed to attract.
Biden noted that this investment will bring more than 10,000 construction jobs and 10,000 jobs in high tech, and he emphasized that the Democrats’ investment in the nation’s economy is paying off. The country has added jobs in every month of Biden’s administration—10.5 million of them—and exports are up, helping the economy to grow at 2.9% last quarter. And Walmart’s chief executive officer yesterday said that prices are coming down for toys, clothing, and sports equipment, while the chief executive officer of Kroger says prices for fresh food products are also easing.
But, Biden said, he is “most excited” about the fact that “people are starting to feel a sense of optimism as they see the impact of the achievements in their own lives. It’s going to accelerate in months ahead, and it’s part of the broad story about the economy we’re building that works for everyone: one… that positions Americans to win the economic competition of the 21st century.”
“Where is it written that America can’t lead the world once again in manufacturing?” Biden said. “We’re proving it can.”
Biden has apparently tried to undercut the radical right by ignoring its demands and demonstrating an America in which everyone works together to solve our biggest problems. His trip to Arizona was in keeping with that program, with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre telling reporters that his trip was about “the American manufacturing boom we’re seeing all across the country thanks to, again, his economic policies… [and] in large part thanks to the CHIPS and Science Act the President signed into law—and a historic—let’s not forget—a bipartisan piece of legislation.”
But reporters immediately asked if President Biden would visit the border in Arizona, bowing to a right-wing talking point. Jean-Pierre responded that Biden would not engage in a political “stunt,” as the Republicans have been doing, and was instead going to Arizona “to talk about an important initiative that’s going to change Americans’ lives, specifically in Arizona.”
The follow-up? “If the President is not going to make time to visit the border during [this] trip…, will he do it… in the new year?”
The news from the right-wing faction in the nation often seems to steal the oxygen from the sober, stable politicians trying to address real issues and doing so with more than a little success.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well! I never! These historians claiming they have some unique perspective that they should share with the rest of us! What nerve!
Maybe it’s ageism, but the press largely ignores Biden’s accomplishments. After all his years in politics, he remains an optimist. While I do not always agree with him, I think he is trying to make a positive difference in this country. He is also a far more principled person anyone the GOP would put in the office.
Convicted Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes and her accomplice Remedy Bslwani are more
principled than most of the people the Republicans choose.
What was the point again?
Ramesh Balsamic
Balsamic ?
He has ha ha”Balwani”
I believe Ramesh Balsamic is a type of vinegar
Salad dressing.
For fruit salad
49% of Georgia voters choose Walker, the Repubs will keep hammering away, the most outrageous claims, In Republican mindsTrump and Jesus appear to have wed
The US was #1 in the world for its manufacturing sector until 2010, when China moved into 1st place and the US became #2.
Here is where we are today:
China
According to the United States Statistics Division, China tops the list when it comes to manufacturing. The country makes up 28.4% of the total global manufacturing output, which adds a total value of nearly $4 trillion to the world economy. The main exports from China comprise consumer goods like textiles, electronics, and garments.
United States
The U.S. used to have the world’s largest manufacturing sector until it was overtaken by China in 2010, though it’s still in the contest with China to take back the position. The country accounts for roughly 16.6% of global manufacturing, and its output is valued at $1.8 trillion. The U.S.’s production includes automobiles, chemical products, food products, military equipment, and aircraft.
Japan
Japan comes in third and provides approximately 7.2% of the world’s total manufacturing output. Japan produced $1 trillion from manufacturing in 2019. The country is famous for manufactured exports, including vehicles, computer parts, electronics, and chemicals.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/manufacturing-by-country
Here are a few facts to make sense of what being #1 and #2 means in todays world.:
About 70% of what China manufactures is sold in China to Chinese consumers. China has more than 1.4 billion people. The United States has about 330 million people, a much smaller consumer market.
“Currently, manufacturing in the U.S. is at a bit of an inflection point, but the importance of manufacturing in the U.S. cannot be understated. 11.39% of the U.S. GDP – the overall output of the American economy – is from manufacturing. This number remains in the 11 – 14% range, regardless of which decade.”
https://converged.propelsoftware.com/blogs/american-manufacturing-statistics
Now, China being ranked #1 in manufacturing “doesn’t mean the U.S. manufacturing industry is not doing well – not at all. In fact, quite the opposite. Output is up. U.S. manufacturing is creating more than we ever have before. It’s just that it’s being done with fewer and fewer humans, year after year. How can that be?”
For the answer, click the previous link and read to learn.
And since so many citizens of the United States are willingly ignorant, dumb and stupid, during the presidential debates between Hillary and the traitor in 2016, one of Traitor Trump’s never ending lies was that the United States doesn’t make anything anymore.
Really!?!
Jobs lost in the US manufacturing sector were not lost to China, Mexico, or any other country, they were lost to automation, to machines programed to work without human assistance.
Lloyd,
Well done. This is one of the first bits of analysis I do with my intro micro students.
Lloyd Lofthouse
Baloney of course when you were presented with the economic facts about automation and trade as argued by several leading economists you dismissed it . While it is true that automation decimated American Manufacturing that Automation occurred in the 70s and early 80s . Not until the late 60s when American Manufacturing was put into competition with brand new factories in Europe and Japan built after the war was there a need to rebuild. By 1982 -3 Billy Joel and Springsteen were popularizing the the industrial decline in song .
In Steel alone 300k jobs were lost between 76 and 86 the Robot in this case was not a computer but the Electric Arc Furnace .
Robotics did not cause the loss of 3 million manufacturing Jobs between 2000 and 2007 with a multiplier effect of up to 15 million in devastated communities .In fact after a massive decline in the late 70s and early 80s the number of manufacturing Jobs stabilized even as their percentage of workforce declined. The investment in robotics made by this Nation was a fraction of those investments in other Nations. No need to invest when manufacturing was being shipped out of the country.
. Trade agreements where conscious decisions were made to place Blue Collar workers in direct competition with the lowest priced labor in the world cost those Jobs. There is no sound economic reason especially with the most expensive healthcare in the world why Doctors and Dentists could not have been put in competition with highly skilled Physicians in the EU and Canada. Or in the internet age journalists.
Oh yes all those automated vehicles that were replacing American Truckers were evident during the Supply Chain crisis. Constant news stories aired about a shortage of a million truckers . A few things on that: did we hire a million truckers? Or was it a million robots? . Or did we not need either. I wont dismiss the fact that Robby is coming, automated vehicles and all . Nor will I dismiss that any new factories will be state of the art highly automated employing a fraction of the workforce . That is not what happened in the late 90s till the great recession . Nor were those good jobs. The Unions that secured good wages and benefits made those jobs good. While any returning manufacturing has gone mostly to the American south West.
Biden bringing back chip manufacturing is great thing ! Sadly many perhaps 40% of these workers will need college degrees that they don’t have. Economically distressed areas where a Chip factory is located may see an increase in Jobs many of them going to people relocating from the rest of the country.
And before you go there my credentials as a card carrying member of the I hate Trump and Fascist Republicans Club are as good as yours.
https://www.epi.org/publication/the-zombie-robot-argument-lurches-on-there-is-no-evidence-that-automation-leads-to-joblessness-or-inequality/
Lloyd
Have you ever opened up an iPhone?
Those tiny little connectors and screws are assembled by humans, not machines. I have replaced touch screens, batteries and other tiny parts and I doubt there is even a robot in existence that could do the job.. you can barely even see the tiny screws without a magnifying glass! (Which is why the workers use assembly tables with magnifiers)
If everything were automated, t
Much of the incentive would not exist to have factories in China do the work.
The incentive, of course, is that in the factories in China, human assemblers are forced to work long hours for low pay under often dangerous conditions to put together iPhones and other products.
And based on the number of iPhones with broken screens that I have replaced for family members over the gears, I’d say they are exceedingly poor quality.
A phone screen should simply not break when it is dropped. It’s just poor engineering.
I have a tablet made by Samsung that has been dropped msny many times on concrete (in airports, for example) and it has never broken and barely has a scratch.
Either Apple does it on purpose so people will just buy a new phone every time their screen breaks (fixing the camber things is a pain in the ass), or they just have crappy engineers who can’t design a screen and housing that doesn’t break when you drop it on a hard surface.
Or maybe some combination of thevtwo.
And not incidentally, Apple intentionally makes it difficult to fix the phones.
I know that because they use tiny screws with several different xcrew heads that you need different xcrew driver bits for.
Because it is difficult to even see the screw head, it’s difficult to know which driver to use unless you go online and watch a his to fix it video which tells you which driver to use on which screws for which particular model of iPhone.
If Apple wanted to make things easier to repair, they would use all the same screws
You could not pay me go buy an iPhone.
From what I have seen, they are crap quality.
Obviously I agree 100 % with Richardson. As I have stated in the past for a group of people who profess to be anti Trump pro democracy ,many Journalists have done their best to bring him back to power. The highest inflation ever except of course 8.1 % was not the 15.6 % of the early 80s . Morning in America 1984 saw 5% inflation with 7.2 % unemployment . The inflation rate in the fall of 2021 when endless hype about inflation was a daily story was 7% ,unemployment was 3.6% . Somehow the media dismissed the Unemployment rate calling it a terrible economy . Dismissed rising wages at the bottom of the wage ladder that were higher than inflation . Dismissed the 4-5 million Americans who change jobs each Month. Times 12 months 10s of millions of workers who are thrilled with that low3.6% unemployment rate .
David Leonhardt of the Times attributes it to the “Bad News Media ” Bad news sells . At least a few at the Times appreciate their role in undermining Biden . Now if only the editors did. Or perhaps they do .
I agree, but it still perhaps would have been better to include in CHIPS a stipulation that American chip companies had to cease the practice of stock buybacks in order to receive the assistance. On the other hand, the whole Squad disagreed with my assessment, so what do I know? Probably just education politics. AOC knows more than I.
The progressive argument is split on CHIPS. Some see it as a perk for wealthy Tech Firms to do what they would do for economic reasons without a Government handout. Or to phrase that differently; if re shoring was not deemed to be in their business interests even a larger subsidy would not convince them to make this investment.
The jury is not back yet as to whether they are correct. From Football Stadiums to Commercial Office complexes we see economic incentives from the State. The problem is there usually are few strings attached to this corporate welfare.
As a Black graduate of Chicago’s Austin High School, I remember my Black teachers telling us students how both automation and American factories led to (more) Black unemployment on Chicago’s West Side. 😟
CX: the movement of American factories overseas, with approval of some or most American politicians of both parties. 😟
True, Eddie. Bill Clinton was a big supporter of NAFTA.
And Obama was pushing TPP during the 2016 presidential campaign, which did not help Democrats one iota (to say the least).
Not to rain on anyone’s parade, but I think Mr. Biden cost himself the 2024 election last week, when he signed off and imposed a union contract with only 1 sick day per year upon 100,000+ railroad workers. The self-proclaimed “most pro-labor” president in history sided with the billionaire owners. Exhausted and overworked railroad employees feel betrayed and rightfully so.
With regards to the chip manufacturing plant in Arizona, hasn’t anyone thought through how it will be supplied with the necessary 2 to 4 million gallons of water per day to operate?
One must question why the facility is being located in water-starved Arizona while the western United States is already experiencing record drought. Although it’s creating 20,000 jobs, the CHIPS bill, it is also a generous helping of corporate welfare, courtesy of the American taxpayer.
And who will actually fund the water supply?
The water use in The southwest is unsustainable.
It’s out of control, actually.
Make Need and Powell will soon reach dead pool status and the Colorado River is already more than spoken for.
Tucson has been using an open sir aqueduct to divert Colorado River water in order to recharge bround reservoirs that it has been sucking like there is no tomorrow.
They actually believe that a ten or twenty year supply is going to be fine, but what happens if the drought lasts 50 of 200 years?
Or if the drought is permanent.
The coming wars over water in the West will make the civil war look tame . And certain cities like Tucson are doomed to shrink do up and blow away like a tumbleweed.
Its ironic that you started off a comment that talked about drought with a phrase about rain.
If everyone’s parade was rained on, ,no one would have to worry about drought.
More rain on parades, please!
If everyone’s parade were rained on”
My high school English teacher would cringe
Eleanor
The backlash against Unions had this strike crippled the Nation would have made Scott Walker look like Mother Jones. What incentive would the Rail Road Barons have to settle the strike quickly .The Carriers were not about to lose costumers that forced them to settle. Unlike General Mills losing Costumers to Kellogg’s . What does past History say about how Americans respond to strikes that inconvenience them in the least . In fact how do Americans respond to any sacrifice they are asked to make. Putting on a mask inspires armed rebellion. Come January if this strike had lasted 3 weeks and if I were the carrier it would what deal would Kevin and Marjorie enforce on these workers.
This is America where the Party that claims to be for the rural working Class (don’t make me curse) calls Randi Weingarten the most dangerous person on the planet and gets away with it.
As I travel down the bottomless pit of Youtube history documentaries, it strikes me how diligent the Republican Party and their dark money PACs are with ads decrying the Biden economy and “Democrat” agenda. I have yet to see ads from progressive and Democratic entities focusing on the good they have done. The media wants controversy and a fight. Their agenda is ratings brought on by the conventional wisdom that conflict brings readers and viewers. Democrats need to get out front and promote their policies beyond the beltway through media campaigns that reach the entire country. Otherwise, fear will continue to prevail through their unchallenged misinformation campaigns.