| Hopeless Position |
15 March 2004
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Nominee for Manufacturing Czar Withdraws
Whenever an American administration appoints a "czar" to deal with a national problem, it does so in the full knowledge that existing bureaucratic structures are not conducive to addressing the problem. Moreover, it does so in the full knowledge that the czar won't be able to fix it either viz. a manufacturing czar. Perhaps, if the spelled it "tsar," progress would follow.
Anthony Raimondo is a businessman from Nebraska whom the Bush administration had tapped to occupy the new post of assistant secretary for manufacturing in the Commerce Department. In other words, Raimondo would be the man to took the heat for all of America's manufacturing jobs vanishing. No serious economist thinks that America can win back manufacturing jobs from the developing world -- the numbers just don't make sense.
Mr. Raimondo had some troubles of his own. As chairman and CEO of the Behlen Manufacturing Group, he stood accused of shipping American jobs off to China. And Senator Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, had not been consulted about the appointment, which good manners if not good politics demanded. However, there is no reason to think that Mr. Raimondo was not the most qualified American for the job. While imputing motives to someone one does not know is often wildest speculation, one has no doubt that the sheer impossibility of the position.
That is not to say that the manufacturing sector in America is going extinct. Rather, there will be fewer and fewer manufacturing jobs, and they will be less and less important to the economy. Appointing a czar to protect such jobs is the wrong approach. Instead, a czar for retraining those workers who banged metal for $20 an hour would be far more valuable. The real worry about the loss of manufacturing jobs has more to do with the high rate of pay than with the actual activities at hand.
Senator carry, grinding his ax, was on the right track when he said, "Putting another bureaucrat in the Department of Commerce isn't going to get people back to work." What he might have clarified was that putting someone in Washington in charge of reducing the rigidity in the labor market while protecting wages would be a good thing for the country. In the meanwhile, there is a job in Washington that is unfilled. Presumably resumes can be sent to Mr. G. W. Bush, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC 20500-0003.
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