Dr. Roy Spencer has a new book out, and I’m happy to give him space on WUWT with a plug for it. Josh of cartoonsbyjosh.com did the cover art. Looks like Roy was funded by “big fire” in writing this book 😉 Anthony
FUNDANOMICS: The Free Market, Simplified
July 4th, 2011by Dr. Roy Spencer
I’m pretty excited that today (Independence Day, 2011) is the release date for my new book, Fundanomics: The Free Market, Simplified.
Our friend, Josh, did the cover art and it perfectly captures one of the book’s main messages: the greatest prosperity for ALL in a society is achieved when people are free to benefit from their good ideas.
In Chapter 1, A Tale of Two Neanderthals, Borgg and Glogg are the tribe’s firestarters, who get the idea to invent firesticks (matches). This leads to a system of trading with a neighboring tribe which has many great hunters, and as a result the inventors’ tribe never goes hungry again.
But the favored treatment the inventors receive from the tribe’s elders later leads to resentment in the tribe, and people forget how much better off they all are than before — even the poorest among them. Technology and prosperity might change, but human nature does not.
Simply put, a successful economy is just people being allowed to provide as much stuff as possible for each other that is needed and wanted. Economics-wise, everything else is details. When we allow politicians and opportunistic economists to fool us into supporting a variety of technical and murky government “fixes” for the economy, we lose sight of the fundamental motivating force which must be preserved for prosperity to exist: Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The main role of the government in the economy is help ensure people play fair…and then get out of the way.
I devote each chapter to a common economic myth.
For example, it’s not about money, which has no inherent value and is simply a convenient means of exchange of goods and services that is more efficient than bartering.
It’s not even about “jobs”, because it makes all the difference what is done in those jobs. Many poor countries have a much lower standard of living than ours, yet fuller employment. If we want full employment, just have half the population dig holes in the ground and the other half can fill them up again. The goal is a higher standard of living…not just “jobs”.
And the desire of some for a “more level playing field” and for “spreading the wealth around” is simply pandering to selfishness and laziness. The truth is that most of the wealth has already been spread around, in the form of a higher standard of living. If we do not allow the few talented and risk-taking people among us have at least the hope of personally benefiting in proportion to their good ideas, then economic progress stops.
The good news is that those few talented people need help, which is where most of the rest of us come in. One person with a new idea for a computer cannot design, manufacture, market, distribute, and sell millions of computers to the rest of society. They need our help, and in the process everyone benefits.
I also examine the role of various government economic programs, most of which end up hurting more than helping. A major reason why the government is so prone to failure is the lack of disincentives against failure in government service. In the real marketplace failures are not rewarded, which helps keep us on the right track to prosperity.
Even the truly needy in our country would be better off if we allowed private charitable organizations, rather than inefficient government bureaucracies to compete for the public’s donations.
I’ve been interested in basic economics for the last 25 years, but frustrated by the technical details (marginal costs, money supply, etc.) that too often scare people away from understanding the most basic forces which propel societies to ever high standards of living. Now, with our country facing tough decisions about our financial future, I decided it was time to stop yelling at the idiots on TV (and giving away all my ideas to talk show hosts) and put the material in a short — less than 100 pages — book that would be approachable by anyone.
I’ll be signing the first 500 copies. The price is $12.95 (including free shipping in the U.S.) You can see all of the chapter first pages at Fundanomics.org. I think this book would be especially valuable to homeschoolers.
I trust the book is not simplistic as to assume all Government = bad/wasteful, all companies = efficient. I hear the plaintive cries from those in big corporations all the time that their bureaucracies are far worse than ours. It is simply in the nature of big organisations to accommodate a lot of “fat” which needs a recession to trim, at least in the case of corporations. You probably need the threat of an economy-busting debt default to trim the fat in bureaucracies… see Greece right now.
Personally I have a moderate view… there is clearly a role for Government, but the fact that a certain “type” (and I am not really that type, despite working for State Government) is attracted to working there is related to the working conditions at the lower levels and political influence at the upper levels.
I am the first to admit that there is rarely any disincentive for mediocre or poor performance in Government, just as there is very little incentive to perform well. Promotions (just as in larger organisations) may well be performance-based at the lower levels, but are all based on networking ability at higher levels.
I do support the basic premise that the Government’s role should be minimalist in the sense that they should not interefere in things that ain’t broke. Also, there are many rational economic policy advisors in Government… the problem is when pragmatic policies reach heavily-lobbied politicians. By the time the policies have been mangled by the process, something that might have been beneficial invariably ends up favouring some vested business interest and often at the expense of other businesses or society as a whole. Some systems of Government are more prone to such influence than others.
Micro is simple… most economic debate lies in the macro field, which to my simple mind is very much akin to climate science. There are a lot of influences within an economy, most of which we understand at the individual level, but holistically form a frightfully complex system. Some economists waft outputs from modelling (GCE models for example) about as if they have some meaning, but anyone who has studied econometrics in moderate depth knows that you can show just about anything with a complex economic model.
“What would you like the result to be?” … sound familiar?
“Now, with our country facing tough decisions about our financial future, I decided it was time to stop yelling at the idiots on TV (and giving away all my ideas to talk show hosts) and put the material in a short — less than 100 pages — book that would be approachable by anyone.”
“If we do not allow the few talented and risk-taking people among us have at least the hope of personally benefiting in proportion to their good ideas, then economic progress stops.”
These two lines seem to be sending a very mixed message, ie:
1) “I was inspired to do this because it is important”
2) “Talented people are inspired by personal monetary gain.”
Of course it is never black-and-white, but there are MANY motives besides personal benefit. I am sure Dr Spencer will enjoy spending hit royalty checks, but I also doubt that is a key reason he undertook this project.
Mark Wilson: Have you not noticed that the US is bankrupt? Have you not noticed that China, essentially a communist dictatorship, is thriving? Sure, free trade “just moves the jobs around.” Ok, agreed. Well I have news for you: it also moves a lot of other things around, too. Like wealth, innovation, military might, and the ability to pay taxes, to name just a few.
Those manufacturing jobs rightfully ought to be here, in the USA, where they were first created, where the products were first invented, where our borders are protected by US armed forces paid for by US workers, where tax laws should favor domestic manufacturing, and where foreign competition ought to be taxed out of existence by effective import/export trade barriers. Where the jobs physically are matters greatly. That’s where the middle class will be. That’s where a skilled and ethical “can do” workforce will be. That’s where new ideas to improve the manufacturing processes ideas will be. That’s where new ideas for new products will come from. That’s were kids will grow up knowing how to build things and fix things. That’s where the middle class will thrive. Where do you want to live?
The so-called “free trade” that you describe would make sense, and might even be ethical, if we were trading with a country that had similar laws, the same or similar fundamental rights for her citizens, the same value of currency, similar wages, no barriers whatsoever on either side, and a similar culture. In such a case, sure, take down the trade barriers, as they are not very effective, anyway. Otherwise, leave them in place! And certainly, we have absolutely no business whatsoever trading with communist countries who are actively building up a military trained to destroy us.
Want proof? Drive around Ohio. It was once a jewel, one of our most productive manufacturing states, but no more. It’s dead now, a sad shadow of it’s former self. It’s almost unrecognizable to someone of my generation. And it was not a natural death or natural shift of manufacturing–it was deliberately killed by NAFTA. Millions there are now out of work, or working lousy jobs in the service sector. The middle class there is almost gone. Yes, kids there still have cell phones and ipods, but they don’t know how to make them or how to make the parts that go into them, let alone repair them–but the Chinese kids whose parents work in ipod factories sure do!
The nonsense you spout is typical MBA-with-a-PC pablum. It’s just theory, and it’s not at all relevant to the real world. Real economics, like climate, is a highly nonlinear complex system. It is far more complex than your silly models, and is full of unintended consequences and moral hazards. If your model were even a little bit right, our economy would be thriving. Instead we are bankrupt, owned by, and living on credit from, a communist country. It’s a disgrace. And it’s demeaning to a once proud, productive, and free people.
The founding fathers had it right: free trade within and between the united states, no income taxes whatsoever, severe punitive trade barriers to keep out foreign competition and fund the federal government, strict protection of intellectual property, etc. It worked wonderfully for about 175 years. Then the MBAs took over.
Dave Springer says:
July 5, 2011 at 2:08 pm
I take it that you think Keynes is right in his economic theory, and for that I feel bad for you but I in my admittedly limited knowledge of economics feel that Dr. Spencer has hit the nail right on the head and I would like my children to learn economics from this book first then from reading F.A. Hayek.
@Grizzled Bear
…‘free’ markets were only invented in the 18th century? Try telling that to the 12th century smithy who provided his skills and toil in exchange for food stuffs, or protection by the local nobles
That 12th century smithy was a member of a guild (or he’d be run out of town, or worse) and the prices he charged were set by local regulation. That’s if he could set his prices. More likely, the noble asked him for whatever he wanted and the smithy complied because it was a condition of his being allowed to live there, and he was not allowed to settle anywhere else. And so on and on…That’s feudalism for ya’
Interestingly, that doesn’t work. Receipts amount to about 19.5% of GNP regardless of the tax rates. Raise the rates, and GNP falls, and you get 19.5% of a lower number. Lower the rates, and GNP rises, and you get 19.5% of a higher number.
Pick one.
I have been looking for the exact source of this wonderful quote forever. There are attributions to Benjamin Franklin, Alexis de Tocqueville, Alexander Tytler. Even Wikipedia is on the case …
I doubt it is Marx and you know why? Because it is true. It may be the truest apocryphal wisdom ever uttered. It is practically a description of what happens when the cancer of Socialism is introduced into a healthy free society. It contains the entire gameplan of the Democratic Socialist party masquerading as both Santa Claus and Robin Hood, we can call it Santa Hood. Personally I would not be surprised if it were uttered by Madison or even Hamilton in the Federalist Papers era though it would seem likely that the source would have turned up by now. Regardless, if it is a 19th century observation of the USA in its early years as the factions began to burn through the Constitutional firewalls, it deserves to be sourced and referenced prominently. Another well-worn cliché fits here perfectly: Truer words were never spoken.
Have to respectfully disagree on this one. Two points specifically …
(1) There is nothing American about a 90% tax bracket. In fact the progressive income tax was a stated goal of the Communists. Moreover, by definition it is literally a Marxist idea: “From each according to his ability …”. Not surprisingly, I have always found that the young’ins (not you Dave) that spouted Marx were always the weakest in math, even the most basic math of percentages. It is self-evident that an equal percentage inflicts the same exact ‘pain’ on any two people regardless of their income or wealth. The cash value of that pain of course varies from person to person, but unless equalization is the goal it is irrelevant. Equalization cannot be the goal (at least in an American system) because then we are in effect abolishing private property as we leave it to the politburo I mean Congress to decide what we actually own and get to keep. The line between Communism and Slavery is very blurry indeed.
(2) I would suggest that there is high risk to simply wiping out this unprecedented debt using *any* means. Take the example of your kid that runs up his theoretical platinum credit card and somehow blows past all the upper limits by an order of magnitude (there is *no* good comparison). Were you to somehow zero his debt it starts over again! What will happen is that a repeat of what we have seen will continue again. Stupid people will once again elect Democratic Socialists promising to spend on projects and invest in children (blah blah). The debt will skyrocket, hands will wring, Republicrats will get elected, fights ensue, budgets eventually get balanced. Rinse Repeat. Look at this graph and pay special attention to the color of the datapoints.
Pain and consequences will need to be felt or else we just go on and on and on. Besides, to simply cover these expenditures all at once is to give tacit approval not just to Social Security and other things considered ‘ok’, but, it also means to sanction the leftist spending on crap like Piss Christ, and a endless list of other unbelievably offensive items. There needs to be pain. Real pain. There are ways to do this and hold people accountable, but going any further on this subject in this post I suspect might be a thread hijacking.
Dave Springer says:
July 5, 2011 at 1:41 pm
So you honestly believe that you have a right, indeed an obligation to take 70% of another man’s income? Just because he committed the sin of being more successfull than you are?
As to your claim that high income disparities automatically lead to revolution, that to is bunk.
MikeP says:
July 5, 2011 at 1:51 pm
Roy, I tend to agree with many of your points. However, without a level playing field people can become wealthy through manipulation and abuse rather than invention. There is a long history in America of those who’ve used either politicians or political power in this way. I intensely respect those whose ideas make our lives better. I have nothing but contempt for those who achieve the same results by making others poorer.
—
Mike, you are contradicting yourself. First you say that we need govt to create a level playing field, then you complain that some people use govt to give themselves an advantage. Which is it, is govt an agent of good that creates a level playing field, or is govt an agent of bad, giving one player an advantage over another?
The truth is that whenever you give govt the power to influence how the game is played, it will ALWAYS use that influence at the behest of whoever pays the most. The only solution is to NEVER give govt that power. The only role govt should have is to enforce the rules, as Dr. Spencer indicated.
Jerry says:
July 5, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Yes, the US is broke, but that is because our govt spends beyond it’s means. It has nothing to do with free trade.
Manufacturing jobs BELONG here?????
No, manufacturing jobs belong to the company that created them. If they want to move them to a place where costs are lower, that is there right. You claim that you favor democracy, then you claim the dictatorial powers to control business decisions. That’s nuts.
Yes, Ohio is a mess, but that mess is not China, or any foreign countries fault. It is the fault of unions that grew greedy, and politicians that forsook the long term for short term advantages.
The very idea that foreign trade should be elimintated alltogether is one of the most idiotic things I’ve heard in years.
Every country that has tried what you advocate has ended up poorer for it. For the simple reason that no one country will be the best in everything. When you eliminate trade you force your consumers to buy second best products at inflated prices. How does that benefit them? When you protect your companies from competition, you guarantee that your companies will start producing inferior products at inflated prices. Beyond that, how are they to compete if they are forbidden from buying the best themselves.
Your philosophy is not just stupid, it is so short sighted that I am left speechless by ignorance of it all.
Lichanos says:
July 5, 2011 at 7:31 pm
There were no guilds prior to the 12th century.
Was the first century merchant a member of a guild?
Mark WIlson, You apparently don’t read very well. One case is what government should be, the other is what it has too often been. The question is how to promote the former, which leads to better lives for most Americans, and diminish the latter which artificially enriches a few at the cost of the many.
Brian H says:
July 5, 2011 at 10:28 pm
“Interestingly, that doesn’t work. Receipts amount to about 19.5% of GNP regardless of the tax rates. Raise the rates, and GNP falls, and you get 19.5% of a lower number. Lower the rates, and GNP rises, and you get 19.5% of a higher number. Pick one.”
Using Gatesism percentages clouds the reality. 19.5% of GNP is not written in stone. It would be easy to raise rates so that you can get the tax to 30% of GNP if you so desired to cover increased spending. If that fails to raise enough revenue because of declining GNP, you keep raising the percentage until there is nothing left to tax. Only spending caps can stop the insanity.
Jerry says:
July 5, 2011 at 9:50 am
International “free trade” has been awful for the US.
—————————-
You are wrong.
Boeing is trying to open a manufacturing facility which would increase international trade and improve the lives of many in South Carolina but, the federal government (NLRB) has stopped production thereby stepping on “states rights” and reducing the GDP and incomes for workers.
Many technical and high paying jobs terminated putting people out of work and their families in need.
That’s how government “helps” and the fed’s response is to just add them to the welfare system.
I am sorry but it seems that many people here have confused “free market enterprise” with “capitalism”.
They are two very different things.
“Free market enterprise” is explained reasonably well here. But “Capitalism” is the use of accrued wealth to obtain the means of production. The farmer is engaging in free enterprise, but his ability to engage in free enterprise is curtailed if the capitalist has bought all the land for the benefit of his children and will only allow the farmer access to farm the land if the farmer agrees to pay a high rent that absorbs most of the farmers profit. “Capitalism” is almost as big an enemy of free enterprise as communism (which seeks to free the accrued wealth of the capitalists and put it in the hands of the state – in the end this is a change of ownership of the true wealth of the nation that has no net benefit to the ordinary people). Socialism comes in two forms – that form which is seen as an interim stage towards communism and Swedish socialism which was invented by capitalists to stop the working class resorting to communism and taking their wealth away from them – this is the form of socialism popular in Europe.
One day the middle class and the working class will band together to take the wealth from the capitalists and prevent the wholesale ownership of land and factories past the first generation and this will be called “democracy”. But I fear we are a long way from seeing it here in Europe until “socialism” is seen to have failed.
@Dave Wendt:
Regarding China – as someone that is heavily involved in outsourcing you are spot on about this. Basically the Chinese are the new slave labour. They make NO MONEY.
People (including many economists and businessmen) think China is RICH, They are wrong. China looks as if it is rich because it has a high GDP. But GDP is simply a measure of turnover of private industry added to public expenditure. China has a high GDP because the market value of the finished goods it makes is high, and so is its public expenditure. But look more closely and you will see that they may make a $400 smartphone but only $6 of that STAYS IN CHINA, The rest goes to Europe or the US. Then the public expediture (which pays for the ever expanding infrastructure) is actually being paid for by Chinese debt. In terms of wealth created by making smartphones and the like, Europe and the US is taking about 80% of it and China about 1% – but the GDP figures don’t reflect this.
GDP is an outdated concept that only made sense before outsourcing became commonplace.
I bet the Chinese government is as confused about this as everyone else is. But since we cannot employ people in our Chinese factories because we can’t get any more people to move into the cities, wage inflation in China is going through the roof and now we are looking more and more at India as the next low-wage manufacturing site. I predict that over the next 10 years the Chinese economy will implode just as the Pacific Rim “tiger” economies imploded for exactly the same reason before them.
The fact is you can make a country into a superpower by selling patio heaters on the cheap.
Ryan, that is a nutty statement. The free market system is a self propagated pyramid shaped system whereby those with money to spend will be caused to do so by those that market their goods in such a way to create need for them. At the wide bottom end, necessities dominate and many people buy into that level. At the pointed top end, desires dominate. Fewer people buy into the top level. But in order for the free market system to work from the bottom up, money from many people must flow upwards and become increasingly consentrated into fewer holders of that money. What we pay for must bring us more value than the cash we used to buy it with.
What your scheme intails (relieving the wealthy of their assets) is a barter system, not a free market system. It goes like this: I build a tower on your land in exchange for a different piece of your land. A straight across deal. No one gets rich. The trouble with that is that value inhanced incentive disappears. If no one gets rich, no one will see the need to market something because no one has need of anything outside of what they already own. Thus the free market system will not be born.
Chuck Nolan: I agree with you on this one. Opening a plant in SC, or moving a plant to SC, is certainly NOT “International free trade.” It’s trade within the US. The Obama administration is way out of line on this issue.
Mark Wilson: I am advocating the system that we used to have, and one that actually works in practice. It was in place before our founding up until roughly 1990. It works. It is constitutional, in the original sense (prior to the 16th Amendment). It produced the greatest accumulation of wealth and nation in human history.
Ohio is a mess because of NAFTA. Yes, unions are greedy, but they didn’t cause the problem. Tax law did. The same thing that happened to Ohio is happening to the whole US. Can’t you hear the giant sucking sound? If you don’t, then you will hear it soon.
If a company wishes to relocate off shore, that is indeed their right. If the leave, however, their products, like all foreign products, should be subjected to import taxes. Just like Japan and China severely tax products produced here. Also, that company should not be given preferential tax breaks. Nor should they expect the US military to defend them when they are on foreign soil. I do not claim dictatorial powers to regulate industry, only to tax imports and exports. Read the Constitution.
Our nation is bankrupt because we spend at the levels we used to back when we had an industrial manufacturing base. If we had not exported our manufacturing, we would not be bankrupt today.
On the contrary, every country that has tried what I advocate has thrived, as did the US, until (roughly) 1990 when we stopped protecting our industrial base and encouraged industry to move off shore. China is doing it now. Japan has always done it. Most of our “free-trade partners” are not advocating free trade at all, they are simply encouraging American companies to move manufacturing over there. They impose heavy import taxes to protect their own industry, and they are quite militant about it.
MikeP: I read quite well. What I’m pointing out is that your goal of getting govt as it should be is a fantasy. It will never happen. You might as well pass a law requiring all men to behave like angels. It ain’t gonna happen. When you give govt the power to directly influence the economic sphere, that power will always be for sale to the highest bidder. You can wish for a govt made of uncorruptible men from now till the cows come home, but it will never arrive.
Ryan says:
July 6, 2011 at 8:37 am
One day the middle class and the working class will band together to take the wealth from the capitalists and prevent the wholesale ownership of land and factories past the first generation and this will be called “democracy”.
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No, the true name for that which you desire is communism.
Anna V says:
Even for Greece, the sovietization of its economy, a 40% dependence on government posts and civil service salaries, the road to hell was oiled with outsourcing all it manufacturing to far and near cheaper countries. Free markets after all.
Yes, “free markets”, but instead reacting to the actual source of the problem, the “sovietization” of Greece, by fleeing Greece! Thus automatically leading to an also inappropriately demonized “outsourcing”, which Greece is in fact lucky to still have as a possibility – for example, so that Greece can even be possibly bailed out of its current self-generated and apparently addictive Socialist collapse!
Anna, do you still not notice how you have allowed mere words to become self-gratifyingly demonized in your own mind regardless of the real processes they actually refer to? Somewhat similar to your needful mis-application of the demonizing term “Imperialism” to America simply on the basis of its number of foreign Military “bases” without making a real argument on the basis of what these “bases” actually do?
Obviously the solution is not to demonize America’s massive success as achieved under its Constitutional Capitalistic system which rightly places the individual as primary to wealth creation and has made the “rich” of the past now appear to be largely comparable in their wealth to the current “poor”, especially as indicated by the current actualities of action/life-style in fact possessed by the poor, but not even imagined possible by the previous rich – including the support of massive numbers of people solely by means of “Welfare”, enc. – by America’s system having very objectively and increasingly raised essentially everyone’s standard of living via real wealth creation.
And far from also demonizing the “rich”, I’d even go to the extreme of arguing that if the “rich” don’t get richer and more and new “rich” validly appear and even change places with some of the previous rich…as opposed to the Communistic tactic of simply defining “rich” downward so as to take more of people’s “riches” so they all become equally poor, or by propagandistically defining it upward so that being “rich” has no practical meaning precisely because there are so few of the “rich”…if the rich don’t get richer under a system such as America’s Constitutional Capitalism, wealth creation itself is suffering and so are the “poor” and the “middle class”, because then even the rich can’t get richer! The whole economy is therefore suffering because now the rich can’t get richer than the poor, when they should be able to do it otherwise, for example, simply by putting enough of their money into something like their own Country’s interest bearing vehicles!
Regardless, a drag upon wealth creation is what always happens when the Government stifles the incentive for its individuals to engage in trade for their own benefit, as once again amply demonstrated by European Socialism’s “sovietization”, which outsources free-market wealth creation itself.
The solution for suffering Countries, and now for America itself, is to try to replicate America’s baldly successful system of Constitutional Capitalism, not to demonize its truly enlightened placement of its own unenslaved individuals as the proven font of wealth creation.
Thanks ROY,
I have a master degree in electrical engineering. Lately, I’ve been studing fluid dynamics to understand how wind turbines affect our world. My research is disturbing. If we build millions of those things across the world, we’re doomed. I can theorize what will happen, but I don’t have access to the resources to prove it. I plan on retiring next to the ocean overlooking Conception Bay Newfoundland. No worries about rising seas, my bluff is 400 ft above sea level.
Hal
Dave Wendt says:
This, of course, should not be surprising since the Nobel Prize for Economics some years ago went to a guy, whose name escapes me at the moment, whose life work fairly thoroughly demonstrated that governmental regulatory schemes inevitably devolve into protecting the corporations they were meant to regulate from the vagaries of the market.
Dave – While I will definitely check on this myself later, I would very much appreciate if you could somehow recall and share the name of the person you mention. (It would make my searching much easier). I am interested in reading some of his work.
Brian H says:
Interestingly, that doesn’t work. Receipts amount to about 19.5% of GNP regardless of the tax rates. Raise the rates, and GNP falls, and you get 19.5% of a lower number. Lower the rates, and GNP rises, and you get 19.5% of a higher number. Pick one.
Brian: I’ve never heard this before (that is, not specifically as you present it) – where did you find this idea / information?
Thanks!
Ohio is a mess because of NAFTA. Yes, unions are greedy, but they didn’t cause the problem. Tax law did. The same thing that happened to Ohio is happening to the whole US. Can’t you hear the giant sucking sound? If you don’t, then you will hear it soon.
—
Not true. Not even slightly true. NAFTA has created jobs, not destroyed them. The truth is that we in the US still make lots of cars, more than were made before NAFTA. It’s just that they are no longer made in Ohio, or Detroit. And that is 100% the fault of the unions.
The idea that shutting of trade will help a country was discredited hundreds of years ago. It has been disproven time and time again.
The US is still that largest manufacturer in the world. (China is a close second and may pass us soon.)