Trump isn’t responsible for the secular decline. But he will soon speed things up.
Manufacturing and Services Chart Notes
- Manufacturing as a percent of nonfarm payrolls peaked during WWII at 38.47 percent.
- Services as a percent of nonfarm payrolls bottomed at 55.96 percent, also in WWII.
- NAFTA did not go into effect until 1994. By that time, manufacturing as a percent of payrolls already declined to 14.97 percent.
- By the time China joined the World Trade Organization, manufacturing as a percent of payrolls declined to 12.00 percent.
The chart shows that it is impossible for NAFTA to be responsible for the collapse. China is not the culprit either.
The bulk of the decline in manufacturing jobs is rising productivity. It takes fewer and fewer people to produce anything.
Trump cannot and will not reverse these trends, but he can accelerate them.
Manufacturing Jobs vs Nonfarm Payrolls
Nonfarm Jobs by Sector
Nonfarm Jobs by Sector Detail Since 1977
Change in Manufacturing Jobs
This is the first chart Trump can influence. And he already has.
In the grand scheme of things, manufacturing is of decreasing important compared to other sectors.
But tariffs are going to destroy jobs and cause a recession. Small businesses, especially small manufacturers, will be particularly hard hit.
Related Posts
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ADP reports the total YOY small business growth as +19,000.
The Unemployment Level Is Now Greater than Job Openings
On September 3, I noted The Unemployment Level Is Now Greater than Job Openings
For the first time since the pandemic unemployment is above openings.
The nonfarm payroll response rate is 42.6 percent with the same issues as with JOLTS
September 5, 2025: Jobs Report Misery – Only 22,000 Gain in August, June Revised to -13,000
August was a bad month for job seekers. Here are the grim details.
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Witness negative revisions 77 percent of the time, with more coming.
Recession anyone?
Addendum – Discussion on Productivity
I mean, Trump is a Chinese agent. He’s doing everything he can to destroy America. Most people know this already.
Trump signs executive order on tariffs because they were working so well.
Breitbart Business Digest suggests that with more migrants leaving workforce that legal workforce will improve. He may be wrong but I like the concept.
Breitbart trying paint lipstick on a pig
If u know your enemy and know yourselves u need not fear the results. I u are a
Sinophile and don’t know yourself, u will lose every battle.
Can you cite some sources, articles or books with statistics, to back up this claim?
“The bulk of the decline in manufacturing jobs is rising productivity” (versus outsourcing).
I am not challenging it. I am interested in how much automation versus outsourcing contributed to the decline in manufacturing employment over time. Thanks.
Reader Allan: Can you cite some sources, articles or books with statistics, to back up this claim:
“The bulk of the decline in manufacturing jobs is rising productivity” (versus outsourcing).
I am interested in how much automation versus outsourcing contributed to the decline in manufacturing employment over time. Thanks.
Mish
Sure – That’s a good question and I have charts.
Will be the subject of another post
Perhaps this will help.
In 1950; 25% of all jobs worldwide were in manufacturing
In 1990; 20% of all jobs worldwide were in manufacturing
In 2018; 13% of all jobs worldwide were in manufacturing
We are manufacturing more every year. Yet manufacturing jobs are slowly disappearing. This “implies” much greater productivity.
The same thing happened in agriculture. We dropped from over 90% of all jobs on farms to less than 2% on farms over the last 200 years. Automation and increased productivity.
The spread between mfg jobs (7.97%) and service jobs (86.44%) is too wide. TGA
is rising to $700B, along with gov debt, to preempt a gov shutdown. If SPX rises to 7K there will be no rate cuts in Sept. That will shock wall street. The markets will tremble. If SPX drops to 5K first JP will cut rates until the end of the year. Either ways: 7K or 5K JP will cut rates. Trump need new Fed board members to keep rates down, even if the CPI will rise above. Within two years, when new factories will work in full speed, the clamp between mfg and service jobs will shrink and normalized.
Wall Street shill spotted
Wall St? huh? Wall St has promoted and expedited the outsourcing of manufacturing, and well just about everything made in America with the exception of 100 million stock bonus payouts to CEOs
Odd. You have posted over and over again that government debt is going down. Which is it? Going up or going down?
Roughly sidewise if the tariff revenue is allocated to reducing debt plus some modest growth if you calculate the debt to GDP ratio at least till 2030 barring unforeseen events.
Lol! That’s some great logic there. Very convincing.
And IF aliens landed and helped out.
And IF your mother had wheels, she would be a wagon.
You are giving grade-school answers Davy.
If the court rulings hold up and congress doesn’t issue tariffs there won’t be much if any income to reduce debt. Believing that tariff income will be applied to debt is another fairy tale. Either congress will spend it or Trump will steal it.
on tariffs and bond market FT had this:
If the Financial Times is to be believed, Trump’s tariffs are now a key factor keeping Treasury investors on board. According to the paper, the tariff revenues are seen as a crucial income stream that offsets the costs of the Big Beautiful Bill. And recall that both S&P and Fitch recently conceded that tariff revenues for the US federal government were one factor that prevented them from downgrading the sovereign.
I know nothing but I think higher rates are on the way
If Hakeem the regime change shut the gov down, the $700B TGA will ease
the pain. Trump will hollow up DC and unessential Biden’s contractors, faster. Tariffs will stay. Lower rates will stay. Within a few years US gov debt might drop below $30T. The dollar will rise.
“ Within a few years US gov debt might drop below $30T”
Hahahaha! Good one!
And you “might” win a Nobel prize in Economics.
There is a basic principle most folks do not consider when evaluating structural economic changes. Consumption consumes wealth, the fuel of our economy. Economic wealth is created via manufacturing, agricultural ventures, construction, mining, and developing intellectual prowess. The US has intentionally discouraged manufacturing as shown in this post over the last 70 plus years. Incrementally, other wealth generating segments have had punitive influences driven by environmental or potentially not in my back yard policies or burdensome permitting requirements. This has crippled our ability to finance our economy.
Government is essentially all consumption as there is precious little wealth building undertaken by our government. Taxing individuals and businesses displaces potential investment capital to essentially wealth consuming activity. There is virtually no scrutiny over the taxed revenue that gives consideration for a return on the “investment”. An individual investor, bank making a loan, business looking to expand will always make an evaluation of potential return along with the risk for potential failure.
I am not saying all government spend is bad, quite to the contrary, we need basic law and order, protection from foes domestic and foreign and the like, but it must be limited by our funding ability without diminishing the wealth generating component of our economy. Doing so creates the debt and deficit mess we are in today. The only possible repair for our fiscal mess is to spend less than revenue and begin paying down the debt. To think we can tax our way to repair is foolishly thinking we further impede the wealth producing sector, it is already too small to fund our consumption.
We have all heard of the concept of being a debt slave, the US has spent itself into slavery.
Not true when we can just generate some numbers on a computer and email it as money to China and Europe who are stupid and craven and subservient enough to ship us valuable goods in return.
Now who would be stupid or traitorous enough to derail this gravy train?
Trump’s (and Biden’s) (((handlers)))?
We have seen the enemy and it’s NOT us.
China also generates some numbers on a computer and emails it to the companies and industries it wants to develop. China does not have a gold-backed currency. It is fiat like ours.
I talked about why big manufacturers are also leaving on a post yesterday and people are doing it here too, so I’d like to shift gears and talk about another thing I work with that’s getting mentioned here.
AI is not replacing everyone’s jobs. I work with it, I study it, and I can confidently tell you that anyone saying this has either never actually worked with AI or is trying to sell rubes on a stock bubble so they can get out before it busts.
Q: What does AI do well?
A: AI is very good at looking over pre-sorted tabular data, like the spreadsheets and stuff you all probably see at work. “AI” is really just a buzzword for machine learning, it is not at all intelligent and is actually more akin to the autocorrect on your phone but expanded. This means that AI is great as a tool for data scientists of all flavors. It will not replace data scientists, who still need to make sure the AI is getting good data and not hallucinating as it very often does even with the best data.
Q: What doesn’t AI do well?
A: Pretty much anything else currently. At least in terms of replacing people. The idea of AI replacing all jobs any time soon is an outright lie peddled by the shucksters who own the companies, most of whom are in a literal cult (1) and think it is God. Anyone who actually works with AI can tell you that beyond data analysis it works best as an augment for people. It can help with lots of things like writing code, but it cannot do it on its own and never will be able to prior to real sentient level AI being achieved.
Q: Sentient AI is coming soon though, right?
A: No. It would require much different abilities that would be infinitely more complex to be a real sentient general AI. Quantum computing will probably take us there one day, but that is decades away and likely to be handled very carefully as sentient AIs are known for being a teeny little bit of a problem in theory.
This is also not helped by the fact that AI is currently threatened as it is due to a lawsuit against open AI over a child’s suicide with absolutely damming evidence (2). Some of which follows:
Follow this with
I’m sure anyone here can probably guess that the parents of the child will be winning this case against OpenAI in court, and this is probably the watershed moment for AI being legislated hard. When it is, this will open the floodgates for other legislation, probably to protect jobs despite them not really needing it as AI will get part of the blame for the Trumptanic recession/depression thanks to its owners being cozy with him.
In conclusion, AI is not replacing your job unless you do very low level data analytics for a living. And even then, you will probably end up using it as a tool, not being replaced by it.
Citations:
(1) – https://youtu.be/m75SAPSrDjc is a really good deep dive on this.
(2) – https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/26/tech/openai-chatgpt-teen-suicide-lawsuit
Interesting.
I think bots have replaced quite a few customer service jobs at some larger companies.
I think those jobs were previously done by Indian call centers.
Are there any areas / industries that are tariff proof? (And I don’t mean “not getting tartiffs” I mean “will do well even with tartiffs”)
Service industries WOULD be immune, but are facing the other end of the tariff problem: We pissed off literally every single ally we had. Not to mention that things like Universities are being directly targeted by Trump separately. Service industries require a healthy consumer base to live, and right now nobody in the US has money to blow on a fancy dinner. Foreigners are shifting away from our products period, like in Canada.
Nobody does well with tariffs because the industries that don’t sell real things are dependent on those industries being healthy so people and companies have money to spend. It’s a cut off the head kill the snake problem.
I hear a resounding (and unstated) ‘NO’.
Trillions are pouring into new factories in the most essential industries. Demand for highly skilled and skilled workers will rise. AI will prepare them in a short time and at a lower cost, as pilot are trained on simulators first, before flying multi purpose training jets with two seats, before the can do the real stuff. College degrees aren’t good enough. It’s all about talent, leadership and productivity. The the more productive they are, the higher their wages and everybody else wages.
– and other tall tales from Michael “take your meds” Engel
That’s a reality that the “Dirty Dozen” can’t get.
Many people are hung up watching the latest economic statistics all the time recognizing justifiably that those same statistics are horribly inaccurate due to faulty methods of collection and interpretation. I applaud Mish’s efforts shifting through the noise and reinterpreting the stats to come up with something useful. It is a lot of work for him. Monthly statistics cannot represent a macroeconomic change of trend because the time period is too short since these policies are by nature long-term and to see the positive or negative effects are also long term. Just as the long-term nefarious economic effects of free trade did not become apparent for years, the beneficial effects of Trump’s policies will not become apparent in only a few months and to expect that it would is somewhat partisan behavior rather than careful analysis.
Maybe but the USA is a 90 day country. No one has the patience to wait a year or two for imaginary beneficial effects of policies initiated by the stupidest POTUS ever.
Wow. Thank you. Mike , great info.
I would have thought Mfg as a % of payrolls was almost double that in 1994.
Question: I don’t think this is a dumb question but that 14.97% number did that include the non-factory back office admin side? I remember when GM closed in the next town over growing up and not just the line workers were gone but quickly there after almost all the office workers too.
And now that GM plant is $999,999.99 mixed use condominiums. Go over a million and its a luxury tax added in
Just curious if that is lumped together or not?
Manufacturing and Services Chart Notes
Manufacturing as a percent of nonfarm payrolls peaked during WWII at 38.47 percent.Services as a percent of nonfarm payrolls bottomed at 55.96 percent, also in WWII.NAFTA did not go into effect until 1994. By that time, manufacturing as a percent of payrolls already declined to 14.97 percent.By the time China joined the World Trade Organization, manufacturing as a percent of payrolls declined to 12.00 percent.The chart shows that it is impossible for NAFTA to be responsible for the collapse. China is not the culprit either.
The bulk of the decline in manufacturing jobs is rising productivity. It takes fewer and fewer people to produce anything.
Trump cannot and will not reverse these trends, but he can accelerate them.
My Q: If a business is manufacturing, say GM. Is every job at that company considered manufacturing?
From AI
No, not every job at a manufacturing company like General Motors (GM) is considered a manufacturing job. While the company’s primary business is manufacturing vehicles, it requires a huge variety of roles and departments to operate, many of which are not directly involved in the physical production of a product.
Examples of non-manufacturing jobs at GM include:
Great point here Mish. I think this really muddies the waters as to how much actual manufacturing we have jobs wise. I dare anyone to tell me that the IT guys running the lines and crawling under conveyors every single day at your local plant aren’t manufacturing workers. Not sure what could be more manufacturing than literally making the machines run. Same goes for logistics guys who make up about 1/4th of any plant’s employees who are actively on the assembly line packing and transporting products.
These jobs are absolutely directly involved with the physical production of the product, as the obtuse definition of manufacturing there would imply that people running steel kettles aren’t “really” manufacturing it since they’re not pouring the steel with their bare hands. Basically just IT at that point am I right?
Do you know if this is how statisticians count these jobs?
The IT guys working on COBOL programs for payroll wouldn’t be manufacturing.
Designing production software? Don’t know – but IT is a very tiny slice of jobs.
< 3 million total – all sectors
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USINFO
So your concern seems irrelevant
Hmmm, but if the manufacturing plant wasn’t there the IT guys wouldn’t have a job, so maybe indirect manufacturing, same with all non-production staff positions?
Depends on what you qualify as IT. I’m talking about the guys on site who keep the machines maintained, debugged, and up to date. Very hands on, very blue collar. You’d come home caked in grease some days.
In the plants I contacted in (for multiple organizations), these guys make up roughly ~15% of the workforce give or take. That’s not a huge amount, but it’s not insignificant.
I bring this up because in high level manufacturing for say, steel, a lot of the hands on deck are directly involved in the process, but may or may not be counted since they’re not one of the 20 or so machine operators on the line. These plants still employ a few hundred people, but only a few dozen were doing “manufacturing” work. Both because of the efficiency increase you mentioned, but also because old style manufacturing doesn’t exist. It’s like not counting farmers because they’re not planting the seeds by hand anymore. To me, it reeks of old and out of touch with reality people running the statistics.
Thank you Mike. I guess I was being lazy but I still have not come around completely to AI.
My apologies.
I don’t entirely trust the AI without sources on this. It seems like a bad way to count jobs, though I wouldn’t put it past the guys counting these days.
There will be more manufacturing pretty soon. 2027 is the expected year China invades Taiwan. Biden did nothing to deter China. Trump realizes the urgency. A loss of Taiwan would be a huge economic loss to the US. Price increases now are the sacrifices to prevent empty shelves later. Leaders of countries tend to be sociopaths and predators. Removing illegal aliens are necessary to reduce the amount of sabotage embedded foreign agents can inflict domestically.Defense and consumerism are highly intertwined, so neither is to be analyzed in isolation of the other. Manufacturing consumer products locally keeps necessary skills sharp and infrastructure ready in the even of attack. A weak manufacturing base raises the chances of the use of atomic weapons when the supply of conventional weapons runs before the enemy retreats.
man are you going to get a lot of downvotes here lol.
You make some great points…..
In general I do agree with mikes point or those stats on manufacturing but I too also agree there is a level of manufacturing & local supply chains we must have internally to protect our country. Even if it isnt profitable. We can’t just say oh well someone else can do it cheaper. Will they deliver it to us in not just a possible time of war? but in a disaster type situation where they take care of their own first?
In fairness, I do think mike has identified those industries in a prior article not too long ago
Bonkers.
Bonkers is if China invades Taiwan in 2027? or anytime really?
Why couldn’t it happen? Especially with some of the stuff Trump said or threatens?(did I say that?)
I cheated and AI says the U.S. has a stated policy to help defend Taiwan
The illegal aliens part?
Manufacturing?
Invading Taiwan is in PRC creed. The 80Y WWII parade showed that
Shi prepares for it. The RE bubble deflated. The EV bubble started deflating. Rearming and ruling with an iron fist is Shi’s most important policies. Rearming is what the US and the EU are doing. It’s a lever.
And what right do we have telling China what to do as a supporter of genocide in Gaza as we have relinquished all moral high-ground anywhere in the world.
Disagree. China has all the time in the world to go invade Taiwan, it’s not going anywhere. Right now though they need everyone to like them because everyone is currently looking to shift away from America’s dumpster fire.
Once everyone does shift away from the sick man of North America, that would be a great time to start making demands. Especially if we really crash and can’t protect Taiwan.
Also consider that what they really want from Taiwan is their superconductors and chip making industry. If they invade Taiwan all of that gets scuttled. But, if they had that kind of leverage from being the new trade capital of the world, they could probably strike a deal to let Taiwan maintain some de-facto notion of independence in exchange for being the boss of the world’s chips and semiconductors. That is much much more valuable than the island itself.
I think everything you said is absolutely true.
But America has always had a way of reinventing or correcting itself. We are a dumpster fire for sure right now. We weren’t always right?
I believe this gets fixed.
Correct, it just typically costs a lot of lives and takes a few decades. Unfortunately, I think this is the levee breaking on the dam of band-aid fixes we’ve been doing to our government for well over a century now.
I believe it will get fixed, but the fact that it’s happening like this is deeply saddening.
I don’t know about you but I think I’ll be taking a dirt nap by then.
And yes it is disturbing. I have been disturbed well before Trump came to town and before changed from a Democrat to a Republican….lol
Maybe it’s time to go independent and vote for the individual not the party.
I have done that in the past. Having a hard time with that lately though
correct. tawain will be like PR is to USA in future years. the century long civil war of china is still being waged with tawain. fun fact. our family knew madame chiang kai shek. i have some wonderful artwork she gifted my father.
Hallucinating AI spotted
I don’t get your contradictions.
There will be more US manufacturing “pretty soon”.
Do you know how long it takes to build new steel or aluminum production? Or new nuclear plants? Or a chip fab factory. Or a new auto plant?
But then you say the US economy will suffer a huge loss when China invades Taiwan in 2027.
Which is it?
Recession? Every $300b in tariffs collected by the Treasury adds 1% to GDP, according to the distinguished Treasury secretary. Can he really be that ignorant?
Yes. And then some.
📉 Tariffs and U.S. GDP: A Complex Relationship
Tariffs don’t typically add to GDP—in fact, most economic models suggest they tend to reduce it over time. Here’s a breakdown of what recent analysis shows:
🇺🇸 Federal Reserve Findings
According to a 2025 study by the Federal Reserve, higher U.S. tariffs:
• Raise prices of intermediate goods, which reduces domestic production efficiency.
• Lead to economic losses due to inefficient resource allocation.
• Generate tariff revenue, which can offset some losses if redistributed to consumers.
In their model:
• A broad tariff increase (60 percentage points on Chinese goods and 10 on others) would reduce global GDP by 0.8%.
• The U.S. itself would face significant losses, especially if trade partners retaliate or shift resources inefficiently.
🏦 J.P. Morgan’s Take
J.P. Morgan estimates the effective U.S. tariff rate rose from 2.3% in 2024 to 15.8% in 2025, with expectations it could reach 18–20% later this year. Despite this, their Q3 GDP forecast remains unchanged at 2%, suggesting short-term resilience—but long-term risks remain.
🧾 Tariff Revenue vs. Consumer Impact
While tariffs can increase government revenue, they also:
• Raise consumer prices, reducing household spending.
• Distort trade flows, leading to inefficient import/export patterns.
• Weaken private investment and confidence, which are key drivers of GDP growth.
So, while tariffs might provide a temporary fiscal boost, they’re more likely to drag on GDP in the long run unless carefully targeted and offset by other growth policies.
Tariff protect new essential industries. New industries will increase productivity, highly skilled mfg jobs, raise the GDP, while cutting gov debt.
Tariffs on Steel. Aluminum. Copper. Lumber. Very old and inefficient industries in the US. That’s where the bulk of the tariffs are.
New manufacturing industries? Care to name some in the US?
I can name a few in China that have rapidly grown in the last two decades. Solar, wind, battery, semis, evs, rare earths, robotics, high speed trains etc.
Other than rare earths, Trump doesn’t seem to even want the rest. He would rather support old businesses.
Lumber bs. Rare earth bs. High speed trains, Japs knock offs, bs. Rearming our depleted arsenal, with modern weapons, pharma and other essential industries is on. Gov/ Labor force is the smallest in 100 years. It will cont to shrink, including unessential Biden’s contractors. Demand for defense and the US military export is rising. The sun, the wind and batteries are old industries serving the deflating EV.
“Lumber bs”
Whats that? You don’t think that Trump put tariffs on lumber? You’re not keeping up.
“Rare earths bs”
What a strange thing to say. Even Trump is concerned every time China slows the supply. Our military and manufacturing can’t get by without them.
“High speed trains, Jap knockoff, bs”
Lol! What difference does that make? China has 30,000 miles of high speed rail. We have zero.
“ Rearming our depleted arsenal, with modern weapons”
Hahahaha! And how are we going to do that without those rare earths?
“Demand for defense and the US military export is rising.”
We won’t be able to supply ourselves, let alone others, if we don’t have those rare earths.
“ The sun, the wind and batteries are old industries serving the deflating EV.”
Wow. You are very out of touch with reality. In 2024 the US added 38 GW of new electricity generation vs 60 GW of demand. 30 GW was solar, 3 GW was wind and just 5 GW was from natgas. It’s going to be hard for the US to meet rising electricity demand without solar and wind.
The numbers for new electricity generation worldwide are the same. Over two thirds of all new generation worldwide is from solar and wind. They are the new industries; coal is the old industry. You’re still thinking like its 1950.
When data centers deflates, after cannibalizing themselves, demand for energy will fall. China embargoed US LNG. Shi imports LNG from Australia, Nerd #1 and from Qatar, Nerd #2. Putin will build a Trans Siberia Mountain pipeline from Yamal, near the north pole, to Mongolia and China to provide energy to China deflating population.
“ When data centers deflates, after cannibalizing themselves, demand for energy will fall.”
Sure. And the internet is going away too. Right?
You say some very strange things. It is hard to take you seriously.
Puke !
you are a wealth of knowledge and convey it, extremely well PapaDave. what stock picks do you like now ? thanks in advance.
I am very heavy cash right now; almost 40%. I rarely go over 25%. When I do, it’s because I am anticipating a substantial correction. As in 2000, 2008, and 2020. My gold stocks are doing well but they are a relatively small part of my portfolio. Agnico and Lundin are my largest gold holdings. I am not a fan of physical gold.
Still like natural gas stocks like Tourmaline, Peyto, Diamondback.
Still doing a lot of day trading. But mostly being cautious.
thanks for such a quick and thoughtful response. good luck. i’m a trader and always use trailing stops. so the crashes in past 45 years at this fun game, have been a blessing to my net worth. i bet a few pals from think tanks in 2018, that at least one or more us states would effectively secede by jan 20th, 2029. a ten year bet to eat at my favorite steak house in this country. a classic spot in AZ. i have a hunch i might collect. i could see west coast nullifying trump’s tariffs and trading with world.
No problem. I hope that you do not win your bet. It would be a shame. Though, nothing we can do about it.
“ Trump Will Hasten the Decline of US Manufacturing Jobs”
Yep. I have been mentioning this for many months now. For many reasons.
1. Trump is increasing manufacturer’s input costs. 50% tariffs on steel, aluminum, copper, parts etc. 35% tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber. 10%-50% tariffs on other wood products like pulp, plywood, etc depending on source. US manufacturers are paying much more for these inputs than their foreign competitors.
2. Electricity costs; demand is increasing for electricity for AI, crypto, EVs, consumers AND manufacturers. But supply is not keeping up. In 2024 there was 60 GW of new demand but only 38 GW of new supply. And 33 GW of that new supply was renewables, which Trump is determined to stop. This trend will continue and electricity prices will keep increasing. Note: Trump also wants more aluminum smelters built, but they require huge amounts of cheap electricity; which we don’t have.
3. Skilled labor. Deporting skilled labor as well as preventing new skilled labor from entering the US will only result in a shortage of skilled labor. This can increase costs for manufacturer’s or prevent production from even happening.
Correct. With our coal supply, we should be building at least the same number of new coal plants as China. The same with nuclear.
Coal is too expensive. And too dirty. But if there is no other alternative and we need the power; then yes. However, who is going to make that investment when there are much cheaper and cleaner alternatives?
Nuclear is too expensive. And takes 15+ years to build. Other than that; it is great. There are no new nuclear plants planned in the US at this time that I am aware of. China is building new 30 nuclear plants right now and have another 30 planned.
Worldwide, roughly 74% of all new electricity generation is from solar and wind. 6% from nuclear power. 15% natgas. Just 1% from coal. The rest from hydro dams, biofuels and misc.
Papa Dave.
Kathy Hochul has announced plans to build a nuclear-power plant in NY,the first major new US plant in over 15 years, and one designed to add to add at least 1GW of nuclear power generation.
The governor said in a statement that she had directed the New York Power Authority (NYPA) to develop and construct a zero-emission advanced nuclear power plant in upstate New York to support a reliable and affordable electric grid.
I’m channeling Rodney Dangerfield in back to school here:
No worries , its NY this will be in operation about 25 years after its supposed to and at 100 Billion overbudget
Where are they going to build this in NY ? Fantasy land
I wish them luck. Vogle unit 4, the last new reactor built in the US, began construction in 2009 and completed in mid 2024. 7 years overdue and way over budget. It generates 1.1 GW.
In 2024 US demand grew by 60 GW, and this is expected to increase each year going forward. We need to build over 60 new reactors per year starting now to meet all our new demand.
One new reactor at 1GW, to be completed in 15 years is falling quite a bit short.
The vast majority of new power generation is coming from solar and wind. Though Trump wants to stop solar and wind.
Hard to see US manufacturing growing without more power.
Definitely. You own any of these nuclear stocks? I like Nuscale Power, that owns around 1/3 of SMR, but that is in the red for me right now
Not a fan of SMRs. They are overhyped and they are not delivering. Makes for a good stock trading situation, but not a good long term investment.
Everyone all over the world is trying to make these work for a reasonable price and no one can do it. Yes, they CAN work. But they are too expensive and have too many issues.
There are isolated places where they are appropriate (subs, aircraft carriers, Antartica, the moon) and cost doesn’t matter. But I don’t see widespread adoption until someone can crack the cost nut.
In the meantime, solar, wind and natgas are the cheapest ways to produce electricity. And they are quick to build. However, Trump wants to prevent solar and wind. So natgas it is. Which is one of the reasons I like natgas stocks in the long run. Too bad that there is a 2-3 year wait list on the generators used in natgas plants.
Thank you for the info.
Too bad we’re not friends with Canada – we could maybe buy more hydro from them.
I REMEMBER SHOREHAM. knew men who spent their entire careers working there. never opened for folks not familiar with that NYS debacle of nukes.
Yes. I know more of Indian Point in Westchester, Buchanan to be precise. Now “decommissioned”. What ever that is supposed to scientifically mean.
I wonder if that has potential to be restarted?
Some plants can be restarted. Palisades in Michigan and Three Mile Island in Pa are both slated to be restarted. But they are the exception. And the process takes 2-3 years. Palisades may be up and running this year and Three Mile in 2028. Old plants. Not cheap. But we need the electricity.
Got it. And after I posted that I looked it up and apparently Indian Point can not be restarted.
Sinophile !
Just explaining reality. Thanks!
Between 12PM and 2PM office building workers pour into restaurants for lunch and beer. When they are done, the waiter clicks 4 cell phones x 18% x $50 each = $36 tips. A table of 8 cell phones = $72 tips. The waiters are young serving young people between 20Y and 40Y, like them. No old senile gen X or boomers. AI is knowledge. AI will increase these groups size. Until recently they were the exclusive product of elite colleges costing between $60K/Y and $90K/Y.
Will code AI prompts for food.
LOL…….Beer between 12pm to 2pm?ooook……..Although I do remember stories about the GM night crew getting out around 9:am and pounding down beers till noon lol.
Adding further to the reduction in jobs is Trump’s crime reduction fight – fewer lawyers, security people, insurance adjusters and custodial workers et. etc. needed. /s
Sack federal judges who promote crime.
We may well have more manufacturing done in the US. That doesn’t mean there will be a ton of jobs. Union labor is too expensive, and companies will go to robots and AI to produce their products. If Trump thinks he can bring back the archaic 3 mile long rolling mills I worked in back in the 1960s he is crazy. Trump isn’t crazy, he knows full well manufacturing is different than manufacturing jobs. The trend in manufacturing jobs will continue down, tariffs or no tariffs.
Is writing code manufacturing?
No
> The bulk of the decline in manufacturing jobs is rising productivity.
> It takes fewer and fewer people to produce anything..
If only we were demonstrating progress to a post-scarcity world instead of cutting back on manufacturing and reverting real wages for the bottom half of earners to the 1970’s.
Supposedly, when Nixon was pitched the idea of an HMO as “a healthcare organization that makes more money the less healthcare it provides”, he said “oh, I like that”. Has that been the ruling class’s attitude on everything for the serfs? What if the “rising price of everything” is a feature rather than a bug? Is “supply-side economics” conducted mostly by cartel-side economists? Are they metaphorically placing us on calorie restrictions?
When you don’t need people to produce things, you institute policies to reduce the number of people.
OK, some points for recognizing China issues, and seeking some balance in immigration chaos (both failings of a decaying Congress).
But what else do I expect of a showman selling fantasies, with no historical sense and no principles, other than mostly self-promotion. His history was screaming this at us.
It’s not just the US, Mexico is now getting on the same bandwagon it seems.
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/mexico-proposes-50-tariff-on-chinese-imports-bans-shoes-small-packages
This begs a question, if you want to have the same high quality of life as before Trump, where do you get it? Where is the best place to be to have access to goods and services? Where are the places not in demographic death spiral?
All good questions to ask and answer for a great exit strategy.
As someone who believes “everything they do is about Chayna”, I’ve been expecting them to ease tariffs on countries that in turn raise tariffs on China.
> This begs a question, if you want to have the same high quality of life as before Trump, where do you get it?
> Where is the best place to be to have access to goods and services?
If you can, move to BRICS. There’s corruption and problems everywhere. But our genocidal pedogarchs take the cake and stuff our bread with sawdust. /s
With all due respect, your statement “ if you want to have the same high quality of life as before Trump” man does that come across elitist & maybe border line arrogant. I apologize, I’m sorry and I know you know this but know one has caused the most economic inequality in the last I don’t know 45 years? than the Federal Reserve.
I’m sure you & I have benefited from this financialization of eveything that helps the ones that own property & stocks but where has that left 90% of the rest of Americans?
So 10% of us are doing well and 90% of us can’t find a decent paying job in Mfg anymore. Are highly educated tech jobs(outside the new savior AI) even growing for US citizens anymore? Hence the jobs report where apparently, if its even correct, we lost rounded up 400K full time jobs but gain 600k part time jobs.
So the people that actually are hard working have to work 2 jobs to get by. And yeah I know you & everyone here are smart enough to know that but dam, “high quality of life as before Trump” ?
Tell that to the fake 818,000 people that got a new job under Biden only to find out they really didn’t.
The United States had a lot of problems in so many areas before trump. Its not like when trump goes away those problems are going away.
WHY the tariffs when everybody knows it will not do anything good for America? We don’t have the infrastructure, the factories nor the skilled and qualified labor force to produce most of the stuff we get from China and elsewhere. So forget about onshoring back production.
Conversely, foreigners will be compelled to stop doing business with America: this will result in the abrogation of our ability to spend by going into debt, due to foreigners earning fewer dollars by selling us less stuff, which they could have invested in our Treasury Bills and Bonds otherwise.
Cui bono?
(((Who))) wants to destroy America by ordering Trump to decree our national suicide? By killing the Goose that lays the golden eggs, aka the dollar as the reserve currency of the world, which affords us our exorbitant privilege to buy whatever we want simply by printing money out of thin air?
We have found the enemy and it’s NOT us.
Been a while since we got a good ITS DA ZWO JOOOOOOOOOOOZ!!1!1!1!1!111!!!! schizo post.
Try a rational rebuttal, Natan
>prove to me the jewish lizard people aren’t real
You have any pictures of them? Go on, show me how the Rothschilds are controlling the world. It’s a whole world order so it should be easy right? Like in the Turner Diaries! Or do you really expect me to read to you like the short bus jockey Nazi you clearly are?
Art, your right. But Don’t you do believe we have to manufacture some things here in America and with inside America supply chains(hard I know, I guess so called friendly supply chains) right?
And you sure the enemy is NOT us? ………We are our own worst enemy.
Bessent attacks his boss policies during 2020/21 when the Fed raided wealthy people’s bank accounts and transferred $3,000 to the poor and $10,000 to shingle mums.
AI is hastening the decline of ALL jobs!
There should not be any doubt that AI is going to eat away at job growth and the labor participation rate is going to fall sharply in the coming months/years.
The whole idea that there will always be job growth is rooted in a 20th-century economic model that assumed endless job creation.
The model can be summarized as populations grow, more workers enter the economy, they fill new jobs, pay [more] taxes that fund both expanding governments and the pensions/retirement benefits of the older generation.
But AI and robotics are fundamentally breaking that model. Machines are taking on tasks that once required human labor, from factory work to logistics to office jobs to creative and technical roles. Essentially, the whole gamut of human work.
We are entering a period where the assumption of “more people working = more prosperity” is flipping. Unlimited productivity growth from automation could theoretically support everyone and their needs, but governments are still structured around taxing declining human labor.
This mismatch is the real wrench in the system that results in an excessive and negative focus on monthly employment numbers, which are so essential to the continuation of this failing model.
AI and increasing automation surely will have larger impacts.
Other areas feeling Trumps incoherent economic actions are:
The oil patch which has seen US rig counts fall 16 of the last 17 weeks in a row. 23,000 oil workers have been or will be laid off within the next three months.
The service industry has also been affected with tourism falling precipitously.
Transportation, freight and trucking are or will be hit hard as imports continue to fall.
Farm workers and farm equipment suppliers are being hurt as our exports of corn, soy and wheat are rejected in favor of cargoes from Brazil, Canada, Argentina, Russia, Australia etc.
LNG export cargoes were at 121 billion cu ft per week when Trump took office. This past week only 101 billion ft were shipped. This is why our oil and gas producers have cancelled $500 million in CapEx spending in 2025.
Trump disaster number two is just starting to be felt…
As an aside, Canada is increasing drilling rigs and oil gas infrastructure investments dramatically. Countries that Trump has attacked simply do not want to buy anything made in the USA.
Who does Trump work for?
>
The Manchurian candidate. With extra Kompromat.
You live in MAGAland now where: Misery = Good. Communism = Right. But hey, there is hope that a socialist from New York will lead the way! /s
trump was the butt of jokes in gotham for decades. i proudly gave him the finger in the 1980s. he was a joke. he still is. democracy works perfectly. dumbfucks in pax dumbfuckistan elect dumbfucks. from sea to shining sea. the business of amerika is war. the rest is eyewash.
Mish, can you put together some charts on crime where I live, not that it’s available in an honest way. Why my next door neighbor in Berkeley is afraid to walk around during the freeking middle of the day? Every body has their concerns. Where do you live? What are the demographics?
That’s normal for Berkeley.
don’t have crime charts for cities. You can easily do a search for Berkeley crime
And nextdoor Oakland. Criminals are like viruses. They don’t respect city boundaries.
So who is gonna call the manufacturing or economic slowdown? Cause if it is Trump or his henchmen, there will be no recession or anything else called. There will be no negative anything talked about, and if there is, it will be blamed on Biden … or Obama.
The stock market took a year to reflect the decreased margins after Trumps first term/tariff skirmish. Stocks dropped 20%. Now that he has declared a full on tariff war, I think the stock market will falter within the next six months as profit margins collapse.
Trump and his minions do not understand basic economics.
Without profits and predictable business environments, business do not hire or invest in infrastructure for new employees. This is especially true now because of the glut of commercial real estate (we do not need more office space).
The AI and power generation fantasy build out will collapse as new chips become more efficient and power consumption falls with a consolidation of AI providers.
AI overcapacity is going to be massive!
Approx 1.4mil non-native workers have left the work force since Trump took office. This is why employment is flat. Their jobs have been filled by native workers. A good thing. The promises of reshored manufacturing due to tariffs will take at least 3yrs build capacity. Reshoring to improve supply chains already has boosted capacity but because this capacity is only in early stages of being filled by production, the capacity utilization has fallen. All signs are positive for labor demand in manufacturing the next 5yrs.
pull the other one now
It will be exceptionally difficult for the US to recover from Trump disaster number two.
If 1.4 million Illegal, undocumented workers had been replaced with 1.4 million documented workers, employment would have gone up by 1.4 million workers.
Trump also thinks that prices of drugs have gone down 1,500%. Lots of math challenges for Trump and his sycophants.
😉
LOL
Hey Mish, lots of claims here. Anything you want to chime in on – with facts instead of conjecture.
Such analysis is bullshit. all around.
Just because you say so. Got it. You’re just another guy with opinion. You’re not the Oracle in the Matrix, Mish.
Stop your bullshit.
I post charts and graphs with trends and analysis of current and historic data.
Some jackass comes with with statements purporting something, just like you, and we are supposed to believe it just because he says so.
I might add, just like you. It is hard to refute all of this bullshit, including yours Ben. And I don’t have time for it.
Lil bro never heard of burden of proof.
There’s job waiting for you at Pravda or Известия when you finish posting here.
Unfortunately he doesn’t have to leave the country for that . The American media is the new Pravda