Made In The USA Still Means Something - Essay Example

The Logic of ‘Made in USA’ still means something In this article, Harold Sirkin is addressing the issue of growing pessimism among the US public regarding the increasing outsourcing and decreasing manufacturing within the country. Sirkin believes that the pessimism is pointless as US is still the world’s biggest management having shifted its manufacturing towards chemicals and aircrafts rather than the traditional manufacturing items such as clothes and microwave ovens. The key question that Sirkin is addressing is how this issue could be solved through the efforts of both the government and the managers.

Sirkin believes that public’s growing concerns need to alleviated and positive picture should be brought forward. Sirkin supports this view by informing the readers that US is still producing goods of 2.5 percent more worth than China, which is considered to be the biggest manufacturing industry today. Even in the last year, US reported to export goods worth $1.377 trillion (Sirkin, 2009). Sirkin concludes his article by providing the right course of action which involves effort on the part of the policymakers and managers.

In order to understand Sirkin’s perspective, we must be aware that outsourcing is slowly killing the manufacturing industry of US since MNEs are interested in investing R&D in the outsourced countries. Sirkin is taking for granted the fact the certain figures have dropped drastically in the past year and China is quickly catching up despite being a developing economy. Also US, by focusing on manufacturing for only certain sectors such as chemical and aircrafts, is giving way to China as the world’s largest manufacturer.

If we take Sirkin’s argument seriously, we should realize that now is the time to act when US is still the biggest manufacturing industry. If the pessimism continues, US will lose its power to the outsourcing countries and the manufacturing industry will be outdated in the true sense. Sirkin has provided a way forward by pointing out that the outdated manufacturing plants can easily be replaced with state-of-the-art manufacturing plants if we close the old ones down and make way through policies and actions for new ones.

ReferencesSirkin, Harold, Made in USA still means something, Bloomberg Week, 2009. Retrieved from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30229507/ns/business-us_business/t/made-usa-still-means-something/