Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from page 60 of economists Phil Gramm’s, Robert Ekelund’s, and John Early’s important 2022 book, The Myth of American Inequality: How Government Biases Policy Debate:

American manufacturers responded to the mounting competition [starting in the 1970s from imports] with increased automation and the application of more efficient production methods aimed at reducing cost, increasing efficiency, and improving quality. As a result of these improvements in methods and concentration on high-end, capital-intensive production, real U.S. manufacturing output continued to grow from 1979 until the 2008 recession, when it fell sharply; it has not, as of this writing, fully recovered.

DBx: But real U.S. manufacturing nevertheless is now (as of December 2022) more than twice as high as it was in 1979, the year that U.S. manufacturing employment peaked.