Most manufacturing has gone out of the US. TVs, cars, steel.
What is left? Boeing (BA) and a service and technology economy. Companies like McDonald’s (MCD) can’t export cooking hamburgers and staffing the register. So, a lot of those jobs will be here forever. But, they are not worth much money.
Tech and financial services are now the strength of the US economy and the money business could be in for a long stay in the intensive care unit.
The world largest hardware, software, and internet companies are still here. They are run here and most of the work that keeps them in the vanguard is done here. At least until recently. Microsoft, (MSFT), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Google (GOOG), IBM (IBM), and Intel (INTC) make up the backbone of the massive global technology industry. And, along with the financial industry, they create a very large portion of the high-end jobs in this country.
Yesterday word got out that IBM will have over 100,000 employee in Brazil, Russia, China, and India. Those countries had 85,000 IBM workers at the end of last year. The company is not growing in the US.
IBM is doing something that will spread to the other big techs. Google has most of its people here, but it is setting up a large tech operation in China and one in Europe. Microsoft is sending more jobs to Asia.
It used to be that what was invented in the US created jobs in the US and they stayed here. The IBM news is not new. Not at all.
It is just part of a relentless drum beat that "Invented In The USA" and "Made In the USA" are not the same thing. Now that applies to tech just as much as anything else.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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