EVIDENCE REFUTES ALLEGED FALL OF AMERICAN MANUFACTURING

"A creditworthy government has credibility with all its constituents, meaning its citizens as taxpayers present and future and as consumers of services, but also meaning its investors, present and prospective.

"Credibility is no longer achieved by paying a fat retainer to a public relations firm. Credibility must be earned by facing the tough questions of urban government and facing them together with those constituents. Credibility requires owning up to what those constituents suspect in any case: that we can't afford everything we want, and therefore must make choices, however painful.

"Credibility must be achieved by honest accounting, by presenting a rigorously honest bill of the costs involved for all proposed objectives. Authorities too often take the position that citizens aren't interested in such details. What this usually means is that the authorities themselves feel threatened by an open accounting." (Emphasis original).

From a recent speech by John A. Bohn, president of Moody's Investors Service, to the U.S. Conference of Mayors in San Diego.

Mr. Bohn was speaking of our nation's large urban areas. But hasn't he put his finger on what is really at any level "the sum of good government"? Isn't the credibility Mr. Bohn speaks of precisely the quality we find so lacking in the United States Congress? And too often in our state legislators?

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We hear a lot of nonsense from many supposed "experts", within and without the media, on the subject of the alleged "decline of manufacturing" in America. St. Louis is, of course, an old-line American manufacturing city; like its counterparts across America, the St. Louis manufacturing economy has had its problems.

The following comments by Knight Kiplinger, publisher of the widely read Kiplinger Letter, help to put the manufacturing economy in perspective. They have wide application that extends to far more than just our urban neighbors to the north. These comments are excerpted from a speech delivered June 12 to the Regional Commerce and Growth Association of St. Louis:

"Many Americans confuse employment with output. Even a savvy business group like the RCGA occasionally muddies this issue in its printed materials.

"It's true that many fewer St. Louis people are employed in manufacturing than in 1980 or even 1970 ... But the value of the products St. Louis makes is higher today than in 1970 and 1980, by any measurement.

"A smaller manufacturing work force, armed with better capital equipment, is producing a higher and higher value of product. That's the definition of rising productivity, and that's good for America, not a sign of decline.

"Manufacturing is taking a hit right now, as is normal during a recession, but over the long haul, manufacturing is alive and well in St. Louis."

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"The 20th Century has been `The American Century.' The 21st Century will be `The American Century,' too."

Recent statement by a high-ranking official of MITI, the Japanese government~/industrial/~planning combine.