January 17, 2026 • 36 mins
Manufacturing has traditionally been a tentpole of the American economy. And car manufacturing has historically played a big part in the nation’s strong economy. President Trump made a deal with Japanese vehicle maker Toyota to reshore its car manufacturing on US soil. It appears the threat of tariffs worked. Meanwhile, at the Port of Long Beach, the amount of trade has exploded, moving a record amount of cargo last year. Because of Trump tariffs, American workers now have the advantage. In the 1980s, we shipped all manufacturing overseas to countries like Mexico, Canada and parts of Asia. But now manufacturing is making a return to prop up our economy. And we don’t even have to build the infrastructure — because all the old factories and rail lines are still here. President Trump was in Detroit this week to talk about bringing the manufacturing plants back to the US. US auto workers historically got a bad rap because of the way they were treated, not because of anything bad they did. They lived under constant threats of factory closures, robot replacement and docked pay, which was demoralizing to the American labor force. Meanwhile Frigidaire mini fridges are being recalled as a fire hazard. Where are they manufactured? Mostly in China.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Lou Penrose with you till ten o'clock. Thank you for
tuning in. Good to have you along with us. I
am a huge proponent of American manufacturing. I think that
American manufacturing is what advanced this country post World War
Two from a really growing country into the strongest economic
(00:27):
powerhouse on planet Earth. And there's a lot of reasons why,
but the biggest reason is we buy the things that
were manufactured here, so it really worked. The American economy
traditionally has been a three legged stool, and it works
(00:47):
like this.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
You have professional work.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
That's doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, architects. You have service work, right,
that's the people that work in the hotel industry. That's
the people that work in the hospitality industry. That's the
people that work in the retail industry. And then you
have manufacturing. That's the people that take raw materials and
(01:14):
turn them into products. Manufacturing taking raw materials and turning
them into products for sale.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
And it works, and all three are necessary.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
We cannot have a growing prosperous American economy with is
doctors and lawyers, and we cannot grow the economy with
service workers doing each other's laundry.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
We have to have manufacturing. It's essential.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Now. The good news is manufacturing is far more dynamic
than service work or the professional economy because manufacturing brings
with it so many downstream jobs. And there isn't a
better example than the automotive industry. Making cars in America
(02:07):
for Americans has been magical post World War Two for
the really the creation of wealth in this country and
the rising level of prosperity for every American. You know why,
because the car is made of steel and glass and
rubber and all kinds of components. So many things go
(02:31):
into a car, and then everybody buys the car. Every
American has a car. Some Americans have two. That isn't
the case in other parts of the world. So the
car is such a.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Good driver of wealth in this country. Right.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
The steel is from America, the aluminium is from America,
the rubber is from America. So the people that make
steel and rubber, the people that make glass, all of that's,
the people that make the engine are all sourced in America.
Then they ship all those things to an assembly plant
(03:14):
based in Michigan, and they put all those parts together
and you have an automobile. Then they ship those automobiles
to car dealerships all over the United States and on Saturday,
Americans go and buy themselves a car. When you buy
that car that was made in America, you're now paying
the salary of the guy in Michigan that assembled the car.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
But you're also paying the.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Salary of the guy that got the iron and steel
out of the ground in Birmingham, Alabama, or the rubber
in Pennsylvania, or the glass in Ohio, or all the
components in the car. Is it's like a magnitude of seven,
(04:00):
and in all that money and wealth circulates right here
in the United States.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
So it is really important.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
That we manufacture in the United States. And the automobile
is the perfect example. We are constantly buying cars. We're
always going to be buying cars. We will always need cars.
We are not a mass transit country. It's a big place.
We have great, big freeways, great big highways, and it's
going to stay that way. So we need to be
manufacturing cars here in the United States. And good news,
(04:29):
President Trump made a deal with Toyota and starting this year,
Toyota is resuring the manufacturing of Japanese cars into the
United States that will be manufactured by American.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Toyota is going to be putting auto plants all over
the United States to.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
The June of over ten billion dollars. So that's Toyota.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
So go out and buying Toyota, right.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Well, there's a couple of reasons.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
That one is because Trump is uniquely qualified to negotiate
with Toyota.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
So elections matter, and his election did.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
But the utilization of tariffs as a bargaining chip worked.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
And that's a lot to do with because right now
we have all the AI plans, we have so many
things happening in the United States, and it's because of
November fifth, election day, but it's also because of tariffs.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Absolutely because of the tariffs. The tariffs worked, right, The threat.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Of tariffs and the negotiation with tariffs in place worked.
It brought everybody to the bargaining table and put the
advantage back into the hands of this nation's top negotiator
and advantages the American worker. For years, I have worked
alongside Republicans in Washington in Congress, and they were all
(06:02):
free traders saying tariffs don't work. Now, protectionism doesn't work.
Lou It messes up the marketplace. You got to have
free trade, free trade, free trade. And we've been dealing
with this free trade crap for thirty years. And there
were I mean, it was down to a handfill, a
handful of protectionists that we're advocating for tariffs. It was
(06:25):
basically me, Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, then Congressman Shared Brown
who's now Senator Shared Brown, who was a protectionist, Congressman
Duncan Hunter of San Diego, and that's pretty much it.
Everybody else was free trade, free trade, free trade, no
trade barriers, no tariffs, and all the jobs when overseas
(06:48):
all the American manufacturing dissolved and we brought in a
bunch of plastic crap from China. So we're going in
a whole new direction. And everybody said, oh, tariffs are bad,
tariff's are good. Caused the Great Depression. Smoot Holly, don't
you read your history? And I said, no, you're you're lying,
and that lie has been debunked now.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Smoot Holly came out.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Way after the Great Depression in an effort to reverse
the effects of the Great Depression and to and to
put Americans back to work. So it was the right idea,
just too late. Well guess what. Guess what's happening at
the Port of Long Beach. The amount of containers coming in,
(07:34):
the amount of trade has exploded. His Frank Buckley from KTLA.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
Despite tariffs that reduced imports to the US, the Port
of Long Beach moved a record amount of cargo last
year and is preparing for expansion, nearly ten million containers.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
How can that be? How can that be? How can
that be?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Terriffs, We're going to stop international trade all these Trump
was going to start a trade war. We were going
to be in trouble that we would not be able
to afford Barbie. There'd be no Barbie dolls under the
tree because of Trump's trade war. I love how Buckley says,
despite what do you mean?
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Despite?
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Because of the proper use of tariffs as a negotiating tool,
we got good deals that benefit American workers. So we
are going to start making cars again in the United States.
And I think that's just the beginning. When we come back,
I want to play for you what Michael Moore had
to say about this. You may recall Michael Moore he
(08:33):
started the whole Gorilla documentary with a film called Roger
and Me, which was about the complete decimation of the
American automobile manufacturing industry. So he was pro tariff, really
pro Trump philosophically many many years ago. He doesn't like
Trump now, but you could. I mean, you can watch
(08:55):
this movie today and it would completely justify what Trump
is doing with respect to his tariff negotiations.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
I'll share it with you. It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
American manufacturing is returning to the United States. The tariffs worked.
Protectionism works.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
It brings other nations and international companies to the table,
and we are in the advantage. The American worker now
has the advantage because it's too expensive to pay the
tariff and manufacture the automobile or the appliance or whatever
it is it's being manufactured in another country and then
have to pay the tariff. It prices them out of
(09:41):
the market. So it's causing companies like Toyota to move
manufacturing back to the United States.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
And that's a good thing.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Manufacturing cars is something Americans do well. It makes sense.
The raw materials are here, the shoppers are here. Ciency
here We don't manufacture cars in the United States for export.
We manufacture cars in the United States for consumption. We're
the consumers, so it makes all the sense in the world.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
We used to do it before we got into this
whole free trade nonsense in the late eighties and shipped
all the manufacturing to Mexico into other parts.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Of the world.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
It was a huge mistake.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
So this is going in the right direction that Toyota
is moving manufacturing here to the United States.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Here is Michael Moore.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Michael Moore was probably the highest profile critic of what
happened to the American automotive industry in and I mean
not just in and he's from Flint, Michigan. But the
American automotive industry is not just the assembly of cars
in Michigan, as I said, it is the raw materials involved,
(10:59):
the glass, rubber, the steal, the aluminum, the plastics, all
sourced in the United States, creating American jobs. Here he
is in twenty and sixteen. Now in twenty sixteen, he
was campaigning for Hillary Clinton.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
He wanted Hillary Clinton to win. So he's not a Trump.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Guy, but he understands what American manufacturing is about and
here's how he explained Hillary Clinton's loss to Trump.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
In twenty sixteen, Donald.
Speaker 6 (11:28):
Trump came to the Detroit Economic Club and stood there
in front of the Ford Motor executives and said, if
you close these factories as you're planning to do in
Detroit and build them in Mexico, I'm going to put
a thirty five percent terriff on those cars when you
send it back, and nobody's going to buy them.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
It was an amazing thing to see.
Speaker 6 (11:48):
No politician, Republican or Democrat, had ever said anything like
that to these executives. And it was music to the
ears of people in Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvan in Wisconsin.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. Music to the ears of the autoworkers.
Guess where Trump won Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin. Guess where
Trump won again in twenty twenty four Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin.
(12:26):
Are you beginning to understand the connection? Are you beginning
to understand why Trump won not just the electoral college
all seven battleground states, including Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin,
but the popular vote.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Because he meant it.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
He wasn't campaigning, he was planning, and now he's fulfilled
the campaign promise and said, if you move these jobs
to Mexico like you're planning, I'll put a tariff on
it and they'll nobody buy.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
And guess what, Toyota heard that and said, Okay, we
don't need cars made in Canada. We don't need cars
made in Mexico. We want to make them here.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
That's right, and we want to employ Americans to do it. Now,
here's the good news about reassuring American manufacturing, particularly in
the automotive industry. But that's really just a start. We
don't have to build an infrastructure. We don't have to
get ready to manufacture Toyota's or any other car in
(13:34):
the United States because we used to do it.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
So all the factories are there.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Now they're in disrepair, they're gonna need some sprucing up,
but at least the foundations are there, not just for
the assembly of the cars, but the factories are there
for all the parts. The factories are there for the engines.
The factories are there for all the windshield manufacturing, tire manufacturing, steel.
We have all that industry and it's all connected by
(14:02):
rail line already, they're gonna have to take a weed
whacker out there for some of them because there hasn't
been a whole lot of activity on those rail lines.
But the rail lines are there. They go from all
the raw material places all over the United States, and
they all meet in Chicago, and they go up to Michigan,
(14:24):
they go over to Ohio, they go over to Wisconsin,
they go over to Pennsylvania, and they're all interconnected and
in many respects, the rail spur goes right up to
the loading dock.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
It's all set up for us. And then all the
rail lines.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Go to all major US cities for distribution of the
brand new cars.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
And isn't it a wonderful thing? So we're ready to go.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
All we need is tariffs to compel the automaker to
manufacture in the United States and put Americans to work.
It is the most brilliant strategy to get Americans back
to work. And believe it or not, manufacturing things in
(15:08):
the United States, that's an honest day's labor, Like, there's
nothing wrong with that. Americans do it well. We've done
it well, and we have had tremendous success in making
America the most successful economy post World War Two. I mean,
you know, we didn't come out of World War Two
the number one GDP on planet Earth. We are now
(15:31):
the number one GDP on planet Earth by far, Like
by far, we're the.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Most prosperous nation in the world.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Like the second isn't even close, and China lies so
you can't even use their numbers.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
But it always always amazing to me. You know, we
go have a meeting.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Of the G seven nations, it's like, what are you
talking about? Like the Texas economy. The GDP of Texas
is bigger than the GDP of Germany. What are we
even talking with these people for? Like we can have
we can be friendly with some of these other Western
European nations.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
But our GDP is so much huger than theirs. What
are we even at dinner tables with these people?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
We're so much bigger, so much better, so much more prosperous.
It's off the charts, and it is directly related to
us using our own raw materials and turning it into
products for sale to our fellow Americans. Circulating all that
wealth in the economy and the automobile is just one
illustration everything in your house, and I mean everything in
(16:41):
your house used to be made in America by an
American at an American factory, making really good money, by
the way, not minimum wage, making the kind of money
that could support a household and a car and a
family on one paycheck. Everything, everything in your kitchen, all
your kitchen appliances. If you grew up as I did
(17:04):
in the seventies and eighties, your mother's refrigerator was a
Westinghouse or a General Electric. Her washer dryer was a
General Electric, a Westinghouse for sure. Right the oven, all
the counter appliances. If she had a blender, it was
Hamilton Beach that was manufactured in Wisconsin. If it was
(17:26):
black and Decker, it was manufactured in Ohio, where made
can openers. The Mister Coffee coffee maker was made in Ohio.
All the toasters, they were all manufactured in American factories
by Americans making really good wages.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
And they were good appliances. When do you ever remember
your mother getting a new refrigerator. You go out to
buy a refrigerator, now, and what's the first thing. The
guy they chase you in the showroom. They want to
sell you the extended warranty.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Why because they know it's a piece of crap from
China and it's going to break in three years. Did
your grandfather have an extended warranty and his refrigerator? So
we can manufacture these things in the United States and
bring them to market, use American raw materials, employ Americans
to do it. They'll be high quality, they won't go
in the landfill. It'll be good for you, it'll be
(18:19):
good for the American worker, it'll be good for Mother Earth,
and we all win. And that's how you make this
second half of this century the best American century ever.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Talking about the restoring of American manufacturing.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
It is happening.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
President Trump was in Detroit earlier this week, and they're
moving plants, automotive manufacturing plants back to America.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
They're doing twenty four hours to sixty and they do
expansions and they're building more plants in the United States
because of tariffs.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
And it's working. It's happening. We're seeing it. We need
to prepare and embrace it.
Speaker 7 (19:04):
I love what you're saying, Lou, but I just can't
see it happening. Because with manufacturing raw products, there are emissions,
and nobody wants to get dirty anymore in this country.
Nobody wants to be hot or cold. They want to
stare at a computer in an air condition controlled office.
I just don't see it ever coming back.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Well, I disagree.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
First off, we have to have the right attitude. Do
you want to be an American or an Americant? That's
number one. Number two, manufacturing isn't as comfortable as sitting
staring at a computer screen. But when you start looking
about at the amount of pay that it can command,
(19:48):
it may very well be comparable.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Everyone's talking about AI.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I would argue that post AI revolution, there will only
be manufacturing available.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
And come on, like, when you think of manufacturing, it's
not like gray, drab, normal ray.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
It's not the closing scene in an Officer and a Gentleman.
This is high tech manufacturing. But it has to be
done by Americans. I love this argument that, well, you know,
there's a lot of emissions. Yeah, and guess what, the
filtering has gotten a lot better too. So let me
break this down for you in a way that I
(20:30):
think you can understand. Oh, because I was just looking
at televisions my wife is changing.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
The wall in the living room.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
I don't know why, but now I'm gonna have to
buy a bigger television because it will look weird having
the television we had anyway, And prices of flat screens
have come down significantly, and the TVs have gotten amazing.
Looking at an OL ed at Costco. All right, so
you go to Costco. You want to buy a flat
screen TV. It's a made in China or maid in Korea.
(21:03):
It's made overseas, not made in America. TV's used to
be made in America. We effectively invented the damn thing.
But your mother's TV, your father's TV. You grew up
with an RCA, a Zenith, an Emerson. They were made
in the United States. They were high quality, they lasted forever,
they were repairable, and they were beautiful. Then we closed
(21:24):
down the RCAA factory closed down, Zenith closed down, Emerson
shipped all the electronic jobs overseas, and now we import
junk from China.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
So now let's talk about the junk. Okay, you go
to Costco. Right, fifty five inch flat screen TV eight
ninety nine. Wow, what a bargain. Seems very reasonable for
this great big square TV and it's all Wi Fi enabled,
and it's already got look at it.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
It's got Roku in there, it's got Netflix in there,
it's got Amazon Prime in there, already plug and play.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Right, take that fifty five inch flat screen TV made
overseas at Costco and like, imagine grinding it down, like
imagine putting it in a food processor. Imagine grinding it
down to its base elements.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
What do you have? You have a pile of black
plastic dust.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
You have some glass, You have some wiring, maybe some
copper wire, some silver solder, right, the motherboard materials.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
I mean, you have very little raw materials.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I mean I would argue you probably have somewhere between
five and eight dollars of raw materials. If you grind
down a fifty five inch TV down to just powder. Oh,
I would argue you probably have under five dollars in
raw materials. But let's just say you have five, six,
seven dollars in raw materials. It's probably more money and
packaging than there is in raw materials to make that
(22:56):
flat screen TV. Okay, the difference between that's six dollars
in flat screen TV dust and the complete flat screen
TV that retails were eight hundred and ninety nine dollars.
That difference, that delta that represented the entire United States
manufacturing economy, and that American manufacturing economy employed tens of
(23:20):
thousands of Americans across the Midwest, and those people had
jobs and pensions and lifestyles and homes, and those jobs
supported communities, and those people went home to their houses
that they owned with a car, and one paycheck ran
(23:41):
the household.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
One paycheck.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Now, two people could work if you wanted, but you
didn't need to, and people went to work manufacturing those appliances,
those electronics, and they had families and job security because
people constantly buy TVs and we sold them to our
fellow Americans. So there was job security because there were
always going to be fellow Americans. And times were good
(24:05):
and they were gonna get better. And they had advancement
opportunities because you go from working on the assembly line
to being the line foreman to being the manager, right
because people were retiring because they had pensions looking at
they had pensions waiting for them, right. And there was
a sign outside the factory saying hiring today every day.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
So there was confidence.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
In these factory towns supported communities, and those paychecks had velocity.
Man one paycheck made the house payment, bought the car,
put food on the table right, supported a quality Midwestern lifestyle,
and there was enough money to take the whole family
out to dinner on a Friday night, and every once
(24:49):
in a while take the missus out on the town
on Saturday night, and even money left over to put
in the collection plate on Sunday morning at service. Like
that's how wealthy these factory towns were. And we shut
(25:10):
down all the factories, sent the jobs overseas, and now
we import plastic craft from China. And you think you're
ahead of the game because it's only eight ninety nine
at costco. So yes, it can be done because we
did it. And I would argue that you're not ahead
of the game with the eight ninety nine, you know,
(25:32):
flat screen from a foreign country, because you've unemployed a
ton of Americans and there are social costs to putting
these Americans out of work. Let me tell you a
quick story. I got a minute ready for a story.
In nineteen seventy two, two engineers from the Westinghouse Corporation,
remember that in their spare time in the garage designed
(25:54):
and built a home appliance, a kitchen counter appliance that
was so successful it went on to become the most
popular appliance in its genre. It was high quality, it
was commercial grade, and it sold like there's nobody's business.
(26:16):
By nineteen seventy four, more Mister Coffee coffee makers were
sold in the United States than any other appliance. In
nineteen seventy five, more Mister Coffee coffee makers were given
US Christmas gifts than any other product in its line.
(26:36):
Marshall Field in Chicago listed it as the number one
requested item on the wedding registry.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
People gave them as wedding gifts. I mean there were appliances.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
They lasted forever. They were high quality, they were commercial grade.
Everybody had one. Your mother had one. You can remember
where it was right now, on your mother's kitchen counter.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
That's how popular it was.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
By nineteen eighty, they closed the factory, shipped the job
to China, kept the name Mister Coffee. Now it's a
plastic piece of crap, it still says mister Coffee. You
can go to Walmart and get it for nine to
ninety nine. You think you're ahead of the game because
it's so cheap, it breaks, it doesn't last at all,
(27:28):
and you throw it in the dump and you go
out and buy another one. Meanwhile, we threw all the
factory workers out of work. And we did that for
every appliance on your mom's kitchen counter and everything in
your mom's kitchen, and the washer and the dryer, and
the car, and the furniture in your house. The furniture
(27:49):
was all milled in North Carolina, and the fabric that
covered your parents' furniture was milled in Johnson City, New York,
and then it was shipped to you at the furniture store.
Now it's ridiculous junk wood furniture from Vietnam, And if
your kids jump on the furniture, it'll crack in half.
(28:12):
I can't tell you the amount of beds that I've
thrown away.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
I have three boys.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
When I was a kid man, my brother and I
jumped on the bed all the time. The bed was
a trampoline as far as we were concerned. I'd never
heard of a bed breaking in my life. Now, you
go buy a bed, and you know, a kid can
just a twelve year old boy can just do a
small dive onto it cracks in half, so we can
manufacture high quality things. We did manufacture high quality things,
(28:39):
and I would argue it's the only way forward.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 8 (28:47):
Hey lou, it's gary and well it may be a
great thing that you know, we're bringing more jobs. And
with Toyota, I have to say, man, and I'm a
big Toyota Lexus guy. I've been to Japan, I've been
in Asia, never aware of their work ethic and the
work ethic of Americans. Much rather have my totem made
in Japan. Hands down.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Well, that will change, I mean the attitude will change
that the idea that foreigners can make American cars or
cars in America better than Americans.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
That will change.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Part of the reason that the American worker, at least
the American auto worker got a bad rap was the
way the American autoworker was treated. I mean it's the
same thing now, right. You hear about the lazy gen Zers.
I don't accept they're not lazy. They're not getting the
(29:41):
kind of money that they should be getting. You will
find a strong work ethic arises when you're being paid
very well, and you don't want to lose your job
if you're not being paid very well, and you could
care less if you lose your job, work ethic diminishes.
(30:02):
But if you like what you're getting paid and the
prospect of getting paid even more, then you're going to
show up to work happy and make sure that your
work reflects how much you love the job. That's what
I'm trying to convey here. These American manufacturing jobs paid
(30:22):
very well, so people were happy to show up and
do a good job. When American workers were constantly getting
threatened to have the factory closed down, fire all you people,
and ship the jobs to China. That's kind of demoralizing, right,
(30:44):
especially as it happened. And I went to school in
Upstate New York, which is very close to Ohio, and
I met a lot of these people. That's why I
became so passionate about it in college because I was
a political science major studied politics, and everybody when I
was in school, both Republicans and Democrats, they couldn't get
(31:05):
enough of this free trade, free trade, free trade, free trade,
that's pure capitalism.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
And I said, what are you talking about.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
You're shipping American jobs overseas where you're where they're taking
advantage of a labor force that not only can't we
compete with, we shouldn't be competing with them. They're taking
advantage of environmental controls that we would never tolerate here.
And yet you're comfortable bringing the product back into the
market here and selling it. How is that fair. We
(31:35):
should absolutely be protecting our markets and protecting our workers.
And they said, Loo, that's protectionism. I said, I don't
know why you think that's a pejorative. We would never
tolerate in this country the labor conditions and the safety
conditions and the environmental conditions that happen in some of
(31:58):
the countries and some of the factories where we import
these products. So that's the price, right. We want to
be a first bold nation. We want to have quality
of life for our workers. We want to have safety
for our workers. We want them to have a quality
of life that's good, and we want to pay them
enough money so they can afford to buy the car
(32:19):
that they just manufactured.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
That is a balance, and it works in the United States.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
In the countries that were importing this crack from they
don't believe in the same things they dump the pollution
in the rivers and don't care.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
They dump the.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Waste, the e waste in the Pacific Ocean and don't care.
They don't pay their workers enough money to buy the
product that the worker just manufactured, and they don't care.
Somebody gets hurt, loses an arm, they send them home,
they don't care. We care because we actually have a
society here, so that is worthy of protection.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
And it's not like it wasn't working. It was working,
So that's fine.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
I mean, you can deify foreigners making your stuff, but
I prefer to create conditions where my fellow Americans are
making my things, especially if it's things like I don't
know a car that goes eighty miles an hour.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
But you do. You Hey.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Another this one from the page of plastic crap from China.
Not only do the refrigerators not work because they use
junk iron. That's the reason why, the reason why these
refrigerators are pieces of crap. Now, unlike the refrigerators that
were manufactured in the United States that your grandfather had
and your grandmother had, and your mother and father, it's
(33:44):
because the Chinese don't even use iron in iron, and
you need iron for there to be a compressor, so
they've figured out a way to get around it. And
the compressors are junk, and apparently now they're blowing up.
Speaker 9 (33:57):
The recall now includes nearly one million many fridge is
in the US, all made by frigid Air. The Consumer
Products Safety Commission says electrical components can short circuit and
ignite plastic used to make the frigid's products overheating, melting
or catching fire.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Taching fight That great, that wonderful. You remember your grandfather's
frigid air refrigerator catching fire.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
See, that's what they did.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
They closed down the American manufacturing shit, the jobs overseas
cat the label. So you thought you were buying something
of quality because brand loyalty is a thing, right, But
it's a piece of jump that melts and catches fire
and burns down Your house.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Isn't that great? I mean everything in your house, every
single thing in your house. Your mother's vacuum.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
If you grew up as I did in the late
seventies and eighties, your mother either had an electro Luxe
vacuum or a hoover.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
The hoover was made in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
The electro lux which is actually a Swedish company, but
was manufactured and assembled in the United States, was made
in Connecticut.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
It was a monster. It scared the dog. Now go
try and buy a vacuum.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
I bought a blackened deck or dustbuster, American brand, but
flip it over and it's made in China. And it's
a plastic piece of crap. Like it doesn't even vacuum
up the crumbs on the dinner table. Your mother's hoover
would vacuum up the entire dinner table.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Like it was unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
So we close the factories down, shipped all the jobs overseas.
Now we impourt plastic crap from China. So we're trying
to reverse course and put Americans to work. Because Americans
making things for our fellow Americans, and then you buying
it from a fellow American that circulates all this wealth
in the country, and it has a multiplier effect that
(35:54):
has made the American prosperity movement post World War Two
a thing of noteworthy and glory, and we need to
do it again for the second half of the century.
I'm ready, are you, lou Penrose on KF I am
six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1 (36:14):
App kf I AM six forty on demand
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Lou Penrose with you till ten o'clock. Thank you for
tuning in. Good to have you along with us. I
am a huge proponent of American manufacturing. I think that
American manufacturing is what advanced this country post World War
Two from a really growing country into the strongest economic
(00:27):
powerhouse on planet Earth. And there's a lot of reasons why,
but the biggest reason is we buy the things that
were manufactured here, so it really worked. The American economy
traditionally has been a three legged stool, and it works
(00:47):
like this.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
You have professional work.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
That's doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, architects. You have service work, right,
that's the people that work in the hotel industry. That's
the people that work in the hospitality industry. That's the
people that work in the retail industry. And then you
have manufacturing. That's the people that take raw materials and
(01:14):
turn them into products. Manufacturing taking raw materials and turning
them into products for sale.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
And it works, and all three are necessary.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
We cannot have a growing prosperous American economy with is
doctors and lawyers, and we cannot grow the economy with
service workers doing each other's laundry.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
We have to have manufacturing. It's essential.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Now. The good news is manufacturing is far more dynamic
than service work or the professional economy because manufacturing brings
with it so many downstream jobs. And there isn't a
better example than the automotive industry. Making cars in America
(02:07):
for Americans has been magical post World War Two for
the really the creation of wealth in this country and
the rising level of prosperity for every American. You know why,
because the car is made of steel and glass and
rubber and all kinds of components. So many things go
(02:31):
into a car, and then everybody buys the car. Every
American has a car. Some Americans have two. That isn't
the case in other parts of the world. So the
car is such a.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Good driver of wealth in this country. Right.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
The steel is from America, the aluminium is from America,
the rubber is from America. So the people that make
steel and rubber, the people that make glass, all of that's,
the people that make the engine are all sourced in America.
Then they ship all those things to an assembly plant
(03:14):
based in Michigan, and they put all those parts together
and you have an automobile. Then they ship those automobiles
to car dealerships all over the United States and on Saturday,
Americans go and buy themselves a car. When you buy
that car that was made in America, you're now paying
the salary of the guy in Michigan that assembled the car.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
But you're also paying the.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Salary of the guy that got the iron and steel
out of the ground in Birmingham, Alabama, or the rubber
in Pennsylvania, or the glass in Ohio, or all the
components in the car. Is it's like a magnitude of seven,
(04:00):
and in all that money and wealth circulates right here
in the United States.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
So it is really important.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
That we manufacture in the United States. And the automobile
is the perfect example. We are constantly buying cars. We're
always going to be buying cars. We will always need cars.
We are not a mass transit country. It's a big place.
We have great, big freeways, great big highways, and it's
going to stay that way. So we need to be
manufacturing cars here in the United States. And good news,
(04:29):
President Trump made a deal with Toyota and starting this year,
Toyota is resuring the manufacturing of Japanese cars into the
United States that will be manufactured by American.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Toyota is going to be putting auto plants all over
the United States to.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
The June of over ten billion dollars. So that's Toyota.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
So go out and buying Toyota, right.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Well, there's a couple of reasons.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
That one is because Trump is uniquely qualified to negotiate
with Toyota.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
So elections matter, and his election did.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
But the utilization of tariffs as a bargaining chip worked.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
And that's a lot to do with because right now
we have all the AI plans, we have so many
things happening in the United States, and it's because of
November fifth, election day, but it's also because of tariffs.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Absolutely because of the tariffs. The tariffs worked, right, The threat.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Of tariffs and the negotiation with tariffs in place worked.
It brought everybody to the bargaining table and put the
advantage back into the hands of this nation's top negotiator
and advantages the American worker. For years, I have worked
alongside Republicans in Washington in Congress, and they were all
(06:02):
free traders saying tariffs don't work. Now, protectionism doesn't work.
Lou It messes up the marketplace. You got to have
free trade, free trade, free trade. And we've been dealing
with this free trade crap for thirty years. And there
were I mean, it was down to a handfill, a
handful of protectionists that we're advocating for tariffs. It was
(06:25):
basically me, Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, then Congressman Shared Brown
who's now Senator Shared Brown, who was a protectionist, Congressman
Duncan Hunter of San Diego, and that's pretty much it.
Everybody else was free trade, free trade, free trade, no
trade barriers, no tariffs, and all the jobs when overseas
(06:48):
all the American manufacturing dissolved and we brought in a
bunch of plastic crap from China. So we're going in
a whole new direction. And everybody said, oh, tariffs are bad,
tariff's are good. Caused the Great Depression. Smoot Holly, don't
you read your history? And I said, no, you're you're lying,
and that lie has been debunked now.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Smoot Holly came out.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Way after the Great Depression in an effort to reverse
the effects of the Great Depression and to and to
put Americans back to work. So it was the right idea,
just too late. Well guess what. Guess what's happening at
the Port of Long Beach. The amount of containers coming in,
(07:34):
the amount of trade has exploded. His Frank Buckley from KTLA.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
Despite tariffs that reduced imports to the US, the Port
of Long Beach moved a record amount of cargo last
year and is preparing for expansion, nearly ten million containers.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
How can that be? How can that be? How can
that be?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Terriffs, We're going to stop international trade all these Trump
was going to start a trade war. We were going
to be in trouble that we would not be able
to afford Barbie. There'd be no Barbie dolls under the
tree because of Trump's trade war. I love how Buckley says,
despite what do you mean?
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Despite?
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Because of the proper use of tariffs as a negotiating tool,
we got good deals that benefit American workers. So we
are going to start making cars again in the United States.
And I think that's just the beginning. When we come back,
I want to play for you what Michael Moore had
to say about this. You may recall Michael Moore he
(08:33):
started the whole Gorilla documentary with a film called Roger
and Me, which was about the complete decimation of the
American automobile manufacturing industry. So he was pro tariff, really
pro Trump philosophically many many years ago. He doesn't like
Trump now, but you could. I mean, you can watch
(08:55):
this movie today and it would completely justify what Trump
is doing with respect to his tariff negotiations.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
I'll share it with you. It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
American manufacturing is returning to the United States. The tariffs worked.
Protectionism works.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
It brings other nations and international companies to the table,
and we are in the advantage. The American worker now
has the advantage because it's too expensive to pay the
tariff and manufacture the automobile or the appliance or whatever
it is it's being manufactured in another country and then
have to pay the tariff. It prices them out of
(09:41):
the market. So it's causing companies like Toyota to move
manufacturing back to the United States.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
And that's a good thing.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Manufacturing cars is something Americans do well. It makes sense.
The raw materials are here, the shoppers are here. Ciency
here We don't manufacture cars in the United States for export.
We manufacture cars in the United States for consumption. We're
the consumers, so it makes all the sense in the world.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
We used to do it before we got into this
whole free trade nonsense in the late eighties and shipped
all the manufacturing to Mexico into other parts.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Of the world.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
It was a huge mistake.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
So this is going in the right direction that Toyota
is moving manufacturing here to the United States.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Here is Michael Moore.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Michael Moore was probably the highest profile critic of what
happened to the American automotive industry in and I mean
not just in and he's from Flint, Michigan. But the
American automotive industry is not just the assembly of cars
in Michigan, as I said, it is the raw materials involved,
(10:59):
the glass, rubber, the steal, the aluminum, the plastics, all
sourced in the United States, creating American jobs. Here he
is in twenty and sixteen. Now in twenty sixteen, he
was campaigning for Hillary Clinton.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
He wanted Hillary Clinton to win. So he's not a Trump.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Guy, but he understands what American manufacturing is about and
here's how he explained Hillary Clinton's loss to Trump.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
In twenty sixteen, Donald.
Speaker 6 (11:28):
Trump came to the Detroit Economic Club and stood there
in front of the Ford Motor executives and said, if
you close these factories as you're planning to do in
Detroit and build them in Mexico, I'm going to put
a thirty five percent terriff on those cars when you
send it back, and nobody's going to buy them.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
It was an amazing thing to see.
Speaker 6 (11:48):
No politician, Republican or Democrat, had ever said anything like
that to these executives. And it was music to the
ears of people in Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvan in Wisconsin.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. Music to the ears of the autoworkers.
Guess where Trump won Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin. Guess where
Trump won again in twenty twenty four Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin.
(12:26):
Are you beginning to understand the connection? Are you beginning
to understand why Trump won not just the electoral college
all seven battleground states, including Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin,
but the popular vote.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Because he meant it.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
He wasn't campaigning, he was planning, and now he's fulfilled
the campaign promise and said, if you move these jobs
to Mexico like you're planning, I'll put a tariff on
it and they'll nobody buy.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
And guess what, Toyota heard that and said, Okay, we
don't need cars made in Canada. We don't need cars
made in Mexico. We want to make them here.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
That's right, and we want to employ Americans to do it. Now,
here's the good news about reassuring American manufacturing, particularly in
the automotive industry. But that's really just a start. We
don't have to build an infrastructure. We don't have to
get ready to manufacture Toyota's or any other car in
(13:34):
the United States because we used to do it.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
So all the factories are there.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Now they're in disrepair, they're gonna need some sprucing up,
but at least the foundations are there, not just for
the assembly of the cars, but the factories are there
for all the parts. The factories are there for the engines.
The factories are there for all the windshield manufacturing, tire manufacturing, steel.
We have all that industry and it's all connected by
(14:02):
rail line already, they're gonna have to take a weed
whacker out there for some of them because there hasn't
been a whole lot of activity on those rail lines.
But the rail lines are there. They go from all
the raw material places all over the United States, and
they all meet in Chicago, and they go up to Michigan,
(14:24):
they go over to Ohio, they go over to Wisconsin,
they go over to Pennsylvania, and they're all interconnected and
in many respects, the rail spur goes right up to
the loading dock.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
It's all set up for us. And then all the
rail lines.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Go to all major US cities for distribution of the
brand new cars.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
And isn't it a wonderful thing? So we're ready to go.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
All we need is tariffs to compel the automaker to
manufacture in the United States and put Americans to work.
It is the most brilliant strategy to get Americans back
to work. And believe it or not, manufacturing things in
(15:08):
the United States, that's an honest day's labor, Like, there's
nothing wrong with that. Americans do it well. We've done
it well, and we have had tremendous success in making
America the most successful economy post World War Two. I mean,
you know, we didn't come out of World War Two
the number one GDP on planet Earth. We are now
(15:31):
the number one GDP on planet Earth by far, Like
by far, we're the.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Most prosperous nation in the world.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Like the second isn't even close, and China lies so
you can't even use their numbers.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
But it always always amazing to me. You know, we
go have a meeting.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Of the G seven nations, it's like, what are you
talking about? Like the Texas economy. The GDP of Texas
is bigger than the GDP of Germany. What are we
even talking with these people for? Like we can have
we can be friendly with some of these other Western
European nations.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
But our GDP is so much huger than theirs. What
are we even at dinner tables with these people?
Speaker 2 (16:19):
We're so much bigger, so much better, so much more prosperous.
It's off the charts, and it is directly related to
us using our own raw materials and turning it into
products for sale to our fellow Americans. Circulating all that
wealth in the economy and the automobile is just one
illustration everything in your house, and I mean everything in
(16:41):
your house used to be made in America by an
American at an American factory, making really good money, by
the way, not minimum wage, making the kind of money
that could support a household and a car and a
family on one paycheck. Everything, everything in your kitchen, all
your kitchen appliances. If you grew up as I did
(17:04):
in the seventies and eighties, your mother's refrigerator was a
Westinghouse or a General Electric. Her washer dryer was a
General Electric, a Westinghouse for sure. Right the oven, all
the counter appliances. If she had a blender, it was
Hamilton Beach that was manufactured in Wisconsin. If it was
(17:26):
black and Decker, it was manufactured in Ohio, where made
can openers. The Mister Coffee coffee maker was made in Ohio.
All the toasters, they were all manufactured in American factories
by Americans making really good wages.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
And they were good appliances. When do you ever remember
your mother getting a new refrigerator. You go out to
buy a refrigerator, now, and what's the first thing. The
guy they chase you in the showroom. They want to
sell you the extended warranty.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Why because they know it's a piece of crap from
China and it's going to break in three years. Did
your grandfather have an extended warranty and his refrigerator? So
we can manufacture these things in the United States and
bring them to market, use American raw materials, employ Americans
to do it. They'll be high quality, they won't go
in the landfill. It'll be good for you, it'll be
(18:19):
good for the American worker, it'll be good for Mother Earth,
and we all win. And that's how you make this
second half of this century the best American century ever.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Talking about the restoring of American manufacturing.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
It is happening.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
President Trump was in Detroit earlier this week, and they're
moving plants, automotive manufacturing plants back to America.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
They're doing twenty four hours to sixty and they do
expansions and they're building more plants in the United States
because of tariffs.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
And it's working. It's happening. We're seeing it. We need
to prepare and embrace it.
Speaker 7 (19:04):
I love what you're saying, Lou, but I just can't
see it happening. Because with manufacturing raw products, there are emissions,
and nobody wants to get dirty anymore in this country.
Nobody wants to be hot or cold. They want to
stare at a computer in an air condition controlled office.
I just don't see it ever coming back.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Well, I disagree.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
First off, we have to have the right attitude. Do
you want to be an American or an Americant? That's
number one. Number two, manufacturing isn't as comfortable as sitting
staring at a computer screen. But when you start looking
about at the amount of pay that it can command,
(19:48):
it may very well be comparable.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Everyone's talking about AI.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I would argue that post AI revolution, there will only
be manufacturing available.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
And come on, like, when you think of manufacturing, it's
not like gray, drab, normal ray.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
It's not the closing scene in an Officer and a Gentleman.
This is high tech manufacturing. But it has to be
done by Americans. I love this argument that, well, you know,
there's a lot of emissions. Yeah, and guess what, the
filtering has gotten a lot better too. So let me
break this down for you in a way that I
(20:30):
think you can understand. Oh, because I was just looking
at televisions my wife is changing.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
The wall in the living room.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
I don't know why, but now I'm gonna have to
buy a bigger television because it will look weird having
the television we had anyway, And prices of flat screens
have come down significantly, and the TVs have gotten amazing.
Looking at an OL ed at Costco. All right, so
you go to Costco. You want to buy a flat
screen TV. It's a made in China or maid in Korea.
(21:03):
It's made overseas, not made in America. TV's used to
be made in America. We effectively invented the damn thing.
But your mother's TV, your father's TV. You grew up
with an RCA, a Zenith, an Emerson. They were made
in the United States. They were high quality, they lasted forever,
they were repairable, and they were beautiful. Then we closed
(21:24):
down the RCAA factory closed down, Zenith closed down, Emerson
shipped all the electronic jobs overseas, and now we import
junk from China.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
So now let's talk about the junk. Okay, you go
to Costco. Right, fifty five inch flat screen TV eight
ninety nine. Wow, what a bargain. Seems very reasonable for
this great big square TV and it's all Wi Fi enabled,
and it's already got look at it.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
It's got Roku in there, it's got Netflix in there,
it's got Amazon Prime in there, already plug and play.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Right, take that fifty five inch flat screen TV made
overseas at Costco and like, imagine grinding it down, like
imagine putting it in a food processor. Imagine grinding it
down to its base elements.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
What do you have? You have a pile of black
plastic dust.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
You have some glass, You have some wiring, maybe some
copper wire, some silver solder, right, the motherboard materials.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
I mean, you have very little raw materials.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I mean I would argue you probably have somewhere between
five and eight dollars of raw materials. If you grind
down a fifty five inch TV down to just powder. Oh,
I would argue you probably have under five dollars in
raw materials. But let's just say you have five, six,
seven dollars in raw materials. It's probably more money and
packaging than there is in raw materials to make that
(22:56):
flat screen TV. Okay, the difference between that's six dollars
in flat screen TV dust and the complete flat screen
TV that retails were eight hundred and ninety nine dollars.
That difference, that delta that represented the entire United States
manufacturing economy, and that American manufacturing economy employed tens of
(23:20):
thousands of Americans across the Midwest, and those people had
jobs and pensions and lifestyles and homes, and those jobs
supported communities, and those people went home to their houses
that they owned with a car, and one paycheck ran
(23:41):
the household.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
One paycheck.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Now, two people could work if you wanted, but you
didn't need to, and people went to work manufacturing those appliances,
those electronics, and they had families and job security because
people constantly buy TVs and we sold them to our
fellow Americans. So there was job security because there were
always going to be fellow Americans. And times were good
(24:05):
and they were gonna get better. And they had advancement
opportunities because you go from working on the assembly line
to being the line foreman to being the manager, right
because people were retiring because they had pensions looking at
they had pensions waiting for them, right. And there was
a sign outside the factory saying hiring today every day.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
So there was confidence.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
In these factory towns supported communities, and those paychecks had velocity.
Man one paycheck made the house payment, bought the car,
put food on the table right, supported a quality Midwestern lifestyle,
and there was enough money to take the whole family
out to dinner on a Friday night, and every once
(24:49):
in a while take the missus out on the town
on Saturday night, and even money left over to put
in the collection plate on Sunday morning at service. Like
that's how wealthy these factory towns were. And we shut
(25:10):
down all the factories, sent the jobs overseas, and now
we import plastic craft from China. And you think you're
ahead of the game because it's only eight ninety nine
at costco. So yes, it can be done because we
did it. And I would argue that you're not ahead
of the game with the eight ninety nine, you know,
(25:32):
flat screen from a foreign country, because you've unemployed a
ton of Americans and there are social costs to putting
these Americans out of work. Let me tell you a
quick story. I got a minute ready for a story.
In nineteen seventy two, two engineers from the Westinghouse Corporation,
remember that in their spare time in the garage designed
(25:54):
and built a home appliance, a kitchen counter appliance that
was so successful it went on to become the most
popular appliance in its genre. It was high quality, it
was commercial grade, and it sold like there's nobody's business.
(26:16):
By nineteen seventy four, more Mister Coffee coffee makers were
sold in the United States than any other appliance. In
nineteen seventy five, more Mister Coffee coffee makers were given
US Christmas gifts than any other product in its line.
(26:36):
Marshall Field in Chicago listed it as the number one
requested item on the wedding registry.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
People gave them as wedding gifts. I mean there were appliances.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
They lasted forever. They were high quality, they were commercial grade.
Everybody had one. Your mother had one. You can remember
where it was right now, on your mother's kitchen counter.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
That's how popular it was.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
By nineteen eighty, they closed the factory, shipped the job
to China, kept the name Mister Coffee. Now it's a
plastic piece of crap, it still says mister Coffee. You
can go to Walmart and get it for nine to
ninety nine. You think you're ahead of the game because
it's so cheap, it breaks, it doesn't last at all,
(27:28):
and you throw it in the dump and you go
out and buy another one. Meanwhile, we threw all the
factory workers out of work. And we did that for
every appliance on your mom's kitchen counter and everything in
your mom's kitchen, and the washer and the dryer, and
the car, and the furniture in your house. The furniture
(27:49):
was all milled in North Carolina, and the fabric that
covered your parents' furniture was milled in Johnson City, New York,
and then it was shipped to you at the furniture store.
Now it's ridiculous junk wood furniture from Vietnam, And if
your kids jump on the furniture, it'll crack in half.
(28:12):
I can't tell you the amount of beds that I've
thrown away.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
I have three boys.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
When I was a kid man, my brother and I
jumped on the bed all the time. The bed was
a trampoline as far as we were concerned. I'd never
heard of a bed breaking in my life. Now, you
go buy a bed, and you know, a kid can
just a twelve year old boy can just do a
small dive onto it cracks in half, so we can
manufacture high quality things. We did manufacture high quality things,
(28:39):
and I would argue it's the only way forward.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 8 (28:47):
Hey lou, it's gary and well it may be a
great thing that you know, we're bringing more jobs. And
with Toyota, I have to say, man, and I'm a
big Toyota Lexus guy. I've been to Japan, I've been
in Asia, never aware of their work ethic and the
work ethic of Americans. Much rather have my totem made
in Japan. Hands down.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Well, that will change, I mean the attitude will change
that the idea that foreigners can make American cars or
cars in America better than Americans.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
That will change.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Part of the reason that the American worker, at least
the American auto worker got a bad rap was the
way the American autoworker was treated. I mean it's the
same thing now, right. You hear about the lazy gen Zers.
I don't accept they're not lazy. They're not getting the
(29:41):
kind of money that they should be getting. You will
find a strong work ethic arises when you're being paid
very well, and you don't want to lose your job
if you're not being paid very well, and you could
care less if you lose your job, work ethic diminishes.
(30:02):
But if you like what you're getting paid and the
prospect of getting paid even more, then you're going to
show up to work happy and make sure that your
work reflects how much you love the job. That's what
I'm trying to convey here. These American manufacturing jobs paid
(30:22):
very well, so people were happy to show up and
do a good job. When American workers were constantly getting
threatened to have the factory closed down, fire all you people,
and ship the jobs to China. That's kind of demoralizing, right,
(30:44):
especially as it happened. And I went to school in
Upstate New York, which is very close to Ohio, and
I met a lot of these people. That's why I
became so passionate about it in college because I was
a political science major studied politics, and everybody when I
was in school, both Republicans and Democrats, they couldn't get
(31:05):
enough of this free trade, free trade, free trade, free trade,
that's pure capitalism.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
And I said, what are you talking about.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
You're shipping American jobs overseas where you're where they're taking
advantage of a labor force that not only can't we
compete with, we shouldn't be competing with them. They're taking
advantage of environmental controls that we would never tolerate here.
And yet you're comfortable bringing the product back into the
market here and selling it. How is that fair. We
(31:35):
should absolutely be protecting our markets and protecting our workers.
And they said, Loo, that's protectionism. I said, I don't
know why you think that's a pejorative. We would never
tolerate in this country the labor conditions and the safety
conditions and the environmental conditions that happen in some of
(31:58):
the countries and some of the factories where we import
these products. So that's the price, right. We want to
be a first bold nation. We want to have quality
of life for our workers. We want to have safety
for our workers. We want them to have a quality
of life that's good, and we want to pay them
enough money so they can afford to buy the car
(32:19):
that they just manufactured.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
That is a balance, and it works in the United States.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
In the countries that were importing this crack from they
don't believe in the same things they dump the pollution
in the rivers and don't care.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
They dump the.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Waste, the e waste in the Pacific Ocean and don't care.
They don't pay their workers enough money to buy the
product that the worker just manufactured, and they don't care.
Somebody gets hurt, loses an arm, they send them home,
they don't care. We care because we actually have a
society here, so that is worthy of protection.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
And it's not like it wasn't working. It was working,
So that's fine.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
I mean, you can deify foreigners making your stuff, but
I prefer to create conditions where my fellow Americans are
making my things, especially if it's things like I don't
know a car that goes eighty miles an hour.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
But you do. You Hey.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Another this one from the page of plastic crap from China.
Not only do the refrigerators not work because they use
junk iron. That's the reason why, the reason why these
refrigerators are pieces of crap. Now, unlike the refrigerators that
were manufactured in the United States that your grandfather had
and your grandmother had, and your mother and father, it's
(33:44):
because the Chinese don't even use iron in iron, and
you need iron for there to be a compressor, so
they've figured out a way to get around it. And
the compressors are junk, and apparently now they're blowing up.
Speaker 9 (33:57):
The recall now includes nearly one million many fridge is
in the US, all made by frigid Air. The Consumer
Products Safety Commission says electrical components can short circuit and
ignite plastic used to make the frigid's products overheating, melting
or catching fire.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Taching fight That great, that wonderful. You remember your grandfather's
frigid air refrigerator catching fire.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
See, that's what they did.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
They closed down the American manufacturing shit, the jobs overseas
cat the label. So you thought you were buying something
of quality because brand loyalty is a thing, right, But
it's a piece of jump that melts and catches fire
and burns down Your house.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Isn't that great? I mean everything in your house, every
single thing in your house. Your mother's vacuum.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
If you grew up as I did in the late
seventies and eighties, your mother either had an electro Luxe
vacuum or a hoover.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
The hoover was made in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
The electro lux which is actually a Swedish company, but
was manufactured and assembled in the United States, was made
in Connecticut.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
It was a monster. It scared the dog. Now go
try and buy a vacuum.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
I bought a blackened deck or dustbuster, American brand, but
flip it over and it's made in China. And it's
a plastic piece of crap. Like it doesn't even vacuum
up the crumbs on the dinner table. Your mother's hoover
would vacuum up the entire dinner table.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Like it was unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
So we close the factories down, shipped all the jobs overseas.
Now we impourt plastic crap from China. So we're trying
to reverse course and put Americans to work. Because Americans
making things for our fellow Americans, and then you buying
it from a fellow American that circulates all this wealth
in the country, and it has a multiplier effect that
(35:54):
has made the American prosperity movement post World War Two
a thing of noteworthy and glory, and we need to
do it again for the second half of the century.
I'm ready, are you, lou Penrose on KF I am
six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1 (36:14):
App kf I AM six forty on demand
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