Newspapers Are Bad For Your Financial Health

If you read major American newspapers with the expectation that you will learn anything even remotely related to reality then this story is for you.

The Common Wisdom is that America stopped being a manufacturing economy a generation or so ago and that now we all are nothing but a blubbering blog of profligate consumers. See this Washington Post Op-Ed for an example.

What are the facts?

According to the 2009 Economic Report of the President, total manufacturing output in the U.S. – measured by an industrial-production index – hit an all-time high in 2007 (the latest full year for which data are available).  In 2007, American manufacturing output was eight percent higher than it was in 2000, 69 percent higher than in 1990, 81 percent higher than in 1987, 184 percent higher than in 1980, and 213 percent higher than in 1967 – one of the years that Mr. Meyerson (Washington Post) singles out as a glorious one when America “still made things.” Cafe Hayek

You can review the actual numbers here.

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