Make It In America, Updated Edition

The case for revolutionizing the U.S. economy, from a leading CEO America used to define itself by the things we built. We designed and produced the world's most important innovations, and in doing so, created a vibrant manufacturing sector that established the middle class. We manufactured our way to the top and became the undisputed economic leader of the world. But over the last several decades, and especially in the last ten years, the sector that was America's great pride has eroded, costing us millions of jobs and putting our long-term prosperity at risk. Now, as we struggle to recover from the worst recession in generations, our only chance to turn things around is to revive the American manufacturing sector—and to revolutionize it. In Make It in America: The Case for Reinventing the Economy, Andrew Liveris—Chairman and CEO of The Dow Chemical Company—offers a thoughtful and passionate argument that America's future economic growth and prosperity depends on the strength of its manufacturing sector. The book explains how a manufacturing sector creates economic value on a scale unmatched by any other, and how central the sector is to creating jobs both inside and outside the factory Explores how other nations are building their manufacturing sectors to stay competitive in the global economy, and describes how America has failed to keep up Provides an aggressive, practical, and comprehensive agenda that will put the U.S. back on track to lead the world It's time to stop accepting as inevitable the shuttering of factories and staggering job losses that have come to define manufacturing. It's time to acknowledge the cost of inaction. There is no better company to make the case for reviving U.S. manufacturing than The Dow Chemical Company, one of the world's largest manufacturers and most global corporations. And there's no better book to show why it needs to be done and how to do it than Make It in America.

Preface xiii Acknowledgments xix Introduction 1 Chapter 1 The Rise and Fall 11 How We Fell Out of Love with Manufacturing 14 The Multiplier Effect 19 Manufacturing Tomorrow 22 Surviving the Crisis 25 A Tale of Two Nations 27 Chapter 2 Separating What Can’t Be Separated 31 The Truth about the Manufacturing Crisis 36 Adding Value the Only Way We Can 40 Trying to Survive on Ideas Alone 44 Where Manufacturing Goes, the Ideas Follow 49 Chapter 3 Fighting Offshoring 53 Should I Stay or Should I Go? 56 It Isn’t What You Think 59 Taxing Problems 63 Funding the Future 67 Regulating Our Way into a Muddle 69 Trading Our Way to Prosperity 73 Chapter 4 Energy Drives the World 81 A Big Energy Bill, and Not Just for Power 82 The New New 87 Germany’s Green Miracle 91 China’s Green Revolution 94 America Can’t Compete 98 Chapter 5 Building Tomorrow 103 Education: “A Permanent National Recession” 105 Developing the Right Skills for the New Workplace 109 Preventing a Worker Shortage 111 What America Doesn’t Understand That Other Nations Do 114 The Tortoise and the Hare 117 A New Foundation of Infrastructure 118 Funding the Future 124 Chapter 6 Built to Compete 129 An Ambitious Agenda 132 Changing the Way We Tax 134 National Incentive Strategy 136 Regulatory Policy 137 Everyone Needs Good Trading Partners 141 Chapter 7 The Long Game 145 The Human Element: Education and Immigration 147 Innovation and Competitiveness 154 Chapter 8 The Fork in the Road 163 Epilogue 175 Bibliography 189 About the Author 213 About The Dow Chemical Company 215 Index 217