I believe that if our current attitudes toward the role of Government in the free market system had been held throughout the history of our country, American cities would still be full of blacksmith shops, buggy whip plants and wagon wheel makers. That belief was bolstered by the email titled “Kimberly Clark Announcement Proves Walker-Trump Economy Not Working For Wisconsin”, a reply from a member of the Whitewater City Council to our tweet about the KC plant closings yesterday blaming Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, and the various demands from local elected officials for the Government to “do something to save these jobs”.
Consider what Kimberly Clark makes at the plants that it is closing not just here in the Fox Valley but all around the world: Diapers, tissues and feminine hygiene products. These are consumer-driven items and the fact of the matter is that Americans–and especially Europeans–are having fewer babies. So what should the Government “do” to increase demand for diapers? Pass the opposite of China’s “one child” laws and require all Americans to have at least 2 or 3 kids? Should children be required to wear diapers until they are five years old? Should the increasing numbers of post-menopausal women still be made to purchase tampons? I find it interesting that the same people that demanded the requirement of health insurance coverage for birth control crow about the decrease in unintended pregnancies since the passage of the Affordable Care Act–but then blame Republicans for decreased diaper sales. Perhaps we just need to wait for all of the Baby Boomers to get into their eighties and nineties and the production lines can be restarted to produce adult incontinence products.
And then you have Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson back out there offering grants and revolving loan funds to Kimberly Clark and all of the other papermakers that have announced plant closures to “retool” their operations. Retool to produce what? The mills that have shut down make carbonless copy paper. How many checks or duplicate forms do you fill out nowadays? Or they make glossy paper for catalogs and sales presentations. How many of those still come to your mailbox? Does Amazon print catalogs?
You know what people do want to buy now? Electronic devices with touch screens and high-definition displays. And do you know who makes those? Why it’s Foxconn–the company building a new plant right here in Wisconsin–and who is receiving huge amounts of tax incentives–which those trying to save the diaper jobs are calling “Corporate Welfare”.
Yes, it sucks that the nice people that work in the paper industry are losing their jobs. But the blacksmiths, buggy whip producers and the wagon wheel makers were nice people too–and they all found new things to make that people wanted to buy.
