What Does the United States Produce?

Hello All,
I hope it's not a stupid question, well, I have 2 questions.
Remember geography class, and you'd read that a country
had a main product that it produced?
With the current economy, I've been wondering...what would be
that answer be today regarding the U.S.A.?
And my second question is, what does your region, (City or County)
produce?
I'm not talking ideas, like we promote democracy. I just
want to know what we produce and make money on, especially
regionally, in a physical sense.
My area, Rockingham County, has a huge poultry industry, but
is evolving into a more high-tech area. This leaves many locals
not able to get jobs and invites more specialized people from
other areas into ours. The thriving poultry industry has also
brought in many illegal immigrants. Both trends increase service
industries. We are a thriving ball of prosperity and confusion.
Nationally, I have no clue to what our main product is.
Thanks for any input. I just want a true sense of what is going on
because sometimes I have discussions with family and friends, and
reading the newspaper or watching T.V. is the biggest side I see. What is your side?
Take Care,
Fieldthistle

My consulting job has required me to travel extensively in the past two years. It is incredible how much grain is grown in the USA. The midwest is primarily corn and beans which I believe has to be a major export item. Maybe corn will be reduced due to the use in fuel.

I just returned from Mississippi in the Delta area and I drove for miles and miles seeing nothing more than soybeans and corn. Crop dusters were visible almost non stop. The fields were so huge, it would be impossible to treat them with whatever without the use of these planes.

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

Brother Fieldthistle you have raised a very good question. One that I have wondered about for years. When WW2 started we were able to start producing ships and planes immediately because we had the facilities. I don't know what we have any more. We move a lot of paper around and we produce a lot of "hot air", but we have lost all our industry except as Sundancer says, the farm products. Everything essential is imported. Even our hi-tech industries are dependent because all computer chips are being made overseas.

I guess our chief products are---ideas and prototypes and wall-street salespeople and lawyers !!!!

I taught my kids something along these lines not long ago. Let's see if I can remember some of this.

I've read differing accounts so take it with a grain of salt.

Second largest producer of coal
Sixth (or second on some lists) in natural gas
Eleventh in oil reserves
We are the largest energy producer, consumer and net importer.
Largest in oil, nuclear, and hydro power combined

United States is the largest producer and exporter of poultry, second in egg production

First in the production of cheese, corn, soybeans, and tobacco.

On the domestic side,

Alabama: Approx half the peanuts grown in the United States are grown in Alabama. All within a 100 mile radius from Dothan, Alabama.
Vulcan Materials is the nations largest producer of construction aggregates.

Louisiana is the worlds largest producer of crawfish and alligator meat.

I went and got my notes cause I couldn't stand not remembering.

Cottonseed:

1.Texas
2. California
3.Arkansas

Corn

1.Iowa
2.Illinois
3.Nebraska

Peanuts

1.Georgia
2.Texas
3.Alabama

Potatoes

1.Idaho
2.Washington
3.Wisconsin

Rice

1.Arkansas
2.California
3.Louisiana

Soybeans

1.Iowa
2.Illinois
3.Minnesota

Wheat

1.Kansas
2.North Dakota
3.Montana

There are hundreds of other crops, flaxseed, rapeseed, row crops, veggies, fruits and nuts. Specialty crops like maple syrup, garlic, coffee, mushrooms, hops and ginger roots.

If our country put more stock in homegrown goods and paid farmers what they were worth, we would/could be very self sufficient. Even more than we are now. Sadly, we export more than we keep.

And as a by product of my husband working in the steel industry, China has now stopped buying steel from most U.S steel companies. They were one of the largest buyers in the world of U.S. Steel. Look for construction, on down to house prices, to somewhat rise because the steel companies will pass on what they are losing to you in the form of higher prices for domestic steel.

I can't say that I know, anymore.

When I was a kid, Rhode Island, where I grew up, was a leading (if not the leading) center for manufacture of costume jewelry. Those jobs are now in Asia and Mexico. Hasbro (aka Hassenfeld Bros.) in Pawtucket and Milton Bradley in Springfield, Mass. were major toy manufacturers. Now Hasbro owns MB and manufacture is mostly offshore.

Maine was a leading manufacturer of shoes, but that's all offshore now.

The leading agricultural product of Rhode Island was turf (sod). I don't know if that's still the case.

Hadley Mass. in the Pioneer Valley was famous for asparagus, but Hadley is now one giant strip mall and housing development after another. Likewise, the Connecticut Valley from Hartford north through Mass. was famous for cigar tobacco. I think there are a few farms left, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that a lot of "Connecticut shade" is grown in the D.R. now.

Of course, the New England coast was famous for fisheries. With so many species depleted the fishing fleet is dwindling. Dairy and poultry farms used to dot nearly every corner of New England. Poultry is basically dead and dairies are making way for MacMansions in alarming numbers.

The Boston metro area, which now spreads into New Hampshire, is still a high-tech center, with biomed having taken the lead over software and dot-com. Boston is still a leading academic and medical center producing vast numbers of people with chains of letters after their names every year.

I'm sorry to be glib, but I'd have to say our largest product now is consumers.

boats:

pears:

Wine:

Theatre:

In strictly the dollar sence, it has to be entertainment overall.

I mean everything from Hollyweierd down to triple a ball.
We are the worlds leader in leisure activity's

Chow Jim

Several years ago we were in Baltimore, and took a ride out into the harbor on an oyster boat that is operated by one of the historical organizations. In a sense it was sort of sad. The host said if you look over here, this factory USED to make that, and then look over here and this factory USED to make this, and over here, and so on and so on. I grew up near Endicott, NY. For those who do not know, Endicott is the birthplace of a little company called IBM. The population of Endicott is about 20,000 people. IBM used to employ 18,000 people at it's Endicott complex, now they employ about 1,500. Most of those jobs have been outsourced to India. Places like Gary, Indiana and a number of towns in West Virginia and Ohio are ghost towns since the steel mills closed. As it has been mentioned, we have a huge agricultural output, but farm prices in general are very low, making it harder and harder for farmers to make a living. It seems that what we make these days are fast food, government jobs, entertainment and excuses. Not much to base an economy on.

Locally (Grand Rapids, MI), we've got a ton of stuff still...surprisingly, since we're losing jobs faster than you'd think possible.

Furniture (used to be a LOT more...GR was the Furniture Capital of the World or something like that):
Herman Miller
Steelcase
Haworth
Knoll
American Seating

Other manufacturing/world headquarters:
Alticor/Amway (home products)
Bissell (vacuum cleaners, etc.)
Wolverine Worldwide (Hush Puppies and Merrell shoes)
Meijer (supermarkets)
Howard Miller (grandfather clocks)

Lately, we've been getting an ungodly amount of medical businesses cropping up (they're in the process of building the "Medical Mile" downtown, which will house hospitals, specialists, research, and who knows what all medical-related facilities). Apparently, we're starting to attract big names in medicine, and the eventual plan is to become as well known (or better) than the Mayo Clinic.

In the Worcester area we produce (in no particular order, and I may have missed a lot) Abrasives (former Norton, now French owned St Gobain), aircraft parts (Wyman Gordon div), rod mills (even exported to China) high tech health care products, car parts (but they are closing), electric parts, steel buildings, college graduates, and babies (but not enough, our population is not growing fast enough)

Mississippi - Catfish, forestry products, poultry, furniture, soybeans, Nissans & soon Toyotas

Colorful characters such as John Grisham, B.B. King, Faith Hill, Walter Peyton, Archie Manning, Brett Favre, William Faulkner, Willie Morris, Roy Oswalt, Elvis Presley, Pete Fountain, Walter Anderson, Zig Zigler, Jerry Clower, Sela Ward, Mary Ann Mobley, Jim Henson, Shelby Foote, Jerry Rice, Charley Pride, Jimmy Buffet, Mickey Gilley, Jimmie Rodgers, Oprah Winfrey, & Eudora Welty. We may be a "poor" state & always come in last on the money list, but we're rich in talent... and we're known as the most generous state ranking us at the top of philanthropist's list.

2nd Question: Our city & county produce Taylor Big Red Forklifts & lifts to move boats from the water to storage, Georgia Pacific plywood & chemicals, hardwood flooring, silk flowers, Polo Custom products & Harley bags & pouches, gloves, cabinets, archery targets, & custom stainless steel parts for catfish production. And we've "produced" three current SEC basketball coaches all from our small "football" town - Andy Kennedy, Matthew Mitchell, & Van Chancellor!

Marijuana is the largest cash crop in the United States, more valuable than corn and wheat combined. Using conservative price estimates domestic marijuana production has a value of $35.8 billion. The domestic marijuana crop consists of 56.4 million marijuana plants cultivated outdoors worth $31.7 billion and 11.7 million plants cultivated indoors worth $4.1 billion.

The top ten marijuana producing states are California, Tennessee, Kentucky, Hawaii, Washington, North Carolina, Florida, Alabama., West Virginia, and Oregon. Five states (California, Tennessee, Kentucky, Hawaii and Washington) had marijuana crops worth over $1 billion.)

Despite intensive eradication efforts domestic marijuana production has increased ten fold over the last 25 years from 1,000 metric tons (2.2 million pounds) in 1981 to 10,000 metric tons (22 million pounds) in 2006, according to federal government estimates.

Marijuana is the top cash crop in 12 states, one of the top 3 cash crops in 30 states, and one of the top 5 cash crops in 39 states. The domestic marijuana crop is larger than Cotton in Alabama, larger than Grapes, Vegetables and Hay combined in California, larger than Peanuts in Georgia, and larger than Tobacco in both South Carolina and North Carolina.

From 2001 to 2005 federal and state eradication programs eradicated an average of 33,033 outdoor cultivation sites per year and an average of 2,701 indoor marijuana grow-rooms per year. From 1982 to 2005 the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program (DCESP) eradicated over 103 million cultivated marijuana plants, an average of 4.3 million cultivated plants a year over this 24 year period.

The ten-fold growth of production over the last 25 years and its proliferation to every part of the country demonstrate that marijuana has become a pervasive and ineradicable part of the national economy. The failure of intensive eradication programs suggests that it is finally time to give serious consideration to marijuana’s legalization in the United States.

(2006) Jon Gettman, Ph.D.

Tennessee produces nearly all of the Tennessee Walking Horses. Seriously, though, we do make a lot of Japanese cars.

Iowa is number one by a far margin in hog production.

Minnesota is number one I believe in turkey production. The Thanksgiving kind.

quote:

Originally posted by Poverty Pete

Tennessee produces nearly all of the Tennessee Walking Horses. Seriously, though, we do make a lot of Japanese cars.

Tennessee makes most of the Tennessee whiskey. No, wait, it makes ALL of the Tennessee whiskey.

I haven't researched this, but I would imagine America produces most of the bourbon in the world, too.

Our farms continue to be the most productive in the world. And, we still manufacture many types of goods in this country.

However, as time goes on, the importance of our traditional smokestack industries continues to diminish as production is transferred to nations with lower wages. Simultaneously, the importance of intellectual properties grows every year, and the dollar value of these intellectual properties grows as well. This category includes research related to pharmaceutical products and high-tech equipment, and even things like music, films, and literature. Increasingly, the US creates the concepts and the research that results in wealth.

So, although we are a multi-faceted nation with many products, we are increasingly becoming a nation famed for the production of intellectual property. The result is that those who choose not to obtain specialized training and/or advanced degrees will find fewer and fewer employment opportunities.

Anyone who is currently in high school or in their younger years must contemplate the importance of furthering their education in order to fit into our increasingly technologically and research-oriented economy. In order to succeed in a nation that is rapidly becoming an incubator for intellectual property, one must have the necessary skills. To assume that one will be able work in that smokestack factory down the road is very short-sighted, unfortunately.

This is somewhat dated but I imagine still holds true.
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Since 1992, the United States has exported more than $142 billion dollars worth of weaponry to states around the world.[1] The U.S. dominates this international arms market, supplying just under half of all arms exports in 2001, roughly two and a half times more than the second and third largest suppliers. [2 ] U.S. weapons sales help outfit non-democratic regimes, soldiers who commit gross human rights abuses against their citizens and citizens of other countries, and forces in unstable regions on the verge of, in the middle of, or recovering from conflict.

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http://www.fas.org/asmp/fast_facts.htm

quote:

Originally posted by John A

This is somewhat dated but I imagine still holds true.
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Since 1992, the United States has exported more than $142 billion dollars worth of weaponry to states around the world.[1] The U.S. dominates this international arms market, supplying just under half of all arms exports in 2001, roughly two and a half times more than the second and third largest suppliers. [2 ] U.S. weapons sales help outfit non-democratic regimes, soldiers who commit gross human rights abuses against their citizens and citizens of other countries, and forces in unstable regions on the verge of, in the middle of, or recovering from conflict.

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http://www.fas.org/asmp/fast_facts.htm

WTG, John!

I know, I know. It's Ruger's fault that dirtbags shoot store clerks for a pack of smokes.

quote:

Originally posted by Poverty Pete

I know, I know. It's Ruger's fault that dirtbags shoot store clerks for a pack of smokes.

That being said I will now point all here:

http://glumbert.com/media/badrobber

"How NOT to rob a liquor store"...

BEEF!! and LOTS of it around here!---and MUSIC! And lately--i hear that the USA is the largest seller of weapons and arms in the world. I know we lead the world in production of the cute little cluster bombs that throw out all thos little "Personnel bombs " that look a lot like toys! HOW NICE OF US.---Oh and of course we lead the world in "Nuke-u-lar" weapons production!