Dragon Tau

There are many reasons for the decline in manufacturing in the US.
Restrictive trading practices in other countries.
Cheaper products made overseas.
Tax breaks for outsourcing.

To start a new business requires more than an idea. You need premises, a work force, administrative staff, material supplies, sales outlets, and all this requires money. The process is overwhelming to all but a few dedicated individuals, and there is no guarantee of success, the majority of small businesses fail within the first 2 years.

It does not have to be that way, if we all get together and "Do what we do best".

We all have the 'great idea' that would make a fortune if only....If only we had someone we could trust to take it and run with it. Well why not.

Set up an 'Ideas development shop', where anyone can go to develop their ideas. Given encouragement most people would pursue there ideas given that they might make some money from it.

OK we have the IDS (Ideas Development Shop) and it has 100s of product ideas filed away. Now what.

Follow up:

Now we need potential sales of the products. In the US we have huge retail companies, Wal-mart, Target, K-Mart etc. They can pick from the IDS catalog the products they think they can sell.

We now have the product design and sales. We now need to make the items. Orders are placed on the IDS system and are accessed by manufacturing plants around the country who offer to make them. Oh I nearly forgot there are no companies out there.

We now need a manufacturing base. We contact every County Commission and invite them to join the party. They put forward a proposal for siting a new manufacturing plant in their County. We can start with one County in every State. These plants are cookie cutter designs of, say, 10,000 sq ft, steel buildings with solar power, although existing buildings could also be used if available.

We can further break down the functions of the plant. There are huge accounting companies H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt, etc. who can handle all the accounting requirements. There are usually restaurants locally who could provide catering services to the plant. All the 'Plant' should be doing is make things, everything else is external.

The big questions are Who owns all this? How do we finance it? How does everyone get paid?

Who owns all this?
The IDS would probably be financed initially by the Federal Government. It could be IPO'd and owned by pension funds and other 'For the People' organizations.
The Manufacturing Plants again initially financed by both the Federal and Local Governments, and again they can be sold off to private investors.

There are two sides to the actual product production, base price and value added elements. The base price includes the material costs and the manufacturing labor costs, because there is minimum wage. The funding of this can be provided by the seller, e.g. WalMart pays upfront for the products they order. The value added element is, let's call it the clever bit, a little bit more complicated and based on percentage distribution.

We now have many contributors to the process. The workforce, the Plant, the IDS, the designer ( whose idea started the whole thing ), the accountants, the seller and many more. Each one will offer their services for a percentage of the 'Profit', perhaps even a minimum %, the remainder being distributed across all contributors. This is not, currently written in stone, but the idea is to distribute the profit AFTER the item is sold.

Plastic ash tray Example.
Dollar General order 1000 ashtray to sell for $1 each = $1,000.
Company A can make them for $0.25 each to cover materials and a worker for an hour.
The designer would get 1%.
The worker may get 1%
The Plant get 20%, as the accounting firm gets 10% of that.
The IDS gets 1%
The seller, Dollar General, may get 25%.
This is incomplete, but you start to get the idea. In this example the worker would effectively get $75 + minimum wage per hour, which would seem a little excessive.

This is not an exclusive system, any company can get involved. Existing manufacturers who have the capability to make something in the catalog can bid, allowing them to fill in slack time or transition into the system.
A company specializing in export can use the system by ordering from the catalog.
A central 'bank' would need to be set up providing timely collection and distribution of sales revenues etc.

There are many parts of this system that need to be worked out, but that's the point of "Do what you do best". The idea is to set up a system where every participant can benefit. A system that is efficient. A system that is distributed. An incubation system for business.

The benefits are enormous.