Ross Worried About U.S. Manufacturing

Legendary investor Wilbur Ross is worried about the state of U.S. manufacturing reports

Ross, who is famous for restructuring bankrupt companies and selling them for massive profits told Charlie Rose he fears for the long term viability of U.S. manufacturing and worries that the country might slip into becoming a second rate manufacturer. During his interview with Charlie Rose, Ross said, "What I’m worried about, is research … U.S. is graduating one-seventh as many engineers per year as China and India combined, one-seventh.” Mr. Ross went on to say, "And so what worries me, Business Roundtable of which I’m a part, thinks that within a few years if this trend continues, 90 percent of all the engineers working in the whole world will be working in Asia. Ninety percent. And if that’s true and you merge that with an inexhaustible supply of very well disciplined, very well qualified labor, there may not be much room for U.S. manufacturers … I really feel that within five or 10 years, we could be a second-rate power. We’ll still be big, but we could really be behind the eight ball in a very big way." Later on in the interview, Ross proclaimed his worries about the American education system as well. He said, "A generation ago, we were the No. 1 country in the world in terms of what percentage of people finish college. You know where we rank now? … We used to be No. 1. Now we’re 12th." Ross is partly famous for his 2002 purchase of bankrupt steelmaker International Steel Group. He paid $325 million for the company, restructured it back into profitability and sold it to Arcelor Mittal

in 2005 for $4.5 billion.