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The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

fortune.com

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Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#171

Post by beachstartup »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #148
tomarr wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be surprised how negligible the environmental impact of shipping compared to production is. As an extreme example, it's cheaper in terms of CO2e emissions to produce and ship lamb from New Zealand to the United Kingdom than produce it in the UK.

How is that possible?

why wouldn't it be?

raising sheep requires land, remember? it's livestock, grass/feed, water, veterinarians, medication, sheepdogs, abattoir, compliance, inspection, processing, packing, refrigeration, shipping.

if you're producing wool, let's substitute/add shearing, washing, drying, processing, packing, etc.

not to mention sales, marketing, client relations, accounting, human resources, payroll taxes, corporate taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, value added taxes, etc. because a ranch is a business that turns over probably millions a year.

how much does all that cost in the UK? how much does it cost in NZ? find the difference, and compared to the shipping costs, which are trivial, probably a couple of thousand dollars to get a refrigerated 30 foot container from Auckland to Amsterdam, then another few hundred pounds to get it across the channel and into a distribution center in the south of england.

i don't know a damn thing about farming or logistics, but all it takes is about 2 minutes of thought to see how the economics would work.

Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#172

Post by mistermann »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #151
mistermann wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you be disingenuous if you don't know what you're talking about?

I think the sky is red but I tell you today it is teal -- I am lying about something I misunderstand

Does "lying" not imply one knows the truth?

Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#173

Post by pmorici »

bandrami wrote: post #12

I'm pretty sure our manufacturing output exceeded China's for most of the oughts, also. The myth that "we don't make things here anymore" is, well, a myth. We just don't employ people to make things anymore.

That's true most people are surprised to learn this but measured in the value of the goods manufactured the US was the worlds largest manufacture for over 100 years until around 2010 then China edged ahead.

The US manufactures a lot more high value items where as China dominates the cheap junk category. Same way that Apple has all the smart phone profits even though they don't dominate the smart phone market on a number of units sold basis.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/theworldin2011/2010/12/china_...

Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#175

Post by JonFish85 »

sulam wrote: post #156
adventured wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US was a larger manufacturing nation than China as recently as five years ago. Cutting the US corporate income tax rate nearly in half and lightening economic regulations, will do wonders for boosting US manufacturing. Given China's $3.x trillion in manufacturing is heavily tilted toward low cost, low value manufacturing, it's not going to be surprising to see their global share of manufacturing shrink in the nex…

Think Africa. Vietnams is already too expensive. Mexico probably is, too.

Is Africa stable enough? I feel like South America has a better shot at this than Africa. Maybe in a few generations?

Edited to add that I'm speaking in very broad terms, I know that Africa as a whole is enormous, but I don't think of any particular African nation as being stable enough to be able to support the infrastructure needed.

Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#176

Post by br_smartass »

bandrami wrote: post #14
ageofwant wrote: post #6

Jobs that are vulnerable to automation are generally not worth keeping. That's no comfort to those loosing them though. Science fiction from the 60's painted a world where people would lounge around in their airships hopping between beaches, and mountains and parties while robots took care of everything and the lord scientists and engineers that gifted the wold with such plenty smiled benevolently down on the citizen…

Did it not happen? Even poor people today have objectively much better living standards than rich people 100 years ago.

Ah, surely the aristocrats of before would instantly jump at the opportunity of giving up their lifes of free-time, leisure, education, servants, 3-hour-meals, giant houses, countryside retreats, upper-class-socializing, to trade it with the shopping-mall-worker that does 60h weeks(no weekends), for he'd have a smartphone! Funny.

This argument, which I've read before, only works with a really, really narrow definition of 'rich' and 'poor', maybe what you mean is upper-middle-class and lower-middle-class?

Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#177

Post by ryhamz »

hackuser wrote: post #109
coliveira wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Producing our own food is not exciting either, but would you like to live in a place that produces no food and has to import 100% of what is needed to survive? This is the same thing here. Manufacturing is not a sexy activity anymore, but it is necessary, as long as we still live in a physical (non-virtual) world.

I believe most countries import massive amounts of food, including the U.S. It's much more efficient: Let those who can produce the food most efficiently do that, and you produce whatever you do most efficiently, then you trade. It's called 'comparative advantage' in economics. Trade is necessary for the wealth of modern economies. Self-sufficiency is North Korea's approach.

His point wasn't that we don't import. It's that if we were to somehow have everyone say "we aren't selling food to the US", we wouldn't be totally screwed.

Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#178

Post by lambdasquirrel »

mc32 wrote: post #113
empath75 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silicon Valley is called that because that's how it used to be. They actually made the chips there, and if you grew up there, you could get computer parts cheaply and easily. Jobs and Wozniak could build the Apple I in a garage only because of where they were.

Exactly this. North San Jose (the 237 triangle) used to have PCB, chip, chassis, component, etc., manufacturers in proximity to each other. Consider: Sun used to make and assemble their "workstations" over in the East Bay not far from the 237 triangle. As the late '90s approached much of that local manufacturing was off-shored to the Foxconns and Flextronics, etc. as well as overseas foundries.

And when it all went over there it made room for Google and Facebook. Today it's hard for a startup to find space in downtown PA because of Palantir.

What's a "problem" for the rest of the U.S. is creative destruction here. I worry we may have learned the wrong lessons because of current politics and inequalities. And it's worth remembering that automation is going to result in that manufacturing resulting in less jobs. What's going to happen when people expect the jobs to come back but then they don't?

I know this has all been said, but I'm not sure everyone's connected all the dots.

Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#179

Post by ryhamz »

scottm84 wrote: post #162
CydeWeys wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven't even cracked the automobile market yet. No one in the west will buy a Chinese car, let alone a Chinese plane.

Subaru is a Chinese version of yakuza. They have cracked the market for sure. Also, mitsubishi can build rockets similar to anything spacex can put up.

That feel when you confuse China and Japan.

Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#180

Post by scottm84 »

am183 wrote: post #169
scottm84 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subaru is a Chinese version of yakuza. They have cracked the market for sure. Also, mitsubishi can build rockets similar to anything spacex can put up.

Except both are Japanese companies?

Paper ownership and proximity ownership and value ownership are all very different things on that side of the planet.

Both are Japanese companies in the American version of ownership.

In the proximity version of ownership, both are pirate flags.

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