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What happened to the US machine tool industry?

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Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#31

Post by jjoonathan »

boringuser2 wrote: post #17
jjoonathan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Book recommendation: "Trade Wars are Class Wars" by Michael Pettis. If you don't buy the apologetics that permeate the popular economics sphere but still want an expert to walk you through the details, this is your book.

Sounds like commie gobbledygook. (RIP Norm MacDonald, the thinking mans comedian!)

It's basic macro. Assets, exports, capital accounts, current accounts, savings, investment. Essentially, windfall surplus in one area causes savings bubbles causes investment bubbles causes asset pumps and export dumps, usually in a different area. He cites a bunch of historical examples and then goes step by step through techniques for identifying sources/sinks and directionality.

Oh, and did you know that Ricardo based his analysis on the assumption of a closed capital account? It's interesting how the theory of comparative advantage usually gets invoked without mentioning that ;)

If you dogmatically reject the idea that political economy could possibly involve the concept of class, I'd love to hear how your analysis clusters the interests involved. In any case, he's not a CCP shill. He throws some mean punches in that direction with facts and figures to back them up. Everyone hustles in the world economy.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#32

Post by ren_engineer »

psychlops wrote: post #21

> A strong dollar made imports even cheaper by comparison I think that summarizes the article. It has been cheaper to import, so we do. The strong dollar policy supports some industries at the expense of others.

cheaper when not including externalities(losing critical manufacturing capabilities), which is why a proper government would take action. But the problem is our government is heavily lobbied to not protect critical industries in the name of short term corporate profits. And in many cases our government is outright hostile to manufacturing by holding domestic producers to pollution/labor regulations but allowing imports from countries with no regulations

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#33

Post by plagiarist »

psychlops wrote: post #21

> A strong dollar made imports even cheaper by comparison I think that summarizes the article. It has been cheaper to import, so we do. The strong dollar policy supports some industries at the expense of others.

Trade agreements have allowed importing from countries where human rights are (more of) an economic externality. Domestic manufacturers can really only compete on the ability to do small batches, higher tolerances, and quick turnaround; like for R&D projects or medical devices.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#34

Post by AnimalMuppet »

cantrevealname wrote: post #9

> Consider a company that manufactures its product on lathes. Assume that it has ten lathes that can just meet production requirements. Assume also that each lathe wears out in ten years and that the company has its investment plans so well organized that one lathe is replaced every year. Now consider what will happen if there is a 10 percent increase in demand for the product. The plant will need eleven lathes to me…

Well, it's a 100% increase from that company, for one year. The next year, though, they only need to buy one lathe again. And the next year, and the year after that. Every tenth year, they'll buy two lathes.

Calling that a 100% increase doesn't seem to make sense because it actually doesn't make sense.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#35

Post by MisterTea »

mauvehaus wrote: post #14

If you're into machining, the American Precision Museum[0] in Windsor, VT is highly worth a visit. I had the good fortune to tour the Starrett factory some years back. They were still running pre-NC screw machines to make parts. It really is true that old machines, well cared for, will last just about forever. Apparently it's something of an axiom in the machining industry that tools that are no longer economically v…

Visited when I was a kid it was fun seeing all the belt driven machinery that wasn't so different than my father's machine shop (job shopped manual and CNC milling and turning.) The 90s was when we saw the manufacturing downslide then my father got sick and passed. We kept it going but by the 2000's China was eating everyone's lunch. Though the fall of the Berlin wall killed a lot of aerospace work which was big business on Long Island. We sold the business in 2006 and somehow the guy who bought it is still in business though downsized and runs it himself now.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#37

Post by serf »

bluGill wrote: post #29
Retric wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The universe isn’t quite that binary. Suppose those lathes ware out 0.1% faster than expected lasting ~3 days less than 10 years, now eventually you replace 2 of them in the same year thus doubling demand in that year… Except the manufacture wouldn’t notice a spike from occasionally sending out a few days earlier even if it’s crossing a calendar year.

a lathe doesn't wear out that way. It just slowly gets harder and harder to maintain tolerance. Eventually a new machine will be enough better as to make an experienced machinist take less time - they always have to stop and measure as no lathe can give you absolute accuracy, but when the lathe is new it is more predictable how much turning a handle will change things and so you measure before the last operation and…

I run a small machine shop, and while I agree that you're opinion is closer to reality it's absolutely not out of the ordinary for a precision metalworking lathe to fail entirely and be dead weight until repair; it's not all gracefully easing into imprecision.

Older lathes, for example, love to put the AC motor under something that either accumulates or produces chips; you can see why this might be a problem over time. It's not out of the ordinary to require motor re-winds.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#38

Post by drmpeg »

mauvehaus wrote: post #14

If you're into machining, the American Precision Museum[0] in Windsor, VT is highly worth a visit. I had the good fortune to tour the Starrett factory some years back. They were still running pre-NC screw machines to make parts. It really is true that old machines, well cared for, will last just about forever. Apparently it's something of an axiom in the machining industry that tools that are no longer economically v…

I worked at my fathers machine shop (which was a subsidiary of New Britain Machine Company) a couple of summers when I was in high school in the mid 70's. It was quite an experience and the employees were some of the crustiest characters I've ever met. The second summer, I worked with this guy named Ray on a huge machine that made the heads to ratchet wrenches (the square part with the little ball). He was one of these guys that was continuously pissed off. A man's man probably only 35, but looked 45 and smoked Camel unfiltered cigarettes. But the thing I remember most about him was that he could swear for a minute straight and never use the same word twice. For example, he called the machine "The Afterbirth". I'll never forget that man.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#39

Post by georgeplusplus »

We gave up the low intelligence blue collar manufacturing jobs so city dwellers can obtain highly specialized and skilled expensive college degrees to do important work on global problems in matter like, making and editing excel spreadsheets, writing emails, and sitting in on web meetings.

I am writing this while drinking an 8$ caramel latte from Starbucks with a slice of avocado toast for 17.99$.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#40

Post by [deleted] »

bluGill wrote: post #29
Retric wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The universe isn’t quite that binary. Suppose those lathes ware out 0.1% faster than expected lasting ~3 days less than 10 years, now eventually you replace 2 of them in the same year thus doubling demand in that year… Except the manufacture wouldn’t notice a spike from occasionally sending out a few days earlier even if it’s crossing a calendar year.

a lathe doesn't wear out that way. It just slowly gets harder and harder to maintain tolerance. Eventually a new machine will be enough better as to make an experienced machinist take less time - they always have to stop and measure as no lathe can give you absolute accuracy, but when the lathe is new it is more predictable how much turning a handle will change things and so you measure before the last operation and…

[deleted]
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