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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?

#201

Post by bmitc »

wolverine876 wrote: post #178
bmitc wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real question is whether it is a bad outcome or not. It's definitely bad. The U.S. won't even have the world's biggest navy pretty soon because of that. And there are tons of scenarios where the U.S. is economically hosed because of some international conflict. Not only does the U.S. not make things, it doesn't know how to.

Why is 'making things' tied to income or wealth? In the mid-20th century it was, but those are the 'good old days'. We don't want a mid-20th century economy. The US has the most productive, wealthiest economy in the history of the world, and a very strong one at the moment, without so much of the 'making things'. Why change? (And why do American taxpayers have to subsidize someone else's uncompetitive, unproductive b…

Outcomes of major wars were directly tied to domestic manufacturing ability. By not having manufacturing ability, the U.S. exposes itself to great risk.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#202

Post by bmitc »

mikeyouse wrote: post #176
bmitc wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real question is whether it is a bad outcome or not. It's definitely bad. The U.S. won't even have the world's biggest navy pretty soon because of that. And there are tons of scenarios where the U.S. is economically hosed because of some international conflict. Not only does the U.S. not make things, it doesn't know how to.

We should absolutely increase our industrial capacity but who gives a shit about the biggest Navy? Outside of the problem countries like China and Russia, we have military alliances with nearly every country on earth.. US has somewhere around 450 Navy vessels.. China has closer to 350 but is rapidly adding new tonnage. Sounds ominous! Except Japan has another 150, Australia has 50 more, the UK has 70 more, Spain has…

Beyond security, it was an example of the inability to build.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#203

Post by fransje26 »

happyjack wrote: post #183
lkramer wrote: post #58

Why do I feel there is a parallel here to Boeing? (Maybe that was the motivation for the submission)

When the Clinton administration forced the downsizing of the military industrial complex ( https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2015/12/2/f... ), the USA lost all competition in the larger than regional aircraft. To compete with Airbus (subsidized by the EU), Boeing turned from manufacturing their own airplanes (and using suppliers in America) to assembling planes in Washington and forcing procurement of…

> To compete with Airbus (subsidized by the EU), Boeing turned from manufacturing their own airplanes (and using suppliers in America) to assembling planes in Washington and forcing procurement of their products internationally through contracted parts.

Yes, this is one of the more common alternative fact on what happened to Boeing. Going beyond the nonsensical take of the evil subsidized foreign company unfairly competing against the hardworking non-subsidized domestic aircraft builder, as various independent pundits have reported in the light of recent events, Boeing's woes are mostly self-inflicted, starting even before the infamous MD takeover.

But it's true that it is more flattering to paint yourself as the victim of unfair globalization as opposed to acknowledging that the ruthless search of short-term gains came at the cost of product quality and passengers lives.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#204

Post by cherryteastain »

lstodd wrote: post #198
jimt1234 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard this was the real reason the US took out Saddam Hussein. Basically, Saddam had been saying for years that he wanted Iraq to abandon the dollar for trading its oil. If he was successful at this, other Arab Nations would most likely do the same. This wasn't acceptable to the powers in the US, so the US tax payers funded the war in Iraq to send a message to other nations: Don't even think of abandoning the dolla…

Conspirology at its best. Better swap Saddam for Qaddafi, that would be even more believable. First Iran-Iraqi war that resulted in a standstill, then invasion of Kuwait, and only then the second Iraqi war when he went totally nuts. Other Arab nations are Saudis and Persian Gulf emirates, who had zero use for the deranged person. And were and still are quite happy with dollars.

https://www.wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/6528

> Qaddafi's government holds 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver. During late March, 2011 these stocks were moved to SABHA (south west in the direction of the Libyan border with Niger and Chad); taken from the vaults of the Libyan Central Bank in Tripoli. This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French.franc (CFA).

> French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy's decision to commit France to the attack on Libya.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#205

Post by yetihehe »

dpe82 wrote: post #166
kuschku wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan and Germany are entirely metric. Pretty much the entire US manufacturing industry, or rather the zombie the pentagon keeps on life support, is in US standard. That means everything needs to be adjusted or replaced. That's not viable in peace times, it's even less so in times of war. Obviously this applies primarily to tanks and ships, not planes nor guns.

Part of the beauty of eg. CNC mills is they don't necessarily care what the units are.

Especially when inch is now defined as being exactly 25.4 mm and you can manufacture to 0.01mm with commodity-level hardware.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#206

Post by ElevenLathe »

mywittyname wrote: post #88
hasty_pudding wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MBA philosophy vs the craftsman philosophy differ vastly.

MBAs are taught techniques for optimizing for quality and cost. It's not always an either/or decision. Even when it is an either/or situation, sometimes it's better to build a product that is half the price for a quarter of the lifespan. A buyer who will use a tool for 30 hours doesn't really care if the service life of a tool has been reduced from 1000 hours to 250 if the price is halved.

I know what you mean, but I think we can say for sure that it's definitely not globally optimal to produce durable goods (of any kind) that are half the cost but a quarter the lifespan. Half price for half utility is fine, but half price for a quarter utility is just pure waste -- even if you don't need the tool for 1000 hours, you can resell it to somebody who will use it for the next 970 hours (or the next 30, after which they sell it again). There are transaction costs here which make it a little more complex, but in a society where this was common, they would be driven down by scale -- more pawn and consignment shops would pop up, culture would teach people how the process works, etc. (By the way, there are also extra transaction costs for the people who need 1000 hours of tool time but have to buy it 30 hours at a time.)

Any system that encourages this behavior (i.e the one we have) is obviously not a winning system.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#207

Post by helpfulContrib »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #18
grow2grow wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, no surprise that a standard won the battle, over several competing choices. That seems to happen a lot.

Sort of a tautology, right? The winner of the competition becomes the standard.

[dead]

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#208

Post by wolverine876 »

bmitc wrote: post #200
wolverine876 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, number of ships doesn't mean too much. I could buy 1,000 canoes. And tonnage only means a bit more - there is plenty of tonnage in old ships rusting at docks. Naval power isn't easily measured with statistics. The capabilities of a single US 100,000 ton aircraft carrier overwhelms entire fleets, unless their capabilities include long-range anti-ship missiles or submarines. Then adding tonnage won't help the US;…

You should look into it. I wasn't referring to canoes. Even then, you're wrong. Number of ships and ability to replace ships correlates to wins in times of conflict.

I actually know it pretty well.

> Number of ships and ability to replace ships correlates to wins in times of conflict.

Do you happen to remember a source for that? I'd be interested.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#209

Post by wolverine876 »

bmitc wrote: post #201
wolverine876 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is 'making things' tied to income or wealth? In the mid-20th century it was, but those are the 'good old days'. We don't want a mid-20th century economy. The US has the most productive, wealthiest economy in the history of the world, and a very strong one at the moment, without so much of the 'making things'. Why change? (And why do American taxpayers have to subsidize someone else's uncompetitive, unproductive b…

Outcomes of major wars were directly tied to domestic manufacturing ability. By not having manufacturing ability, the U.S. exposes itself to great risk.

The US has by far the most powerful military in the world, with its current domestic manufacturing capability. The idea that the US will be self-sufficient - a path followed only by North Korea - isn't realistic or desireable. They'd give up all the enormous advantages, including manufacturing capability, of all those allies, including S Korea, Japan, Germany, etc etc.

Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?

#210

Post by drmpeg »

sbuccini wrote: post #171
drmpeg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

Did you ever shop at my grandfather’s hardware store?

This was in southern Maine, not Connecticut.
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