61–70 of 315 posts
I bought two things recently: some temperature sensors for a smart home and some cable clips to hide some wiring under a cabinet. Both were mass produced in China and both shipped with 3M branded adhesive mounting pads. An apt and literal representation of global manufacturing — US made chemicals, Chinese electronics, one clinging to the other.
> The US is the world’s sole military superpower. It spends more on its military than the ten next highest spending countries combined. Dubious claim. Military power is not measured in “spending”. Manufacturing is in fact a basis for modern military power, as it was the basis for US military power in WW2. The fact that China can produce 10k+ precisely controlled drone swarms in massive quantities and produces more hy…
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_the_Tang...
Although china does not seem to try to get in wars historically. Conflicts between for example middle east and china over recorded history are not that many.
The US can't even make cell phones any more. What would it take to get that capability back?
Moving it to Mexico, Vietnam, and India. Mexico is ideal since you can ship partially assembled goods via truck or rail to and from Texas. It's easy to manage logistics and partnerships due to the close proximity. The future of the US is Mexico. Vietnam and India can absorb SEA manufacturing.
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It won't take long for China to catch up. And in a hot war, they're the ones who can rapidly rebuild. Lots of reports say that Chinese military spending has exceeded our own if you account for their cheaper cost of labor and material goods. China also recently (just days ago) flew two new sixth gen fighters. The US has yet to demonstrate one. The tactical move for the West to counter is to move as much manufacturing…
The irony is in a world war China would likely take over the manufacturing plants the west built in places like Thailand and Vietnam to assist China in the war effort. Further bolstering their war time production.
What are these?
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Let's not even talk about Taiwan, which will be the first target, and its plants will all produce chips for Chinese products.
Those plants will 100% be destroyed/disabled in the event of an invasion.
Huh. For all the claims that US manufacturing is down, it does seem that if we adjusted per-capita it's on par with China based on the figures presented here, which I really didn't expect to see I'm no expert and of course I have no clue if it even makes sense to measure per-capita manufacturing share, and also assume a lot of other factors matter here - what kinds of things we're manufacturing, how much those produc…
You might be surprised to learn that manufacturing is larger industry in the US than our tech industry, or that our domestic oil industry is even larger. America produces more oil than any other country. America was the world's factory for over a century. This dominance only ended around 2010, when China took the lead. It was our advantage to lose, and it was the result of deliberate political action. We offshored ma…
US oil and gas industry has $240bn in annual revenues. This is about comparable to how much Americans spend at Apple (almost $200bn)
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Gross production is sales $$$, it's not actual output of widgets. I imagine if measure gross production by some units of stuff made, PRC would be far ahead.
Yes, but $$$ is the currently the most accurate metric of "units of stuff" by their usefulness. At least there's no other widely used metric. So $$$ is the most correct way to measure the output.
* by default I mean, these metrics/calculations are downstream of national accounting methods, i.e. most of world standardized on UN SNA which measures "value" as in $$$ vs something like (deprecated) soviet material production system (MPS) that measures physical material widgets produced.
One proxy metric is PRC container throughput of her ports last year was ~300 million TEU vs US is about ~60 million TEU (with slightly higher ratio of empty containers).
Huh. For all the claims that US manufacturing is down, it does seem that if we adjusted per-capita it's on par with China based on the figures presented here, which I really didn't expect to see I'm no expert and of course I have no clue if it even makes sense to measure per-capita manufacturing share, and also assume a lot of other factors matter here - what kinds of things we're manufacturing, how much those produc…
The US Navy has stated numerous times that the US essentially has minimal capacity. Maintenance and construction are years behind schedule. It isn't about funding. 40% of attack submarines aren't fit for service or deployable. The new Columbia class submarine will use a new steam turbine. Northrup Grumman was selected for the manufacture of the steam turbine in 2014. It isn't ready yet.
Sophisticated manufacturing is in crisis in the US. It's the reason that the US bigfooted France in the AUKUS submarine deal. To revive a failing industry.
These are interesting tests due to there are restrictions on sourcing of parts and personnel for a project.
https://news.usni.org/2024/04/10/late-turbines-have-major-im...
https://news.usni.org/2024/04/10/late-turbines-have-major-im...
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> Even if China was 100% a friend, you wouldn't want one country with this much outsized control over manufacturing It's not up to the US to decide this. China is the largest car market. It is also the largest car producing country. It is the largest manufacturing country. It also has the largest number of consumers in any country, and this market is still growing. It has the largest number of engineers. The numbers…
Certainly. The reality of the political situation though is that China is an authoritarian country ruled by the PRC, increasingly acting more like a dictatorship. While China’s economy, society and people have 100% the right to grow as much as they would like, those of us living in (sonewhat) liberal democracies would still want to contain the power of the PRC (and the cult of Xi Jinping).
I am not Chinese but I still find this comment hilariously offensive and tone-deaf. I can say almost without a doubt that the US has a "tremendous" issue with cult-of-personality right now. But I don't see Chinese or other countries attacking or trying to "contain" this.
The US is still treated as a nation, unified in its people and leaders, by even its adversaries. But when Americans deal with other countries, there is a tendency to say things to the effect of: "the people are fine, it is the X that must be suppressed", ignoring that this X is inherently or directly connected to people of this nation.