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The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospects for Recovery (1994)

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Re: The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospects for Recovery (1994)

#31

Post by hwillis »

jackyinger wrote: post #4

How’s basing the US economy on services looking now? My brother is an extremely skilled machinist, the sort who could build machine tools if he had the resources. And let me tell you there ain’t many of them, especially not young ones. Why? Because the US has emphasized college as the only respectable education path, as well as the only path to well paid jobs. That’s how you end up with a manufacturing industry full…

> My brother is an extremely skilled machinist, the sort who could build machine tools if he had the resources.

Machine tools are not designed by extremely skilled machinists, they are designed by engineers. Machinists do not know how frames deflect or resonant modes or overconstraint or the other things that are critical in machine tool design. Machine tools are inherently dynamic systems where moving cutters cause feedback into the system. Being able to make something accurate under static conditions is very different.

Re: The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospects for Recovery (1994)

#32

Post by tmpz22 »

whatshisface wrote: post #22
ryandrake wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the US has emphasized college as the only respectable education path, as well as the only path to well paid jobs. If I could make as a machinist what I make as a software monkey, all other things being equal, I'd go back in time and train to be a machinist. People will go where the money is.

The only way to "solve" this is to reduce US output of valuable goods so that people are attracted to jobs that pay less and make less valuable goods. I don't understand why everyone's so enamored with the prospect of making $50k working a lathe in a world where engineering jobs have been made rarer artificially. It won't even be a job in a factory that makes something cool like rockets or lithography machines, witho…

[flagged]

Re: The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospects for Recovery (1994)

#33

Post by yojo »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #19
turtlesdown11 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How’s basing the US economy on services looking now? You mean the worlds strongest, most developed and most successful economy?

We've been coasting on advances made many decades ago. Most developed, sure. Successful? By nearly any metric you can imagine or make up. Strongest? Our economy is eaten hollow by termites. A stiff wind would make it crumble. Worse, there doesn't appear to be any path to true recovery... we can't create the jobs that people need to prosper, but if we could somehow do that we no longer create the people who would grow…

Tech is the obvious one, but there are lots of less obvious ones, like designing the things that are manufactured elsewhere.

It turns out production of most goods is commoditized and a race to the bottom (assuming free trade), so if you want margins that can support high salaries, you have to move up the value chain (read: services).

If we keep tariffs high enough for long enough, we will bring back manufacturing jobs. They will not be high paying unless unions artificially constrain labor supply. The cost of everything will be higher (relative to people’s incomes), implying a lower standard of living.

tl;dr: If we want to withdraw from the world economy we mostly can, but don’t expect to have as nice of a life afterward.

Re: The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospects for Recovery (1994)

#34

Post by walterbell »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #23
elictronic wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manufacturing will start coming back based on the high tariffs just with two big caveats. 1. Manufacturing takes time and money to setup. This is a software forum where changes are made at lighting speed. Manufacturing requires capital, years, and will. In software it might take a day to make an obvious change. Manufacturing hopefully 6 months. Working with physical systems takes time. 2. Manufacturing does not mean…

> Manufacturing takes time and money to setup. Trump has 4 years if he survives that long. He's an old man. The trade war can't possibly last long enough for manufacturing to be forced to restart domestically. Even if this was his first term and he got a second, by the time the second rolls around everyone would just hope to wait it out until the Democrats retook the White House and they could import everything from…

> hope to wait it out

This investment thesis is about to be tested at scale.

Re: The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospects for Recovery (1994)

#35

Post by ryandrake »

elictronic wrote: post #16
ferguess_k wrote: post #5

I have a sense that manufacturing is not coming back until there is a real Cold War 2.0 (or Hot War 3.0 which hopefully never realizes). I mean a real one, like the NATO-WP one when there was not a lot of trading between the two blocs.

Manufacturing will start coming back based on the high tariffs just with two big caveats. 1. Manufacturing takes time and money to setup. This is a software forum where changes are made at lighting speed. Manufacturing requires capital, years, and will. In software it might take a day to make an obvious change. Manufacturing hopefully 6 months. Working with physical systems takes time. 2. Manufacturing does not mean…

> Manufacturing does not mean jobs.

Exactly. I think a lot of people who say they "want manufacturing to come back to the USA" have a picture in their imagination of a 1950s factory employing hundreds of middle class people standing along an assembly line picking up parts with their hands and working on them, or turning bolts on a car as it goes down the line. Then the old steam whistle blows, and all those workers exit the building and drive back to their middle class 1950s homes.

This world does not exist anymore and is never coming back. If manufacturing comes back, it's going to be heavily automated plants with a lean staff of robot technicians keeping the line going. Manufacturing may come back to the USA, but those Fred Flintstone jobs are not part of the picture.

Re: The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospects for Recovery (1994)

#36

Post by markus_zhang »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #23
elictronic wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manufacturing will start coming back based on the high tariffs just with two big caveats. 1. Manufacturing takes time and money to setup. This is a software forum where changes are made at lighting speed. Manufacturing requires capital, years, and will. In software it might take a day to make an obvious change. Manufacturing hopefully 6 months. Working with physical systems takes time. 2. Manufacturing does not mean…

> Manufacturing takes time and money to setup. Trump has 4 years if he survives that long. He's an old man. The trade war can't possibly last long enough for manufacturing to be forced to restart domestically. Even if this was his first term and he got a second, by the time the second rolls around everyone would just hope to wait it out until the Democrats retook the White House and they could import everything from…

IMO if Trump is serious about bringing manufacturing back to US, his No.1 job is to remove all middle-high managers from all government agencies.

The whole government has been bathing in the globalization alcohol for so many years that there is a huge interest group rooted for it to go forever. You can't do much without removing this group.

There is no "legal", "orderly" retreat from the current situation IMHO. It's going to be messy. The issue is whether Trump is doing the job or he is just faking it for whatever the reasons.

Re: The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospects for Recovery (1994)

#37

Post by jackyinger »

hwillis wrote: post #31
jackyinger wrote: post #4

How’s basing the US economy on services looking now? My brother is an extremely skilled machinist, the sort who could build machine tools if he had the resources. And let me tell you there ain’t many of them, especially not young ones. Why? Because the US has emphasized college as the only respectable education path, as well as the only path to well paid jobs. That’s how you end up with a manufacturing industry full…

> My brother is an extremely skilled machinist, the sort who could build machine tools if he had the resources. Machine tools are not designed by extremely skilled machinists, they are designed by engineers. Machinists do not know how frames deflect or resonant modes or overconstraint or the other things that are critical in machine tool design. Machine tools are inherently dynamic systems where moving cutters cause…

Skilled machinists are very well aware of deflection and resonance. Operating a machine tool is not static in the slightest.

Re: The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospects for Recovery (1994)

#38

Post by [deleted] »

jackyinger wrote: post #37
hwillis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My brother is an extremely skilled machinist, the sort who could build machine tools if he had the resources. Machine tools are not designed by extremely skilled machinists, they are designed by engineers. Machinists do not know how frames deflect or resonant modes or overconstraint or the other things that are critical in machine tool design. Machine tools are inherently dynamic systems where moving cutters cause…

Skilled machinists are very well aware of deflection and resonance. Operating a machine tool is not static in the slightest.

[deleted]

Re: The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospects for Recovery (1994)

#39

Post by jayd16 »

jackyinger wrote: post #4

How’s basing the US economy on services looking now? My brother is an extremely skilled machinist, the sort who could build machine tools if he had the resources. And let me tell you there ain’t many of them, especially not young ones. Why? Because the US has emphasized college as the only respectable education path, as well as the only path to well paid jobs. That’s how you end up with a manufacturing industry full…

> How’s basing the US economy on services looking now?

Until this administration kicked in, historically high?

Re: The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospects for Recovery (1994)

#40

Post by DebtDeflation »

tmpz22 wrote: post #32
whatshisface wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way to "solve" this is to reduce US output of valuable goods so that people are attracted to jobs that pay less and make less valuable goods. I don't understand why everyone's so enamored with the prospect of making $50k working a lathe in a world where engineering jobs have been made rarer artificially. It won't even be a job in a factory that makes something cool like rockets or lithography machines, witho…

[flagged]

The factories of today are nothing like the 1980s factories this administration thinks they are going to bring back. Go to FRED or any other economic data site and plot manufacturing output and manufacturing employment on the same chart. The US manufactures more today than we ever have in history and it grows every year. Meanwhile, manufacturing employment is around its all time low and declines every year.
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