Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

rand.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 523 posts

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

#111

Post by anon84873628 »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #88
anon84873628 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which people got the COVID vaccine first? Why is HN in English and always talking about FAANG? Why do kids all around the world play with Spiderman? Asking for "vital" and "21st century" is a paradox, so maybe it's not what you really meant. But the proof of our success is all around if you're willing to actually look.

>Why do kids all around the world play with Spiderman? So we sell children's stories, in a world where technology makes it possible to copy not just any single story, but pretty much all of humanity's stories since time began onto a tiny little plastic doohickey that you can hang on a keychain. And then anyone in the world can also make up a new story with those same characters, or draw a picture, or whatever... That…

Those three examples were a sketch of the picture being missed by the parent comment. We clearly export entertainment on a massive scale, regardless of one's personal judgment of it.

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

#112

Post by didericis »

turtlesdown11 wrote: post #97
didericis wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a rising power (China) backed a country (Russia) which didn’t bow to the dominant power (USA) that enables international trade, and intentionally blowing up international trade agreements now allows the USA more time to rebuild strategic supply chains to counter further violations of the international order. If the USA doesn’t have a secure industrial base and can’t reliably enforce the international order th…

> intentionally blowing up international trade agreements now allows the USA more time to rebuild strategic supply chains to counter further violations of the international order. Sources? >If the USA doesn’t have a secure industrial base and can’t reliably enforce the international order then there is no international trade. The US reliably enforces international order and global trade now. Source where this is an i…

The current international situation as understood by a lot of people in republican circles is outline in detail here:

https://youtu.be/vDBZeHhx3YE

> The US reliably enforces international order and global trade now

Yes, which is why many believe now is the time to revamp our industrial capacity while we still have strategic dominance.

The war in Ukraine has illustrated the importance of mass drone production, and we currently lack a lot of the direct capacity to make them. A lot of our military supply chains are also based too heavily on components assembled and manufactured in China and in parts of east Asia that could easily be disrupted and cripple our ability to project power and play the role we currently play.

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

#113

Post by Teever »

jajko wrote: post #95
Teever wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why everyone on HN is so enamored with beautiful looking Apple hardware but doesn't understand that this stuff is made by people and machines that are also made by people. At the end of the day if you want quality products and innovation you need to pay for it. Outsourcing this ability to other countries saves you money up front but it costs you the institutional knowledge to do it at home and all…

Because nobody would buy 3000$ apple products and we wouldn't be even discussing them. Apple got premium price, but not because they manufacture in US, they just have much higher profit margins, hence the valuation of company.Every buyer approved this with their wallets, knowingly or not

People do buy $3000 Apple products. You're going to be more specific and talk about price difference as a percent not an absolute value to make your point.

But let's be charitable and assume that you're saying that the price of Apple products will double if the cases are machines in America -- I don't think that would be the outcome.

What percent of the cost of an apple product goes to towards the aluminum case? What percent of that cost is the material, what percent of that cost is the milling machine, and what percent is the labour?

It's not foolish to want to maximize manufacturing capacity in America and minimize it in China. If you want to be able to beat China in an armed conflict then manufacturing is what will do it -- not software development.

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

#114

Post by didericis »

jajko wrote: post #106
didericis wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a rising power (China) backed a country (Russia) which didn’t bow to the dominant power (USA) that enables international trade, and intentionally blowing up international trade agreements now allows the USA more time to rebuild strategic supply chains to counter further violations of the international order. If the USA doesn’t have a secure industrial base and can’t reliably enforce the international order th…

That's... not how things will roll out. Sure it looks nice on some paper diagram my 5 year old son could pop out, but reality is way, way more complex. Also, here its US who is doing massive 'violations of international order'. You know which order I talk about? WTO for example, US is founding member, an org specifically designed and accepted to handle this. Various international agreements between close allies. And…

The USA already dictates the direction of much of the world economy through its position in the WTO, and you are correct that the tariffs will cause more independent production. That’s part of the intention. Europe specifically is underproductive and the hope is that these tariffs and the change of tone for defense agreements will bolster Europes domestic industrial and defensive capabilities.

I also realize how incredibly complex modern supply chains are and how disruptive these tariffs are. While it seems clear to me the previous trade situation was unsustainable and going to break down without some sort of change of course, that doesn’t mean I’m in favor of the blanket tariffs or the way this was executed, and I don’t know whether it will work. I’m simply explaining the logic behind it, which is also more complex than just “a bipolar old man stomping left and right”.

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

#115

Post by anon84873628 »

pjc50 wrote: post #86
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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). I know, right? When you go home and sit down on your Oracle database to relax, then go to the kitchen to cook your evening meal in an AWS Lambda, then afterwards relax a little more by changing into some spre…

> No, I believe we're talking about switching our role from consumer in the global economy to producer. What do you think the Chinese could even buy with all the trade deficit cash they're squirreling away, when we don't make anything? Some large chunk of it is buying up stock, real estate, etc. Give them something else to buy. Meanwhile over at the People's Daily, someone starts to type up "Why should we accept the…

It the *right wing* Americans who go bananas calling you a communist. The left by and large wants to implement more social programs to reduce inequality and allow the growth of a middle class in our existing economy. You could probably say this is the crux of the culture war.

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

#116

Post by Teever »

analog31 wrote: post #105
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…

To put a finer point on it: How's basing the US economy on advertising looking? I went to college and eventually got a PhD in physics. I've built specialized machine tools. Yet I'm considered a schmuck because I didn't go into software development, and the software developers are considered schmucks if they didn't go into financial services or advertising. And none of that was about emphasizing college. Becoming a pr…

The west coast is in for a rude awakening when they realize that they can't win a war against china with code, and they don't have jobs because they don't have chips to run their advertising code on anymore because China took Taiwan.

Manufacturing is what builds up strong economies and it's what saves lives by preventing wars as long as possible and minimizes casualties on your side in war by fielding troops with more/better equipment.

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

#117

Post by analog31 »

Teever wrote: post #116
analog31 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put a finer point on it: How's basing the US economy on advertising looking? I went to college and eventually got a PhD in physics. I've built specialized machine tools. Yet I'm considered a schmuck because I didn't go into software development, and the software developers are considered schmucks if they didn't go into financial services or advertising. And none of that was about emphasizing college. Becoming a pr…

The west coast is in for a rude awakening when they realize that they can't win a war against china with code, and they don't have jobs because they don't have chips to run their advertising code on anymore because China took Taiwan. Manufacturing is what builds up strong economies and it's what saves lives by preventing wars as long as possible and minimizes casualties on your side in war by fielding troops with mor…

Hard to imagine rebuilding a manufacturing economy while your scientists are fleeing the country.

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

#118

Post by anon84873628 »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #76
yojo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 job…

>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). I know, right? When you go home and sit down on your Oracle database to relax, then go to the kitchen to cook your evening meal in an AWS Lambda, then afterwards relax a little more by changing into some spre…

We can definitely do better than where we're at. But I'm not sure working in factories is so much better. I wonder whether people will like having things like steel furnaces and injection molders in their towns. Exporting the dirty, smelly, dangerous stuff to elsewhere is one of the most devious tricks we played.

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

#119

Post by rich_sasha »

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…

> It will be automated with a fifth or less required to setup and maintain.

It is genuinely a hard problem. Even 50 years ago or so, simply having two hands and reasonable health was a gateway to a decent-paying job. These jobs have kind of evaporated, and aren't going back. That's a bit part of the nostalgia for manufacturing, I would imagine.

In an ideal world, you would ramp up free education, churn out more skilled labour. But for many reasons, this isn't happening and isn't likely to happen soon. So what should societies do with all this "unskilled surplus labour"?

UK has sort of given up, and since 1970s whole regions of England rely heavily on continued social transfers. I.e. the bankers and the oil rigs pay for the budget, the budget pays for former miners. But that's increasingly unsustainable, not to mention massively unattractive to everyone involved.

US seems to (maybe?) follow a note darwinian approach. But this is, it seems, also not working. Bringing back manufacturing, as you say, won't fix it either. It feels like there is a whole class of people without access to good jobs or education to reskill.

Other than spending a lot of money on this, like Switzerland, I don't really know how to fix it, it is genuinely a hard problem in a liberal country. Would be keen to hear suggestions.

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

#120

Post by antisthenes »

arcbyte wrote: post #96
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…

There are an enormous number of people who would love to make $50k working a lathe in the US. Enormous amounts of them. But they can't. They're working at Walmart making minimum wage.

No one will take the risk of educating them to work the lathe.

Working the lathe is probably not any easier to learn than "vibe coding" or generic office work like customer support or data entry.

The unspoken problem is that it's enormously expensive to re-educate adults to do something different. Adults just have worse brain plasticity and don't pick things up as quickly as younger workers. Some just refuse to learn thanks to the pervasive culture of ignorance that permeates USA.

And adults cost more as well (even just the basics such as food, which children eat less of) and if they have aging parents or kids, have additional responsibilities that distract them from learning.

No one is taking this risk on and why should they? If I was starting a company, and you suggested to me that I should indiscriminately hire minimum wage workers to work in a machining workshop, but first I have to educate them about machining from scratch, you'd be (rightfully) laughed out of the room, because you're dooming this business to failure.

Once you break that link (e.g. skip a generation of a profession), it's incredibly hard to bring that back. It's like losing institutional knowledge, because your genius employee was hit by a bus, or moved countries.

Post reply on HN