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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)

#171

Post by tharne »

umeshunni wrote: post #166
dccoolgai wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, when cheap goods are sourced outside the US "innovation" usually just means "slave labor" or "flouting environmental regulations". Not the case for Europe, etc. but most Americans are better off without competing against slave labor so billionaires can become trillionaires while they lose social security, healthcare, etc. I'll pay an extra 20 percent for well-made things that aren't produced by indentu…

> Unfortunately, when cheap goods are sourced outside the US "innovation" usually just means "slave labor" or "flouting environmental regulations". Eh, China has 20x-ed its GDP per capita in a generation. They're not slaves.

> Eh, China has 20x-ed its GDP per capita in a generation. They're not slaves.

Maybe not according-to-hoyle slaves, but they're not in a great spot either:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/18/foxconn-l...

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

#172

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jmward01 wrote: post #142

I keep seeing people advocating that the idea that we should build everything, and every piece or everything, here is a good one. Why? Is this just an isolationist dream? The reductive, absurd, extreme of this is why don't individual people go out and build all their own stuff like cars and houses. Let's all go out and learn how to mine and refine metal ore so we can get started on building the family sedan! There is…

There are two main reasons that individuals don't build their own houses and cars from scratch.

1) They don't know how.

Specialization is a thing. But this is a thing that applies to individuals rather than nations. You don't need every person to know how to mine ore or hang drywall as long as somebody does. But a country the size of the US could certainly contain someone who knows how to do any given thing.

2) They get paid more to do something else.

This is the argument that you get paid $200,000 to be a doctor and people who mine ore get paid $80,000 so it's better for you to do $2000 more work as a doctor and then pay someone $800 for ore than to put on a miner's hat yourself.

But this is again something that applies to individuals rather than countries. There are people in the US who already get paid less than $80,000, or less than $30,000, or even who are unemployed. It makes no sense to convert doctors into miners but it makes plenty of sense for the people who are currently doing something that pays even less.

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

#173

Post by fsagx »

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

lots of people bought $3000 apple products more than 20 years ago:

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2001/08/24Apple-Offers-Aggres...

more than $5000 in 2025 dollars!

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

#174

Post by squigz »

no_wizard wrote: post #167
slicktux wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a pretty hyperbolic paragraph only to imply that we as a nation would loose out on innovation by doing so; nowhere do we want to isolate as a country. Look at all the jobless Americans in once thriving industrial cities. Generations left without pensions or skills all because we outsource our workers to other countries. That’s one of the many problems that need to be solved and by manufacturing here in the US…

>nowhere do we want to isolate as a country. Look at all the jobless Americans in once thriving industrial cities. Generations left without pensions or skills all because we outsource our workers to other countries. And we didn't pay for re-skilling, re-training, re-education. We didn't give them welfare benefits to hold over while they learned these new things. We did near nothing, and expected these areas simply to…

Even if one were to be very generous and assume that this plan will lead to all jobs that were outsourced coming back, that's really only half the problem - technological progress is always going to displace some jobs. Without everything you mentioned, those whose jobs simply do not exist anymore are out of luck... and also now everything is more expensive because of tariffs

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

#175

Post by Loughla »

hudon wrote: post #161
jmward01 wrote: post #142

I keep seeing people advocating that the idea that we should build everything, and every piece or everything, here is a good one. Why? Is this just an isolationist dream? The reductive, absurd, extreme of this is why don't individual people go out and build all their own stuff like cars and houses. Let's all go out and learn how to mine and refine metal ore so we can get started on building the family sedan! There is…

the gist is: When you can manufacture ships, you can also manufacture warships. When you can manufacture warships, you can protect your economy. or: If all you sell are financial services, and a pandemic hits and you need to protect your people, where will you find masks? We don't need to build literally everything ourselves, that's a reductionist argument, we just need to become a lot more productive than we are now…

Isn't it better just to own the debt of other countries?

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

#176

Post by squigz »

hudon wrote: post #161
jmward01 wrote: post #142

I keep seeing people advocating that the idea that we should build everything, and every piece or everything, here is a good one. Why? Is this just an isolationist dream? The reductive, absurd, extreme of this is why don't individual people go out and build all their own stuff like cars and houses. Let's all go out and learn how to mine and refine metal ore so we can get started on building the family sedan! There is…

the gist is: When you can manufacture ships, you can also manufacture warships. When you can manufacture warships, you can protect your economy. or: If all you sell are financial services, and a pandemic hits and you need to protect your people, where will you find masks? We don't need to build literally everything ourselves, that's a reductionist argument, we just need to become a lot more productive than we are now…

Was mask manufacturing capacity during the pandemic an issue?

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

#177

Post by tharne »

xienze wrote: post #162
jmward01 wrote: post #142

I keep seeing people advocating that the idea that we should build everything, and every piece or everything, here is a good one. Why? Is this just an isolationist dream? The reductive, absurd, extreme of this is why don't individual people go out and build all their own stuff like cars and houses. Let's all go out and learn how to mine and refine metal ore so we can get started on building the family sedan! There is…

> I keep seeing people advocating that the idea that we should build everything, and every piece or everything, here is a good one. “Everything” may be a bit extreme, but seriously, have you already forgotten the lessons learned during the Covid supply shocks? It’s important to be at least somewhat self-reliant as a nation, especially when the country we are VERY reliant on is not a friendly one.

> “Everything” may be a bit extreme, but seriously, have you already forgotten the lessons learned during the Covid supply shocks?

I don't why the mainstream media isn't focusing more on this angle. Five years ago the richest, most powerful, country in the world couldn't get basic medical supplies to its citizens during a public health crisis. That should have terrified us into making major policy changes, but instead everyone just seems to have shrugged it off and gone back to business as usual.

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

#178

Post by no_wizard »

absolutelastone wrote: post #101
ty6853 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economic picture of what will happen is instead of being an American engineer designing widgets made in China, some fraction of you are now decimated to be an American widget maker of items engineered in China. Tarriff is essentially just a handicap to comparitive advantage in trade, trading out jobs where you had the advantage. It is one of the most baffling thing I have seen our government do in our lifetime.

I don't know that the prior situation was sustainable and would have lasted much longer anyway. Using China for manufacturing is like using Amazon for sales. You are required to give them everything they need to take your business away.

>I don't know that the prior situation was sustainable and would have lasted much longer anyway. Using China for manufacturing is like using Amazon for sales. You are required to give them everything they need to take your business away.

So why the broad spectrum tariffs? Why are we blowing up our trade relationships with Canada, the EU, UK, Mexico, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and many many other countries who have been good, honest trade partners?

This isn't about China's sins in economic dealings. If it was, the tariffs would only target China and there is an explicit case to be made that indeed, we should be putting tariffs on Chinese made goods, the same pattern may hold true for India as well FWIW.

But our other trading partners have been very good to the American economy, and we blew that up overnight.

We left a vacuum for another economic force to fill now. All the nations we put tariffs on, not only will the tariff US made goods, they're now overnight going to be looking for a place to transact hundreds of billions worth of units, and China can now offer sweetheart deals to absorb that trade, and that weakens the US (and as consequence, western) alliances.

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

#179

Post by AnthonyMouse »

rainsford wrote: post #160
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…

> Because the US has emphasized college as the only respectable education path, as well as the only path to well paid jobs. There's this idea that the shift to college and white collar jobs was some artificial push, but it seems more like an incredibly natural and obvious move to me. A lot of blue collar work is just not super great from a working conditions and pay perspective and while not every white collar job is…

The flaw is in putting these things out as alternatives to each other.

The future of manufacturing is in automation, but in order to do automation you need machinists and computer science. You need people who can design a machine that makes other machines, which is a physical device that operates under the direction of software.

Getting people to learn to code instead of learning how to build machines doesn't get it.

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

#180

Post by anarticle »

Loughla wrote: post #175
hudon wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the gist is: When you can manufacture ships, you can also manufacture warships. When you can manufacture warships, you can protect your economy. or: If all you sell are financial services, and a pandemic hits and you need to protect your people, where will you find masks? We don't need to build literally everything ourselves, that's a reductionist argument, we just need to become a lot more productive than we are now…

Isn't it better just to own the debt of other countries?

Only if you can enforce it when there is a default. The odds against which was assumed to be zero is becoming nonzero.
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