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

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

#151

Post by esafak » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 10:37 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #149

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.

No you wouldn’t. The trades will take your body. I work with field techs who are close to 50 and they tell me their bodies are not going to make it past 50 and not even close to retirement age. Office work is so easy on the body compared to almost any job.

And techies face the prospect of becoming obsolete, with ageism rife.

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

#152

Post by czzr » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 10:39 PM UTC

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #85

pjc50 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "retreat" (in which direction) from the "current situation" (US richest country in the world, as they keep reminding us "Europoors"). What's the US supposed to look like after this purge?

Rich in what, exactly? Inflated stock prices? Inflated home prices? Empty processed-food calories? Are we the richest in recently-built public infrastructure or intellectual property (or both!!)? Maybe we're the richest in collateralized debt obligations? No one in the United States feels rich, when we look around, we don't see wealth or prosperity. We suspect, though we'd feel silly to say it out loud, that if anyon…

America is the richest country in the world. Guess you won’t know how good you have it until you destroy it.

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

#153

Post by dccoolgai » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 10:40 PM UTC

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…

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 indentured servants.

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

#154

Post by drivebyhooting » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 10:41 PM UTC

palmotea wrote: post #138

neuralRiot wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>All you need is a little bit of investment and will. We’re cooked then. To give you some perspective I had some Chinese sales reps visiting my shop, they saw us working on some designs and casually asked about working hours i told them about 40hs/wk they laughed and said “in China engineers work 12hs a day 7 days a week”.

> We’re cooked then. To give you some perspective I had some Chinese sales reps visiting my shop, they saw us working on some designs and casually asked about working hours i told them about 40hs/wk they laughed and said “in China engineers work 12hs a day 7 days a week”. Oh, the fallacy that grinding harder and longer leads to more and better results. Do you think you do your best work when you're exhausted? Also, 9…

Deepseek begs to differ?

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

#155

Post by drivebyhooting » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 10:43 PM UTC

jopsen wrote: post #134

Teever wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If only the US had allies. But I guess it's hard to count on them when you're actively threading invasion! A war with China won't be won with manufacturing. It'll be won by having allies. If it actually comes to pass, you'll probably declined fighting the hot war, and opt for a cold one. But without allies it'll get real cold.

The same allies that buy Russian energy? Yes such strategic masterminds.

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

#156

Post by slicktux » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 10:43 PM UTC

killingtime74 wrote: post #147

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…

It may or may not but the cost is definitely huge and it's already arrived. Would you build a new factory, spend a huge amount of effort marketing, hire workers, incur large debts, if you knew that in three and a half years the presidency may change and it would not be competitive again.

That’s a self fulfilling prophecy…say that is the case. The one thing that won’t change is the jobless and skill less Americans; I understand that the road to hell is paved with good intentions but at this point we can’t help but not ignore the homeless, jobless and skill less problem. Though we can solve it by just creating a UBI, right (sarcasm)?

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

#157

Post by michaelt » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 10:46 PM UTC

DebtDeflation wrote: post #40

tmpz22 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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.

> The US manufactures more today than we ever have in history and it grows every year.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OPHMFG

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

#158

Post by lesuorac » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 10:47 PM UTC

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…

It's an economic theory - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism

The general idea is that when you buy stuff you're losing wealth so if you never buy anything then you never get poorer. Since we constantly dig gold up from the ground we still get richer over time even if nobody buys our stuff.

This is also why its importantly to gain colonies (Greenland/ Canada) or mineral rights from other countries so that the amount of stuff we have increases.

IMO, it's a theory that's missing the forest for the trees but it's historically very popular.

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

#159

Post by XorNot » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 10:47 PM UTC

Teever wrote: post #113

jajko wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The price of Apple products in the US is literally doubling as of today, so we get to test this hypothesis in real time.

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

#160

Post by rainsford » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 10:52 PM UTC

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 awesome, the pay and conditions are generally better and at their best can be incredibly intellectually stimulating. My Dad started out working in an industrial plant but pretty quickly ended up going to college to get a computer science degree because that job sounded way better than what he was doing...and that was way back when those kind of factory jobs were still a reasonable way to make a living.

I can somewhat agree with the Dirty Jobs philosophy that non-college careers can be valuable and the right choice for some people, and the world after all still needs crab fishermen. But it's really easy to slip into overly romanticizing those careers even to the point of suggesting they're better than getting a degree.