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America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

americanaffairsjournal.org

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Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#21

Post by Slava_Propanei »

avs733 wrote: post #18
bell-cot wrote: post #17

Obvious Solution: Re-establish the military draft, but with a far smaller pool of potential draftees - and make sure the families of current & recent members of Congress, Wall Street big-shots, Fortune 500 CxO's, McKinsey consultants, and such are all assigned to serve in front-line "meat shield" battalions on the western shores of Taiwan, just south of Korea's DMZ, etc.

Or maybe just treat blue collar workers better? And enshrine such treatment into law so this doesn’t happen again. That would seem to be simpler

[dead]

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#22

Post by jwells89 »

Animats wrote: post #12

Note the absence of tax policy changes that favor manufacturing. Here are a few: * A tax on financial transactions. This is sometimes called a "Tobin tax". The US financial services sector has doubled in size as a fraction of the economy. It's currently around 12%. That's an overhead cost, and a big one. Could be half that. * A tax on advertising. The tax deductiblity of advertising as a business expense should be li…

Big agree on UL certification of electronics imports. So much dangerous stuff is coming in and getting sold in places like gas stations where customers probably won’t suspect safety issues.

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#23

Post by nibab »

mdorazio wrote: post #6

Here are the key points the article suggests (it spends quite a long time explaining how we got here): 1) Improve the [government sponsored] Manufacturing Institutes 2) [federally] Back R&D for manufacturing technologies 3) Provide scale-up financing [by the government] 4) Use government procurement power to promote new manufacturing technologies 5) Direct production support [to sectors deemed critical] 6) Provide bo…

“Which company is private investment going to fund - the SaaS co. with 40% margins and rapid growth or the manufacturing co. scraping 10% margins and 5% CAGR?”

2 of the most valuable companies started in the last 20 years in the US are SpaceX and Tesla. You can still build a huge amount of value with non-SaaS margins.

I think part of the problem here is how structurally unfit VCs are to fund such companies (ie investment horizon and fund lifecycle is 5-7 yrs). THat’s where scale-up financing by the government can make a huge impact.

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#24

Post by wonder_er »

"America" is so hideously crippled by the heavy duty ethnic cleansing and regimes of social control baked into land use laws and transportation/mobility networks that 'advanced' problems are not even eligible to be solved.

Sorta a 'do not pass go, do not collect $200, until {x} is solved' situation.

If a city still has parking minimums on the books, I evaluate all involved parties as utterly unserious, pseudo-scientific religious zealots.

Do you think the American south, in the era of chattel slavery, could solve 'advanced manufacturing problems'? NO! of course not! So why does anyone think 'america' could solve an advanced problem?

Meh. I shouldn't be surprised by the article, though. The authors probably think the USA isn't a backwater country that is 'on top' only via a willingness to use economic and actual violence to achieve all aims.

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#25

Post by goodluckchuck »

wonder_er wrote: post #24

"America" is so hideously crippled by the heavy duty ethnic cleansing and regimes of social control baked into land use laws and transportation/mobility networks that 'advanced' problems are not even eligible to be solved. Sorta a 'do not pass go, do not collect $200, until {x} is solved' situation. If a city still has parking minimums on the books, I evaluate all involved parties as utterly unserious, pseudo-scienti…

You say willingness as if the rest of the world didn’t try to use violence first, and lost.

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#26

Post by [deleted] »

mdorazio wrote: post #6

Here are the key points the article suggests (it spends quite a long time explaining how we got here): 1) Improve the [government sponsored] Manufacturing Institutes 2) [federally] Back R&D for manufacturing technologies 3) Provide scale-up financing [by the government] 4) Use government procurement power to promote new manufacturing technologies 5) Direct production support [to sectors deemed critical] 6) Provide bo…

[deleted]

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#27

Post by wavefunction »

ccooffee wrote: post #11
mschuster91 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the second point, the elephant in the room is that smart people in the US can make 2-3X as much in software or finance as they can in manufacturing, so what do you think they're going to pick? Make unions stronger and kill off all of Wall Street finance shenanigans that's purely devoted to creating money out of thin air or skimming (especially HFT). That house of cards is going to crash hard anyway, so best tear…

"We've gotta destroy the economy to prevent the economy destroying itself!" isn't a rallying cry that is likely to garner much support. Do you have any favored proposals for preventing "finance shenanigans"? Given the amount of money involved, I expect any government-driven reformation will be corrupted to serve private interests.

The economy of Wall Streeters is divorced from many natural economies these days. Perhaps they have already rendered their desires irrelevant and countervailing to mine and those of others.

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#28

Post by flybrand »

version_five wrote: post #5
mensetmanusman wrote: post #4

I work in one of the last remaining large industrial manufacturing labs in the US. Some of my colleagues worked at Bell before that was shuttered. My sense from talking to the previous generation is that financialization of the US has started (finally) failing the American people. The previous generation cashed in on major profits by off shoring (Kodak), but we overdid it. In a round about way our company is run by p…

I work on projects that would get 8-9 figure investments if we were doing this in APEC Are the apac equivalents of those projects generating returns commensurate with the extra investment? Or is it a strategic choice that they typically focus more on advanced manufacturing while the US focuses more on software? I'm just wondering what the right way to think about this is.

Both. They get high returns and there is high social benefit.

Because the US thinks of industry as ‘dirty’ we’ve lost touch with how valuable these jobs can be. In the US the returns would have longer duration and would not be viewed as ‘important’ bc the business isn’t suitable for a FANG exit.

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#29

Post by flybrand »

nibab wrote: post #23
mdorazio wrote: post #6

Here are the key points the article suggests (it spends quite a long time explaining how we got here): 1) Improve the [government sponsored] Manufacturing Institutes 2) [federally] Back R&D for manufacturing technologies 3) Provide scale-up financing [by the government] 4) Use government procurement power to promote new manufacturing technologies 5) Direct production support [to sectors deemed critical] 6) Provide bo…

“Which company is private investment going to fund - the SaaS co. with 40% margins and rapid growth or the manufacturing co. scraping 10% margins and 5% CAGR?” 2 of the most valuable companies started in the last 20 years in the US are SpaceX and Tesla. You can still build a huge amount of value with non-SaaS margins. I think part of the problem here is how structurally unfit VCs are to fund such companies (ie invest…

Yes!

I oversee a portfolio of industrial products that no VC would touch. Now, some long view PE groups do things like this - the margins can be great, growth can be fast.

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#30

Post by [deleted] »

lemonwaterlime wrote: post #2

The key topics missing from this article are management and culture. Manufacturing companies by and large are stubborn with outdated practices that haven’t kept up with the times. The number of mechanical engineers who switched to web development, for instance, because of poor pay and improper management is insane. And during the pandemic, even more either fled or were pushed out from lack of opportunity. It’s easy t…

[deleted]
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