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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)

#251

Post by gedy »

slg wrote: post #230
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…

>the gist is: When you can manufacture ships, you can also manufacture warships. When you can manufacture warships, you can protect your economy. The counter to this thinking is that if you intertwine your economic wellbeing with your "enemy" to the point that neither side wants to sever the relationship, you won't need to build many warships. Reversing course back towards isolation in order to give yourself the opti…

But China is and has been producing warships at a rapid pace for some time.

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

#252

Post by UncleMeat »

markus_zhang wrote: post #36
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Is this a threat? To mass murder government bureaucrats?

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

#253

Post by [deleted] »

potato3732842 wrote: post #55
ryandrake wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 e…

Those were not middle class jobs before the 1950s nor were they for long afterwards. The idea that one can be functionally illiterate yet afford a home, a car and a family by spending 40hr and no more riveting spring hangers onto Chevrolets, or whatever, is a legacy from a blip in time during which the US had a bear monopoly on state of the art for the time manufacturing. Those men who worked comparable factory jobs…

[deleted]

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

#254

Post by consumer451 »

lesuorac wrote: post #158
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…

My main concern is that de-globalizing trade will remove a large barrier for real kinetic war. Bombing your economic partner is generally a dumb move, and that has been pretty nice for humanity in the last ~50 years.

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

#255

Post by knubie »

slg wrote: post #230
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…

>the gist is: When you can manufacture ships, you can also manufacture warships. When you can manufacture warships, you can protect your economy. The counter to this thinking is that if you intertwine your economic wellbeing with your "enemy" to the point that neither side wants to sever the relationship, you won't need to build many warships. Reversing course back towards isolation in order to give yourself the opti…

> The counter to this thinking is that if you intertwine your economic wellbeing with your "enemy" to the point that neither side wants to sever the relationship

You mean like how Europe has made themselves completely dependent on Russia for energy? How's that working out?

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

#256

Post by blululu »

slg wrote: post #230
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…

>the gist is: When you can manufacture ships, you can also manufacture warships. When you can manufacture warships, you can protect your economy. The counter to this thinking is that if you intertwine your economic wellbeing with your "enemy" to the point that neither side wants to sever the relationship, you won't need to build many warships. Reversing course back towards isolation in order to give yourself the opti…

In 2020 during the largest public health crisis in a century, non-woven respiratory masks were found to be an effective intervention. The country that manufactured 90% of the world's respiratory masks took care of itself first and foremost at the expense of all other countries. You can't blame them for doing so, but you can avoid this scenario repeating itself in the future.

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

#257

Post by toomuchtodo »

consumer451 wrote: post #254
lesuorac wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My main concern is that de-globalizing trade will remove a large barrier for real kinetic war. Bombing your economic partner is generally a dumb move, and that has been pretty nice for humanity in the last ~50 years.

This is a fair take, but also consider that Germany attempted to use purchasing fossil gas from Russia to prevent aggression, and it did not.

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

#258

Post by amluto »

Aloisius wrote: post #208
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…

We manufacture more today than at any time in history. We just do it with a whole lot fewer people. Have jobs been lost to outsourcing? Sure. But far more jobs have been lost to automation and the elimination of obsolete industries. While companies might have avoided investing in automation through the use of cheap labor in other countries, there is little doubt that will change if they re-shore.

Counterpoint: as far as I know, 30 years ago, a small US company could invent a consumer good and credibly manufacture it here in small to moderate quantities. Today, not so much. If you want an economical contract manufacturer to help you manufacture your product using modern tooling and access to the engineers who know how to set up those tools, as far as I know, you mostly need to look outside the US.

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

#259

Post by consumer451 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #257
consumer451 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main concern is that de-globalizing trade will remove a large barrier for real kinetic war. Bombing your economic partner is generally a dumb move, and that has been pretty nice for humanity in the last ~50 years.

This is a fair take, but also consider that Germany attempted to use purchasing fossil gas from Russia to prevent aggression, and it did not.

That's an extremely good point, which hits really close to home.

I wonder if Putin would have still invaded Ukraine, knowing the extent of sanctions that would hit them. He might have been lulled into thinking that the EU would not care, given the existence of people like Gerhard Schröder and his ilk.

edit: I am not sure that the reason for the Russian-German energy alliance was an attempt at pacification. It seems more likely to me that it was simply in the economic interest of Germany. Countries which are East of Germany certainly complained about it, for strategic reasons.

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

#260

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #109
sleepyguy wrote: post #20

The problem is cost. We used to buy tooling for Acme Multi-Spindle Screw Machines but the Chinese could produce it for a fraction of the cost. You would have the first set made locally, then send the drawings to China, and pay less than the material cost to have them shipped to your door. In competitive markets, customers hammer you for every penny on a machined item that costs 0.12. These days not many Screw machine…

Forget about the entire iPhone. The USA cannot manufacture radios. I'm not joking. All fundamental communication technology (for consumers) is not made here.

I think Texas Instruments is still capable of manufacturing radios, if it comes down to that.
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