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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)

#291

Post by CapricornNoble »

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.

People thought that international trade would prevent war before WW1[1]. The concept doesn't really account for how political leaders often care about things other than money, business, or the material welfare of their plebs.

[1] https://bigthink.com/the-past/world-war-one-illusion/

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

#292

Post by toomuchtodo »

consumer451 wrote: post #259
toomuchtodo wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/02/germany-depend...

> The relationship would benefit both sides: Germany would supply the machines and high-quality industrial goods; Russia would provide the raw material to fuel German industry. High-pressure pipelines and their supporting infrastructure hold the potential to bind countries together, since they require trust, cooperation and mutual dependence. But this was not just a commercial deal, as the presence at the hotel of the German economic minister Karl Schiller showed. For the advocates of Ostpolitik – the new “eastern policy” of rapprochement towards the Soviet Union and its allies including East Germany, launched the previous year under chancellor Willy Brandt – this was a moment of supreme political consequence. Schiller, an economist by training, was to describe it as part of an effort at “political and human normalisation with our Eastern neighbours”.

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

#293

Post by banannaise »

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.

To quote the philosopher Tankian:

"Why don't presidents fight the war? Why do they always send the poor?"

Those in power right now have no personal disincentive to real kinetic war. It doesn't affect them personally, or so they think up until the moment it does.

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

#294

Post by mmooss »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #172
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…

It's a revolutionary economic argument that specialization doesn't apply to countries, and you omitted organized groups of individuals called 'companies'. Economic structures are far larger and deeper than individuals (or companies).

> a country the size of the US could certainly contain someone who knows how to do any given thing.

Ore may be much cheaper to mine in another country - maybe because of geology or weather or because they have a great tradition of mining including more local skills, or because their economy is better structured for it - financiers with expertise in financing it, laws and regulations that are better designed (because of greater local knowledge).

Those things actually happen.

And don't think such specializations are transferrable; nobody really succeeds in doing that - just try changing one company's culture. Why haven't other Silicon Valleys and Apple Computers been developed, despite so many efforts?

What is the sense of wasting resources on things the country doesn't do well, so some nationalists can ... do what?

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

#295

Post by Tiktaalik »

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…

The USA is already a lot more productive than everyone else. This is because the USA generates an enormous amount of wealth through very few people thanks to its technology and finance industry. Irony is that there's no end to handwringing editorials in Canada about our "productivity gap" between us and the USA and the USA under Trump is wanting to move itself backward and become less productive. Everyone else in the G7 wishes they were as productive as the USA.

The solution to the problem posed here is for the USA to use its incredible wealth deriving from its incredible productivity to buy the warships from Poland etc.

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

#296

Post by mmooss »

hudon wrote: post #278
mmooss wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we just need to become a lot more productive than we are now. To nitpick about terminology: productivity = output / input The US would (and maybe will) become less productive; the US is not as efficient at producing many things as non-U.S. competitors, including ship-building. The US is more productive at other things, such as software. (And in 2025, you certainly would trade ship-building productivity for software…

If the carpenter owns weapons, a lot of my farmland, a lot of shares in my farming business, and my debt… I will learn to build my own crossbow

Unless you have a lot of skill, you are better off buying crossbows from someone who knows how to make them and is good at it. The carpenter will.

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

#297

Post by Animats »

And that's 30 years ago. It's worse now.

The US isn't producing much manufacturing machinery.

Machine tools last a long time, many decades. Replacement of worn-out machine tools does happen, but slowly. Because of this, the market for new machine tools is mostly driven by the growth rate of manufacturing, not the total level of manufacturing activity. If manufacturing is flat or in decline, new machine tool sales become rare. The US does have a big used machine tool market, and much demand is filled from there.

China now makes quite good machine tools. (Plus many crappy ones.) Search Alibaba for "CNC mill". There are decent 3-axis machines below US$20,000, and 5-axis machines below $30,000. Haas, the biggest machine tool builder in the Western world, has almost nothing below $70,000.[1]

As a rule of thumb, 10x the volume cuts manufactured product cost in half. It's hard to come back from being a small volume producer.

[1] https://www.haascnc.com/index.html

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

#298

Post by Izkata »

consumer451 wrote: post #259
toomuchtodo wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

Before WWI there was a similar belief in Europe, that the growing economic interdependence would prevent wars from breaking out. Instead once there was a spark, those relationships kept pulling more and more countries into the conflict and turned it into the "Great War".

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

#299

Post by pizzly »

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.

Its definitely de-globalizing USA's trade but I don't think it will de-globalize the rest of the world's trade. One method for countries to combat US's tariffs is to reduce trade barriers between themselves thus reducing the barriers to sell their goods to other countries instead of US. EU and China just had an initial conversation regarding just this.

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

#300

Post by rtkwe »

fsagx wrote: post #173
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

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!

Have much in the way of sales numbers for that? Smells like a halo product more than a major sales mover.
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