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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

#31

Post by rtkwe »

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…

Going off of the stock Tesla looks incredible but the price is insane and driven by factors other than their actual production outputs. They had a huge lead at the start but the old giants aren't that far behind them any more and aren't hampered by over promised and underspecced self driving claims and the... Muskness of their leadership.

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

#32

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#33

Post by 20after4 »

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

Laws are so easily changed. Nothing is enshrined in law that can be nullified by the next court case or a hidden rider clause on a 'must pass' spending bill.

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

#34

Post by wonder_er »

goodluckchuck wrote: post #25
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.

when two people are playing a game, and one of them is willing to use violence, it's quite a bit harder for the other person to not use violence as well.

The US uses violence and coercion as a matter of fact, continuously, in every way, shape, and form.

If you tried to 'play' with the US from a position of mutuality and co-creation... you get colonized and cleansed and westernized.

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

#35

Post by goodluckchuck »

wonder_er wrote: post #34
goodluckchuck wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

when two people are playing a game, and one of them is willing to use violence, it's quite a bit harder for the other person to not use violence as well. The US uses violence and coercion as a matter of fact, continuously, in every way, shape, and form. If you tried to 'play' with the US from a position of mutuality and co-creation... you get colonized and cleansed and westernized.

Exactly. If England would have left the colonies alone, not imported enslaved people, not attacked when we declared independence, then they wouldn’t have seen violence from us.

Insert list of subsequent wars.

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

#36

Post by kranke155 »

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…

The production of physical goods - physical capitalism - no longer had anywhere to go really when most people employed started having a decent standard of living, so we looked for ways to continue infinite GDP growth and we found it in financialisation. It worked but only by destroying/rotting away everything else.

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

#37

Post by sanxiyn »

joe_the_user wrote: post #14
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…

Yeah, "financialization" is absolutely the answer and the articles' claim of lack institutional integration (or whatever) seems wrong. You can look at how Boeing gutted it's highly skilled Pacific North West operations to move lower skilled, lower paid areas elsewhere and generalize this to a multitude of similar industries.

2001 Boeing paper, Out-Sourced Profits: The Cornerstone of Successful Subcontracting, is a required reading. This article gives a good introduction.

https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/how-tech-loses-out/

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

#38

Post by pphysch »

kranke155 wrote: post #36
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…

The production of physical goods - physical capitalism - no longer had anywhere to go really when most people employed started having a decent standard of living, so we looked for ways to continue infinite GDP growth and we found it in financialisation. It worked but only by destroying/rotting away everything else.

This explanation doesn't quite convince me, because if this really were the primary issue, USA could have globalized its consumer base not just for low quality products and pop culture, but high quality development.

I think the root problem is political: recognizing that USA's extraordinarily successful mid-century economic model was the result of a compromise by the ruling capitalists to avoid facing a European-style revolution (e.g. Bolshevism) at home.

As the Cold War reached its heights in the early 60s, that delicate equilibrium was destroyed, and the capitalists had a new mandate. State regulation, labor unions went from "necessary evil to avoid revolution" to "evil", and the robber barons could return to their early 20th century form. Thus we got the 70s and endless financialization.

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

#40

Post by Taek »

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.

How does this make US manufacturing more competitive?
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