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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)

#301

Post by rtkwe »

Teever wrote: post #201
XorNot wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

My comment was regarding the manufacturing of the aluminum cases of Apple products, not the manufacturing of the entire device.

The cases are probably the easiest parts to potentially remake in America, that's mostly machining that can be automated pretty easily we know how to run CNC in the US still, but it's only a tiny part of the picture. What about the rest of the phone in particular assembly? the massive chip and display manufacturing?

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

#302

Post by snowwrestler »

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 U.S. already manufactures warships, though, and we’re already by far the best at it. Not only do we already protect our economy, we protect pretty much all shipping on the high seas by all economies on the globe.

The John F Kennedy—built in the U.S.!—is in sea trials this year to become the 12th nuclear aircraft carrier in the U.S. fleet. No other nation has more than two carriers. The U.S. has more aircraft carriers operating as museums than other nations have in military service.

What about subs? Again, the U.S. has more than anyone else and Australia just cancelled a deal with France in order to buy subs built in the U.S. We build the best in the world.

I belabor this to make a point: a lot of what people think we need to do… we already have. Our nation and our economy is already the most secure on Earth. We are already the best in the world at making weapons. That never got outsourced, so we don’t need to dramatically reconfigure our economy to bring it back.

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

#303

Post by alfiedotwtf »

banannaise wrote: post #293
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.

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.

Speaking of the great Tankian, “… breaking into Fort Knox“

Interesting that Trump, Elon, and DOGE haven’t mentioned Fort Knox yet

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

#304

Post by markus_zhang »

UncleMeat wrote: post #252
markus_zhang wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What? I said nothing about murder.

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

#305

Post by arrosenberg »

mmooss wrote: post #266
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…

> historically very popular When? Not for a long time. Slavery and witchcraft were historically very popular ... > when you buy stuff you're losing wealth That's a incredible failure of understanding. I can't believe that's the basis of mercantilism. Why would anyone buy something? If you buy a house for $100,000, your wealth remains the same - you replace $100,000 in cash with a $100,000 house (ignoring complexities…

You are thinking about it as an individual instead of as a state. If you put yourself in the position of Louis XVI as the King of France, it makes more sense.

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

#306

Post by WalterBright »

bitmasher9 wrote: post #223
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…

It is really effective at increasing the amount of gold in your vault, but The Wealth of Nations (Admin Smith) made a strong case against that primary goal. Crucially for the HackerNews crowd, Mercantilism increases the value of physical goods relative to services, and services becomes a smaller portion of the overall economy. Most of us sell server-time wrapped in software that performs a service…

Gold isn't really wealth any more than paper money is. Consider Spain, which looted S America of gold and silver. How did that work out for Spain? Spain had lots of inflation as a result, and didn't get any wealthier.

The same thing happened with both the California and Yukon gold rushes.

The same thing happens when the government prints lots of money.

What creates wealth? People creating goods and services that people want to buy. Things like making planes, trains, and automobiles. Making hamburgers. Making search engines. And so.

P.S. I always laugh at Jackson's Smaug who has a hoard of gold amped up to 11^11. It was so large it was beyond absurd. If even a portion of it was dumped into the Middle Earth economy, it would promptly become worthless.

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

#307

Post by user3456 »

people that say it doesn't matter should look at the graphs in that article - at that point 20 years ago the 3 other competing nations in this where all (broadly speaking) allies, totally different than a potential adversary holding a near monopoly on essential tools.

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

#308

Post by mindslight »

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #303
banannaise wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Speaking of the great Tankian, “… breaking into Fort Knox“ Interesting that Trump, Elon, and DOGE haven’t mentioned Fort Knox yet

They've got to finish their one-for-you-two-for-me "audit". But don't worry I'm sure we'll be hearing any day now how JOEBIDEN was simultaneously sleepy and also a mastermind that stole all the gold, and how they now need to purchase a bunch of shitcoins to replace it.

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

#309

Post by tastyfreeze »

mmooss wrote: post #282
blululu wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 Yes you can. People have a moral obligation to help others, including when they have to sacrifice, and they do it all the time. People make sacrifices all the time for the greater good. In fact, many of the extreme self-interest capitalist…

No country has any moral obligation to help any other country. It is anarchy between nations. Every government does have an obligation to its own people. If China didn't take care of their own needs before other nation's they wouldn't be a very successful government.

The only logical way forward is to ensure that your own nation is taking care of its own needs before helping others.

I have always found it interesting that if everybody focused on improving their own conditions first then helped others locally the world would be objectively better for everybody. The better you make the lives of those around you the more you can expand the reach of your goodness.

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

#310

Post by klooney »

snowwrestler wrote: post #302
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 U.S. already manufactures warships, though, and we’re already by far the best at it. Not only do we already protect our economy, we protect pretty much all shipping on the high seas by all economies on the globe. The John F Kennedy—built in the U.S.!—is in sea trials this year to become the 12th nuclear aircraft carrier in the U.S. fleet. No other nation has more than two carriers. The U.S. has more aircraft carr…

> The U.S. already manufactures warships, though, and we’re already by far the best at it.

We very slowly build a small number of incredibly expensive ships. For any other value of "manufacturers warships", Korea or Italy are better and more reliable.

Also, it's not clear if aircraft carriers are survivable in a vaguely peer context. Missiles and drones have come a long way.

> Australia just cancelled a deal with France in order to buy subs built in the U.S. We build the best in the world

We won't be sending them because we can't build them because our defense shipbuilding industry is moribund, and there is no civilian shipbuilding industry to do double duty.

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