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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)

#391

Post by Thorrez »

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…

Is the article saying we should build everything here? The article says that machine tools drive manufacturing innovation, and machine tool makers sell them close to home. So if the US doesn't make machine tools, the US will fall behind in manufacturing innovation.

The article is saying that the US should desire to have advanced manufacturing. I don't think the article is saying that the US should manufacture everything.

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

#392

Post by czzr »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #19
turtlesdown11 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How’s basing the US economy on services looking now? You mean the worlds strongest, most developed and most successful economy?

We've been coasting on advances made many decades ago. Most developed, sure. Successful? By nearly any metric you can imagine or make up. Strongest? Our economy is eaten hollow by termites. A stiff wind would make it crumble. Worse, there doesn't appear to be any path to true recovery... we can't create the jobs that people need to prosper, but if we could somehow do that we no longer create the people who would grow…

The US is the second largest manufacturer in the world - it's just moved into high end manufacturing. One of the difficult things about the current situation is how confidently wrong people are about the basic facts of the US economy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_St...

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

#393

Post by tgaj »

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…

I think that's a misunderstanding. If you could build the house using only resources that you already have than you would have 100k dollars AND a house. That's the idea of mercantilism. Of course sometimes you just don't have needed resources and than you have to buy something but you should limit it to things you can't obtain in any other way. Mercantilism is one of the reasons of colonialism. If you can take resources from some part of the world that you don't really care about, then you are adding wealth to your own country for basically free.

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

#394

Post by InkCanon »

walterbell wrote: post #12

Andy Grove, "How to Make an American Job" (2010), https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/documents/areas/adm/loeb/11_35... The first task is to rebuild our industrial commons. We should develop a system of financial incentives: Levy an extra tax on the product of offshored labor. (If the result is a trade war, treat it like other wars—fight to win.) Keep that money separate. Deposit it in the coffers of what we might call the…

The second one is so delusional. It assumes you can build a moat for all manufactured products. This is true in extremely specific, high value cases like lithography machines or chips. But when you talk about screws, glue, plastic bits and what makes up 90% of manufacturing, there is no moat. You're not going to build a monopoly on screws.

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

#395

Post by AngryData »

aj7 wrote: post #376
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the equivalent of ~20M people's output if we naively scale Or about 12% of the US labor force. Meanwhile the 12th percentile US income is ~$22,000, i.e. less than the $32k median in China, and half of the jobs there are above that median. Obviously these numbers are all useless napkin math and none of it really works like that, but the premise isn't inherently absurd. If China is subsidizing manufacturing in order…

No one will hire the people you are describing. We had 3.5% unemployment, before Trump began destroying the world economy. People in most fast food restaurants are making $30k. In fact the “entry level workers” and “illegals” were relatively happy. It’s the middle class workers who vary between desperate and enraged, because $45-$65k does not approximate the expectations raised in their childhood. What I’m saying is…

Maybe where you live people making under $30K for even the lowest entry level job is exceedingly rare, but there are still ass tons of people earning below that, especially in rural areas. Half of US states have a median wage under $40K, that leaves a LOT of room for jobs paying below $30K. And no those people are not happy, yeah housing is cheaper, but goods and services are not. Amazon doesn't charge you less for living in Mississippi instead of New York. Many stores that do still exist farther out have higher shelf markups too except for the highest demand bulk products where competition actually exists.

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

#397

Post by AngryData »

tmpz22 wrote: post #32
whatshisface wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way to "solve" this is to reduce US output of valuable goods so that people are attracted to jobs that pay less and make less valuable goods. I don't understand why everyone's so enamored with the prospect of making $50k working a lathe in a world where engineering jobs have been made rarer artificially. It won't even be a job in a factory that makes something cool like rockets or lithography machines, witho…

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The thing is you don't need to run a grueling factory that runs you ragged in the modern day unless you are trying to undercut the poorest economies in the world. People don't want manufacturing back here to try and dominate the world in manufacturing capabilities, they just want some minimal amount of local capacity for it, and for the people that do it to make a decent wage and have basic safety standards. Its not like the US is struggling to barely survive and couldn't afford the cost. But in order to do that and not have it become some grift by the owners from the government there would need to be hard limits on how much owners and investors can extract from it, which is straight up anti-capitalist and of course capitalists are vehemently opposed to any industry or business not operating under capitalist principles, doubly so if it is a state-owned business.

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

#398

Post by lotsofpulp »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #384
mmooss wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should look into real estate investment performance.

Houses depreciate. It's the land that makes you rich. :)

Assuming price of materials and labor remain constant or decreasing.

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

#399

Post by AngryData »

jajko wrote: post #95
Teever wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why everyone on HN is so enamored with beautiful looking Apple hardware but doesn't understand that this stuff is made by people and machines that are also made by people. At the end of the day if you want quality products and innovation you need to pay for it. Outsourcing this ability to other countries saves you money up front but it costs you the institutional knowledge to do it at home and all…

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

My counterpoint would be the thousands of dollars computers people bought 20+ years ago that had not even a fraction of the utility of an iphone. My first computer cost me $2000 and it was obsolete in like 2-3 years. My cell phone that cost $100 that I bought 6 years ago still runs brand new programs fine.

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

#400

Post by munksbeer »

didericis wrote: post #264
munksbeer wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and you are correct that the tariffs will cause more independent production. That’s part of the intention. Europe specifically is underproductive and the hope is that these tariffs and the change of tone for defense agreements will bolster Europes domestic industrial and defensive capabilities. > I’m simply explaining the logic behind it I really disagree most strongly that this is the logic behind it. You genuinel…

The message is absolutely America first, and the motivation to boost the middle class through reindustrialization is a huge factor. The desire to eventually back out of defense commitments in Europe is not in contradiction to that. The political will to commit troops and to defend Ukraine simply isn’t there, especially not while Taiwan is looming. Wanting Europe to reindustrialize and handle it’s own defense allows A…

Ok, I did watch the video. He does make a lot of points which sound plausible to a casual like myself.

I'm still sceptical. It's pretty clear that there is real distaste for Europe in the MAGA sphere. I really find it hard to believe that this is all an act, a ploy, to boost Europe's own economy. Everything I've witnessed about MAGA suggests this type of long range thinking is just a coping wish. I think it's much simpler than that. I think they have a real distaste for Europe, for a variety of reasons.

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