I thought, that a large percentage if not the majority of US 'manufactoring' is actually agriculture.
US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent
81–90 of 100 posts
Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent
#82While it is true that North America still manufactures great quantities of luxury and high tech stuff, that isn't what is pissing off the populists. They couldn't care less if our manufacturing doubled in terms of dollars of output. What they really want is a return to the highly paid, unionized, tradesperson. To them robots making Chevy trucks matters just as much to their lives as nerds writing software. As product…
In many cases overseas manual labor is cheaper than automation in the US. When people outsource intermediate parts this looks like an increase in productivity because fewer people in the US used to make the same product for less money. However, if you look at the total man hours to produce a given product it may have significantly increased.
http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2006/12/american_manu...
Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is health insurance which only pays for 1970's era medical care really that expensive today? Or did you mean to say that a financial product which pays for an MRI/viagra/chemotherapy today is more expensive than a financial product which paid for X-Rays/dying of cancer at home in the past? Incidentally, I can only find data going back to 1987, but it suggests little change the number of uninsured since then. http://w…
I made the exact same argument as you elsewhere on this thread :-) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2187130 The problem is that health insurance isn't continuously divisible. You typically can't buy a policy that will cover only 1970s-era medical treatments. Even if you could, it brings up a host of ethical issues that many doctors wouldn't be comfortable with. Say a kid gets strep throat. Okay, give him penicilli…
It is true - the specific composition of illiquid financial derivatives varies wildly from year to year.
But lets address the question from a different angle. I can't find data going back to 1970, but since 1987, the number of people without insurance has been flat at about 15%.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/p60-236.pdf
Since the same number of people can afford insurance, but quality has clearly gone up, doesn't that mean insurance is now more affordable?
Though I suppose the composition of that 15% might have changed. Maybe it's more retail clerks, but fewer janitors?
Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends on the trade, of course. But tradesmen work on different projects, travel to different areas, work with a range of skills. I guess what I'm trying to say is that tradesmen != manufacturing plant worker. I have a relative with a manufacturing plant. Their strategy is to try and out-niche the chinese. Their chinese competitors can dump finishing product onto the market cheaper than they can buy the raw material…
It's not just about low-cost foreign labor. Chinese staionary energy is dirt cheap (burning dirty subsidized coal doesn't cost a lot) which might be 20% of the cost. And the land might have been free, if the investor had good connections. Oh, and they might have cheap loans. The costs are raw materials, energy, capital, and labor. Labor isn't the only factor. But people accept the $1/hour = 20X cheaper myth, and buy…
Well, it's actually closer to 20x cheaper for 1/2 the quality - hence why so much is made there. Being I manufacturing, we see both the move back to the US due to rising wages, shipping and materials costs, but many things (toy painting) are very much still an outsourcing game.
Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent
#85While it is true that North America still manufactures great quantities of luxury and high tech stuff, that isn't what is pissing off the populists. They couldn't care less if our manufacturing doubled in terms of dollars of output. What they really want is a return to the highly paid, unionized, tradesperson. To them robots making Chevy trucks matters just as much to their lives as nerds writing software. As product…
Maybe this sounds slightly kooky, but... I believe there is no 'solution' to their plight. The timeline until singularity is too short for a complete retooling of the economy. However the pace of development at the higher end is fast enough and explosive enough that we can afford to keep on subsidizing the lower classes with bread and circuses until we reach sentient AI, at which point we will be able to provide ever…
This post may be a little over the top, but if you dont think manufacturing is going the way of agriculture (standard processes & very thin margins), you're not near progressive manufacturing... 3D printing (for direct manufacturing) already approaches the cost of materials, and will be far cheaper when materials patents expire and margins get razor thin on production.
Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe this sounds slightly kooky, but... I believe there is no 'solution' to their plight. The timeline until singularity is too short for a complete retooling of the economy. However the pace of development at the higher end is fast enough and explosive enough that we can afford to keep on subsidizing the lower classes with bread and circuses until we reach sentient AI, at which point we will be able to provide ever…
That really does sound awfully like the kind of hyperbole more associated with the nuttier Christian sects rather than technologists. As Ken MacLeod put it "the Rapture for nerds".
Haha - if you're going to have a "faith" - having it in humanity's ingenuity to make amazing things is still a good bet.
Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent
#87I think it's great Americans have a healthy fear of the Chinese. Keeps them from resting on their laurels.
Why can't they have a healthy respect for them instead? One nation's people fearing another rarely leads to good things.
Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
It depends on the economy, Australian tradespeople make the same if not more than good coders right now. We're growing so fast the demand for those skills is high and shows no signs of dropping off.
I spent most of highschool being told that if I didn't study sooper dooper hard, then I would not go to university. I would be doomed to be ... (horror film scream) ... a tradie!! Well gosh, I worked hard and got into a good uni. I became depressed (for reasons unrelated to my studies) and gave it away for a few years, but now that I have the degree and job I earn about as much as a 4th-year apprentice can down at th…
UK too. After 3 years at University and 10 years building a career in IT, I have friends who make more laying carpets and other flooring for office blocks. A kid I know went straight into retail banking at 16 (so 2 years earlier than I left school) and, 2 years later, I'm fairly sure is making more than I made with another 5 years of education on him and with no sign of that growth curve slowing.
Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
It depends on the economy, Australian tradespeople make the same if not more than good coders right now. We're growing so fast the demand for those skills is high and shows no signs of dropping off.
Depends on the trade, of course. But tradesmen work on different projects, travel to different areas, work with a range of skills. I guess what I'm trying to say is that tradesmen != manufacturing plant worker. I have a relative with a manufacturing plant. Their strategy is to try and out-niche the chinese. Their chinese competitors can dump finishing product onto the market cheaper than they can buy the raw material…
And yet I regularly hear of people on-shoring manufacturing again, after many years of having to do very intensive spot-checking of the manufactured goods to ensure they were being built to the agreed spec and not having cheaper components used instead, or having too many supply chain issues leading to unreliable, late delivery.
It still appears (to a non-expert, anyway) that there is a root issue with the Renminbi being pegged below its natural exchange rate to artificially depress their export prices, which seems to be coming close to creating a situation much like that which triggered the Opium Wars when China was known as the 'silver grave' of the world. But then, most have their inbuilt distortions. China - the pegged currency. Europe - the Common Agricultural Policy. USA - Prison labour.
Re: US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent
#90Small companies create jobs within America.
Big companies create jobs in China/India.
Hence Govt must break big companies into smaller companies.