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by slapshot
3323 days ago
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> decrepit and aging industrial base This is such a common canard that seems to lack any foundation. The United States manufacturers more "stuff" than at any point in history, for any reasonable definition of "stuff" (dollar value, inflation-adjusted dollar value, number of items, etc). Employment in manufacturing is way down, in large part because of automation -- for example, high-technology production lines replaced hand-welding with welding robots. By contrast, developing markets tend to employ a lot of people doing manual tasks that would be automated in the United States (or Germany, Japan, etc.). A Foxconn assembly factory is far from high-tech; it's usually a long line of people in matching uniforms using tweezers to put parts together. Sources, among many: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-manufacturing-dead-outpu... |
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It's simply not interesting to me to know we've increased the total dollar amount of production - largely based around extremely large ticket items to the detriment of everything else. This is even without getting into the fact rent-seeking is much more profitable the larger the deals get. A single 737 sold for $50M is not equivalent to $50M spread around 10 small manufacturing suppliers building tens of thousands of devices. I would argue anyone saying otherwise is missing the forest through the trees.
It's in-your-face obvious if you actually try to manufacturer or design/build anything as a small company in the US. The velocity and simple ability to do so is an order of magnitude better in China - where design shops can literally run down the street to have a custom part made for deliver that afternoon. If you are directly competing with anyone from China in such a space - you simply are going to lose. The competitive advantages this gives cannot be overstated - and HN should really understand the network effect here.
Simply put I think manufacturing base is something you either build up, keep, and continue to think is important - or it's something you lose. As you lose that base, you also slowly bleed the design talent that went along with it, as it naturally migrates to where the manufacturing happens. I just don't find it interesting that the US can assemble components made in china into high-margin complex devices. It's simply a matter of time until other economies move up the value chain. And there aren't many places for the US to move even further up - we're already at the top and have completely lost our ability to compete any lower. I would posit this is an extremely dangerous place to be, and if it continues makes the US existing largely at the sufferance of others.