MANUFACTURING THE NEWS: Why We Don't Have Armor

The Question Fairy ^ | 12/09/04 | Becki Snow

[bray]

Has the "reporter" been fired yet?? This is a complete outrage!! The questions were supposed to be from the troops not the hostile press!

Pray for W and Our Troops

[LibertyRocks]

I definitely agree with your statement the Geopolitics should trump Free Trade... As long as the labor force is controlled by a government agency it's not really "Free Trade".

I'm not the right person to get into an in-depth discussion on all the factors involved. I'm not educated enough in this area to understand all the details.

What I do know is that there is also something going on where parts made in the U.S. are then shipped to China, assembled in China, and then sold back to the U.S.

As I said I'm not educated enough on this issue to start spouting off as far as what needs to be done. I just see the problems with paychecks getting smaller, benefits being reduced, and jobs being lost due to the fact that materials costs have doubled since 2001.

As I mentioned, my husband _was_ working in the semi-conductor industry and I know his former employer is facing very dire times due to Advanced Energy trying to move all of its manufacturing and production lines to China.

[Poohbah]

You're not on a ping list. A lot of other lists, no doubt, but not a ping list.

Then don't ping me.

[jpl]

My grandfather's Arsenal of Democracy has been dismantled and shipped off to China, but something tells me that the 13-year old girls in Guangdong Province aren't going to be building any Humvees for us.

Welcome to dark side of globalism and the New World Order.

[Marine_Uncle]

"No, I agree with you totally. My father was in the defense industry re: development and design for decades. What you are saying is true. We can't even put out enough armor for our vehicles right now - what will happen if we ever go to war with China?"

Things are much more critical in many areas then most Americans realize. Of course why worry the poor folks
in front of their boob tubes on such trivial matters. Most
not having a clue will only grip if you told them we no longer can make new generation tanks because we lack the proper type grade of steel to armor plate it. But perhaps as some have indicated this will not come to past, if the smaller highly efficient micro mills can come through.
Of course I for one realize I don't have the whole story.
Surely all the current high carbon steel armor is coming from somewhere. Perhaps it is all coming from these US mills.

[carl in alaska]

There's one big problem with boycotting products made in China: With many products today, in every retail store ALL the product from ALL manufacturers are ALL made in China or occasionally in another low-cost producer like Mexico or Malaysia. Sometimes you can find an American producer by searching on the internet and buying online or over the phone, but you can forget about finding many light-manufactured American products at Wal-Mart or Target. For example, if you want to buy a vacume cleaner every single model sold in retail stores is made overseas, mostly in China. You might be able to go online and buy an Oreck vacume cleaner that could be made in America.

Personally I think we are not getting tough with China on trade policy because China is quietly propping up North Korea and using the NK nuclear threat as a weapon to keep us from getting tough on trade. We will not get tough on trade with China because we need their help to eliminate the nuclear threat from NK. Meanwhile, China is stalling and not putting enough pressure on North Korea so they can continue to use this issue against us. The Chinese government is not a friend of ours, but is really a two-faced adversary.

[carl in alaska]

This focus on bolt-on steel armor is only half the issue. The armored humvees with original factory armor use a ton of kevlar for armor along with ballistic glass. This vehicle was developed in 1993-1994 after our humvees were badly shot-up in the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia. The Clinton Administration knew that every humvee used in a high-risk combat area needed to be an armored humvee. Nonethless, the Clintonistas only purchased about 400 new armored humvees, which is what Rumsfeld inherited in 2001. There's only one company that makes the new armored humvees and they're building them as fast as possible, but still not fast enough. So the press should really be asking Bill Clinton and Bill Cohen why they didn't replace most of our military humvees with armored models when they had seven years to complete this replacement. Well, the answer is obvious: the military was a low priority for the Clintons. Staying out of jail was their top priority, followed by creeping socialism.

[Marine_Uncle]

" I think the only way we could possibly turn this around is a good old-fashioned boycott of ALL products made in China. Now,"

Problem is. How do we do this? Do we just outlaw the agreements put in place during the Clinton years? And lets us face it, it is not just China. It is the whole frigen world of companies, how the are managed in each country, where the banks put their money for investment purposes, on and on.
There are no simple answers. We have allowed to much to slip in the past. I think it could be called short term profits.
But then, we in America generically claim we love free trade, we love free competition.

So when you sadly write: "When I see my husband's company going down the tubes cause they're moving their semi-conductor manufacturing lines to China ...."

What is the answer. It has gotten to the point that this company either cannot continue fabricating the IC here and
maintain a given profit margin, or they have suscomed to the short term profit syndrome, whatever.
Sadly many people in those clean rooms are going to lose their jobs. More folks out of work with little chance of finding like work again. Clean rooms for those not savy, are the special areas where the integrated circuits are actually manufactured. Then other areas such as wire bonding the integrated circuit into a package comes into play. If this company is moving it's semi-conductor lines off shore, then most likely all phases of the operation will eventually move. Those that package the IC, test groups comprised of engineers and technitians that test the parts will also move of shore eventually. It seems to happen every time. Depending on how large this company is, it may fire a few thousand people or more. Depending on what the companies final product lines are, perhaps only the top managment which of course would include the money folks will remain.
Then of course in two years the company will announce that in order to stay alive it most move it's fiancial departments to India. Get the picture.

[ArmyBratproud]

the armor issue is not just a matter of how many plants their are to produce.

The specs on the Armor that is the prefered armor....requires a productions technique that many plants do not use...

mainly because it cost so much to retool for that.

Sure...other plants could just start producing the armor...but if the do not use the tech. required...the end result will be armor that does not have the core strength needed.

[SedVictaCatoni]

You'd best Google NuCor and read the last few statements they've made...they are NOT doing well at all.

Okay, I went and looked at Nucor.

http://finance.yahoo.com/search?type=&s=nucor&r=

I see that their stock has almost doubled in the last twelve months, has gone from a low of about 18 to a present 50 since early 2003, and that their stock split in October.

In addition, they issued a press release today entitled "Nucor Announced 127th Consecutive Cash Dividend". They have a 12.31% operating margin and a 31% RoE. They have a healthy cash flow, and a healthy balance sheet.

Looks pretty good.

[SedVictaCatoni]

What does an education have to do with it??? Ever worked in a steel mill??? I didn't think so...You probably couldn't hack it...

Steel companies consist of a great many people doing a job that any idiot could do. Do not, therefore, be surprised that they look for cheaper idiots.

[kezekiel]

this decimation of American Steel and the manufacturing industry happened as a whole under the Clinton Administration

Barf. This has been going on for 30 years. They used to blame it on Reagan. Then the Japanese. Then the Chinese, and now Clinton.

[ex-snook]

Let's see. Get the steel from Korea, electronics from Japan, computers from China, and the production staff from Mexico. No problem, Army, you just have to undo the Administration's free trade.

[UltraKonservativen]

Even if the armor is a specialty alloy, the troups have been beefing up their Humvees with "scrap steel" from the dump. I cannot believe that a "temporary" armor could not have been produced with run of the mill steel plate that is readily available.
I have a strong suspicion that we are going to find some damn bureaucratic reason why we had to wait for the manufacturer to do the reinforcing.

[carl in alaska]

"You assert that this is Clintons doing, because he didn’t order enough armored vehicles, and didn't make the military a priority. The reason for this is that he wasn't bringing us in to a war.",

Every adminstration has to plan for the possibility of an unexpected war that may be years in the future. It takes several years to fully equip the Army and Marine Corps with the specialized equipment that they use. So it's irresponsible not to have the military prepared for a possible war that may be four or five years in the future. The Clintons suffered from the naive attitude that if we were just nice to all these terrorists and terror-sponsoring regimes, they would leave us alone.

As for why Bush decided to invade Iraq, and why Clinton fired 80 cruise missiles into Iraq in 1998: I'd give it a 90%+ probability that Iraq participated in an actual or attempted major terrorist attack against America sometime before 1998. Just go back and look at all the bombings, plane crashes, and train wrecks that happened between '92 and '98. We know for sure that an Iraqi agent did the first WTC bombing in '93. In addition, Iraq was able to get within six months of having a working nuclear weapon when we launched Desert Storm in 1991.

[Rodney King]

OK, good point.

[UltraKonservativen]

For SPECIFIC information on up armored Humvees, including who is building the kits, how many are produced and what congress as authorized go there;

http://www.defense-update.com/features/du-3-04/up-armored-humvee.htm

[GOP_1900AD]

RE: 13-year old girls in Guangdong Province aren't going to be building any Humvees for us

Bwaaahaaaahaaa! What a rich image! And true!