Not at all.
No. Not even close, apparently.
Not even close? Are you saying the military uses more than the entire output of American made resistors? Not that I don't trust you, but I'd need to see some backup for your claim.
Not all are for the military.
Do you want to stick to one topic at a time? You said (well Alan Tonelson) we need these items for the military. So let's look at what the military uses. Don't pull a fast one like the protectionists who whine about steel usage and talk about national defense. We make over 100 million tons of steel a year while the military uses about 1 million tons. Don't tell me we need to protect 100 million tons, tell me we need to protect 1 million tons.
If we need resistors during wartime, I'm more than happy to see our military take all they need out of the 31% we still make here.
Read the Defense Science Board reports. The hollowing-out phenomenon that you keep dis-believing...is real.
Who said I disbelieve any hollowing out? All I've said is that we made $1.79 trillion in manufactured goods last year. If we had to, I'm sure we could move some of that capacity around, while we also increase total output, like we did in WWII.
If we're hollowed out, at $1.79 trillion, China must be positively anorexic at only $780 billion in manufactured goods. How much of their production is cheap TVs, toasters and CD players? Not gonna help them much if war breaks out.
You keep looking at the monetarist gloss that is put out to rationalize the damage being done
Monetarist gloss? Which of your whiners coined that phrase? Does this "monetarist gloss" make the $1.79 trillion look bigger than it really is? What does this gloss do, exactly?
Even with the drastic down-sizing of our military...its needs for these discrete components is vastly larger than what we are now producing domestically.
So you claim, with no solid numbers.
American Industry disagrees, Todd.
As their testimony at the House Armed Services Committee Hearings indicated...they think it would take over 10 years to reconstitute a lot of what has been lost, as with the machine tool industry.
You need tools to make tools, and then to re-make entire production plants...which have been boxed up and shipped to Tianjin.
Are you saying the military uses more than the entire output of American made resistors?
As a matter of fact, it requires more types of resisistors, and more quantity than even those that are currently still made here.
We make over 100 million tons of steel a year while the military uses about 1 million tons. Don't tell me we need to protect 100 million tons, tell me we need to protect 1 million tons.
That is economically unfounded. Without an industry...of a much larger scale...you could not even maintain that purported 1 million tons capacity. You know why? Because we need HEAVY PLATE STEEL. For subs, for ships, for tanks. And the small steel plants can't do it. You need the huge integrated mills that can produce it [the small electrics can't]...and in the quanitities needed...for surge etc...not for somnolent peace-time orders.
If we're hollowed out, at $1.79 trillion, China must be positively anorexic at only $780 billion in manufactured goods. How much of their production is cheap TVs, toasters and CD players? Not gonna help them much if war breaks out.
First...the burden of proof is on you to dispute the numbers already given. Quibbling is not persuasive disputing. I have more than adequately made the case already.
Second, pertaining to your attempted quibble...I will quibble right back at you: what would be the U.S.-equivalent purchase price for domestic production of the Chinese-stated production numbers. I.e., in real-world terms how much are they really producing? Adjusting for their substandard wages...which your lobby never does.
What would the measures of Chinese production really have to be...? So let's look quantitatively rather than by claimed value. An objective measure is where the manufactures are commodities that can be quantitatively compared. You brought up steel production. China is now producing more than the next four closest countries put together. This is including the U.S. and Japan.
Your argument is analogously a lame variation of the "buggy-whip" smear on the industries we have outsourced.
The Chinese don't need to clip us at all points in the production chain. Just critical ones. The U.S. "Production Chain" is only as strong...as reliable... as its weakest link. And the Chinese are subsituting themselves for our own production..up and down those chains.
You misjudge the technology they have gained...and total capacities they are accumulating. Most all of these plants...where the U.S. firm has to partner with the Chinese entity...are required to compromise or "share" the technology.
And you misjudge the defense implications. It is not just a supply disruption, of course, but a long-term direct threat to our military...enabled by the transfusions being pushed by your lobby. That Chinese entity is often thinly-veiled in its connections to the PLA. Wherein they require that the production can be made dual-use from the get-go. I.e., military applications for those same assembly lines...much of what you can deem frippery may be quite startling. And the bulk of their trade surplus is now no longer low-end, but high technology. Note this article: China Replaces U.S. As World's Largest Exporter.
During the first six months of this year, China surpassed the United States as being the world's largest exporter. Only five years ago, the United States exported more than double the amount of China. During the first half of 2006, Chinese exports of manufactured goods reached $404 billion compared to $367 billion in exports by the United States."This dramatic reversal, together with the increasingly high-tech orientation of Chinese exports, poses a serious challenge to U.S. export competitiveness and long-standing leadership in technological innovation,"
And the Dual-Use of that high technology is apparent to all.