Goodbye, Production (and Maybe Innovation)

The New York Times ^ | December 24, 2006 | Louis Uchitelle

[A. Pole]

AMERICAN manufacturers no longer make subway cars. They are imported now, and the skills required to make them are disappearing in the United States. Similarly, imports are an ever-bigger source of refrigerators, household furnishings, auto and aircraft parts, machine tools and a host of everyday consumer products much in demand in America, but increasingly not made here.

[...]

the experts shifted the emphasis from production to design and innovation. Let others produce what Americans think up.

[...]

But over the long run, can invention and design be separated from production? That question is rarely asked today. The debate instead centers on the loss of well-paying factory jobs and on the swelling trade deficit in manufactured goods. When the linkage does come up, the answer is surprisingly affirmative: Yes, invention and production are intertwined.

"Most innovation does not come from some disembodied laboratory," said Stephen S. Cohen, co-director of the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy at the University of California, Berkeley. "In order to innovate in what you make, you have to be pretty good at making it — and we are losing that ability."

[...]

Franklin J. Vargo, the association’s vice president for international economic affairs, sounds even more concerned than Mr. Cohen. "If manufacturing production declines in the United States," he said, "at some point we will go below critical mass and then the center of innovation will shift outside the country and that will really begin a decline in our living standards."

[...]

"It is hard to imagine," Mr. Tonelson said, "how an international economy can remain successful if it jettisons its most technologically advanced components."

[...]

[A. Pole]

"Most innovation does not come from some disembodied laboratory," said Stephen S. Cohen, [...] "In order to innovate in what you make, you have to be pretty good at making it — and we are losing that ability."

Free trade bump

[Constitutional Patriot]

Wow...the article appears to have missed the whole part about unions driving the cost of labor up so that it makes a lot more sense to make your goods in countries where there are no unions.

[DB]

You can't design things if you don't know how to make them.

If we design it, we still know how to make it.

The bottom line is who makes the lion share of the profit, the owners of the ideas or the manufactures of other peoples ideas. I think there is strong evidence of the former.

[A. Pole]

Yeah, blame unions and American workers earning too much.

[BipolarBob]

"at some point we will go below critical mass and then the center of innovation will shift outside the country and that will really begin a decline in our living standards."

Welcome to the Global Economy. This is what it's all about - bringing down this great nation. History will once again shake its head and say WHY didn't they see this one coming? Who will bail out the US when it goes down?

[DB]

I'll add, who makes the money from a music CD?

The artist and the label or the CD manufacturer.

Clearly it is the former. The same goes for DVDs.

[A. Pole]

If we design it, we still know how to make it.

"Still" is the key word.

[DB]

There's some reason why we are wealther than any other time in history. We clearly can't be doing everything wrong as so many seem to think.

[DB]

We are wealthier than we've ever been before.

[Incorrigible]

Ahhhh. A life of leisure for all Americans!

[A. Pole]

Can you be an artist without instruments and without ability to test what you are composing in real time?

[ConservativeMind]

Detroit is a terrible example. We all know of the problems Detroit has had for decades. Quality, cost, and desirability are attributes Detroit has pretty consistently lost on for three decades.

If you don't produce a product people want in a capitalist economy, you will lose out to those who do.

Had we lost our innovation before the Japanese showed us up in the 80s? No, we still had all those people here.

We just have problems with stupid management and stupid unions, further complicated by stupid government supporting the stupid system.

[A. Pole]

We are wealthier than we've ever been before.

I start to develop feeling that you are an AI program.

[BipolarBob]

We are wealthier than we've ever been before.

And the frog in the warming pot is very comfortable. We cannot be a nation that produces nothing and remain where we are. The decline is inevitable. Most peoples assets are in their houses and vehicles and that can disappear overnight. I have listened to the ones who lived through the Great Depression and they were shocked at the speed in which one day all was well and the next they were bankrupt.

[DB]

And what indications are there that those instruments are going anywhere?

[canuck_conservative]

At some point, unions WERE necessary, because there were some pretty hideous examples of employer abuse in the early 1900's.

BUT they went to far, making good jobs excessively expensive - I mean, someone getting $27 an hour just to shove a piece of metal in a furnance? No industry can compete with costs like that for no-talent work.

[DB]

I do too many stupid things to be an AI program.

[Major_Risktaker]

We are wealthier than we've ever been before.

What is your definition of wealth?

[ByteMercenary]

If you know anything at all about the music busines, you would know the artist is paid the least of the three mentioned. The artist typically gets less than $2 of that $15 CD you got for Christmas. The lion's share of that $15 goes to the recording label.