Posted on 12/31/2006 6:25:30 AM PST by 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.
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the experts shifted the emphasis from production to design and innovation. Let others produce what Americans think up.
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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."
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Franklin J. Vargo, the associations 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."
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"It is hard to imagine," Mr. Tonelson said, "how an international economy can remain successful if it jettisons its most technologically advanced components."
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(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I do both, globally. I have no doubt, whatsoever that anything, and I mean anything, that is made that I can't make it. I don't care if it's rocket parts for SRBs, I know for a fact that if I can't make it, I can get it made.
The concept that if all mfging is offshore, the USA can't innovate is stupid. It's wrong on many levels. That said, understand, I am not a globalist. I prefer mfg to be in the USA and I think offshoring is harmful to the US. Some offshoring is sensible, all offshoring is wrong.
I used to almost exclusively purchase that company's products - as much as I was allowed to by project specifications anyway. I still get their HVAC design CD delivered to me. It's top notch, well made equipment.
I think there is strong evidence that unions will suck the last dollar of profit out of any enterprise. They will also lobby Washington for anti-business laws and regulations. They will then strike and call your home at all hours of the night, threatening you and your family...and badmouth your product to the public.
Who doesn't want part of that?
Not if you don't count the roughly 2 billion dollars a day of foreign investment. Someday those Chinese, Europeans, Saudis, etc may want their money back. And it is still their money.
It is government that give unions special protections.
Surely...you recognize that unions have disproportionate control over government?
I'm happy that you're happy with their products. I took a tour of their facility and they seem like hard-working, quality-minded people.
I am surprised no one has mentioned:
1. Exchange rate anomalies. You read about a factory worker in China earning $2000 a year, who has an apartment, a motorscooter, and a microwave. He doesn't really make $2000 a year, does he?
2. The inevitable rise of wages overseas. IT guys in India are getting 30% increases if they're good. If your current company won't do that, the one across the street will make an offer. Experienced guys can make 15 or 20 lakh. Even factories in China are having to hunt for workers.
3. Problems in other countries. China? In 25 years, a third of the population will be over 60 and the rest will be 60% men and 40% women. Big trouble there. India? Socialist bureaucracy, poor infrastructure, 800 million illiterate poor people with the vote, female infanticide, militant Muslims.
4. And if a foreign country does overcome all its problems, they end up like Europe and Japan, with a declining population of rich goofoffs and a currency so valuable they can't sell any good anyway.
So count your blessings.
rolling stock with some pneumatic lines, electric AC/Heat and lights.
"Not if you don't count the roughly 2 billion dollars a day of foreign investment. Someday those Chinese, Europeans, Saudis, etc may want their money back. And it is still their money."
Foreign investment and borrowing are not remotely the same concept as "taking from someone else's" economy, as should be obvious from the context of that reply. (Which was past 'empires' in history and their economic foundation.)
What market are you talking about? The market that is flourishing because even the "untalented" have money to spend?
The first beams of the new Freedom Tower( I think that's the name) were erected this week, and they were of European not American steel. I find that symbolic of much of the real issue underlying this thread.
"We make tanks, ships, subs, missiles, guns, bullets, transporters, bombers, nukes, fighter jets, ICBMS and lasers here. That will not change. And ours will sink or destroy the chicoms versions of these very quickly."
Yes, but the trend is to buy cheaper parts for the above from China or elsewhere. Clinton started the process and it continues.
Some generalities just make the poster look dumb.
How many people qualified for unearned tax credit in the us last year?
It's that attitude that, in the real world, leads businesses to vote with their feet...and they are.
Amen to that!!!
We have no problem creating consumers, we need to to produce manufacturers. Re-read your own tagline. If we live long enough we'll see the results, unfortunately.
There are two possibilities here:
1. either you know, and think you're being clever by not sharing, orWho's looking "dumb" now?
2. you do not know, and are blowing smoke.
China, due to social pressures from within, will have to return to a social welfare model due to the rise of the Robber Baron and the Party Princeling investor, ripping off the workers and farmers. Don't think reformist young officers don't see this exploitation and won't push for change before China is overtaken by inevitable famine and warlordism. This always happens to China.
India, being a democracy, will be luckier, but will have to adopt some sort of social welfare system due to similar political pressures. India adopted much of the baleful political traditions of Great Britain, so expect socialism to raise taxes as well as cost of production.
After a scare, I think the conventional wisdom may be off. Due to economic pressures, a lot of our old alliances will be cast off, and we will have to build new ones.
Times, they change.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
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