[truthguy]

The Aerospace Industry? You can't be serious.

We are basically down to one company building Commercial Aircraft- Boeing.

The other companies have merged and mostly rely on defense with government contracts where costs can swell and the government can pick up the tab.

Yes we can build great fighter aircraft like the F-22 and the F-35 and many others. But cost is no object here. Cost is an object in building motor vehicles.

Japan is not a factor in aircraft because of their constitution. They don't build commercial aircraft because they can't build military aircraft and you need to do both unless you have a lot of government contracts like McDonald Douglas, Lockheed Martin etc.

Besides AeroSpace give me some more examples of state of the art manufacturing thriving in the US.

[Philo-Junius]

Boeing is the final assembler of major commercial aircraft, but a Boeing doesn’t go anywhere without GE or United Technologies powerplants, for instance. Boeing Commercial has about 8,000 suppliers in the U.S., and does something like $13 billion in business with them.

Commercial aerospace never embraced vertical integration the way the Detroit empire-builders attempted. That may be one reason why they remained cutting-edge.

Japan does indeed build military aircraft—google the J-2, for instance, and is a major Boeing partner on the 787. Japanese heavy industry does not launch a competing finished commercial aircraft product because they have been nearly completely incorporated into the Boeing supply chain.

China, on the other hand, is quite likely to launch a small (c. 100 seat) commercial aircraft for domestic consumption and international prestige purposes in the very near future.