[arete]

"America's investment in modern manufacturing equipment is at one of its lowest points in history," AMT President Albert Moore said in a statement.

I guess when you don't have any manufacturing, you don't need all those expensive machine tools.

Richard W.

[arete]

FYI

Comments and opinions welcome.

Richard W.

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[oceanview]

exactly right. Its going to zero, they should stop tracking it actually. Just float an article when it goes to zero and be done with it.

[AntiGuv]

The glorious second half recovery will make a mockery of such reports...

[RaceBannon]

Good thing we have NAFTA and GATT

[VadeRetro]

Man, I'm getting a bad feeling!

[riri]

In my college days, I bartended at a little pub that catered to these type guys. These guys made a decent living, worked long and hard hours and overall were decent good old boys. This is just really shitty.

[stboz]

Is Mexican demand up? Is Chinese demand up? Is Malaysian demand up? How do they compare with the U.S.?

[RightWhale]

America's investment in modern manufacturing equipment is at one of its lowest points in history

Machine tools are the tools used to make machines. Perhaps we are importing our manufacturing machines, too. What are we going to do with all this free time and excess wealth?

[Cacique]

The corporate interests (who are the paymasters of the DNC and RNC) have already figured out there are more profits to be made elsewhere. One day when they need their inteersts and money protected they will figure out that we won't have a navy unless our ships are built in korea, our planes in China, our guns in India and our electronics in Singapore. They will of course to build these things for us and we will of course refuse to fight to protect them.

[PatrioticAmerican]

No need for machines, no needs for the jobs that use them, no need for Americans. We are just supposed to consume until broke.

[Revel]

I have a bit of personal knowledge about this subject. Besides the obvious loss of manufacturing jobs to China...Did you know that China actually makes Machine tools like Vertical milling machines(VMC) for instance? As the artical states these machines are used for forming metal parts. They can mill,drill,and tap. Basically you can lay down a block on steel on a table and hit a button called "Cycle Start" and the machine takes over. A computer controlls the forming of the part. The machine changes its own bits.

Well the truth is that China has been making these machines for a number years. And guess what? They make them a whole lot cheaper. American machine tool companys are going out of buisness. Including one that I used to work for. As I recall these machines were being shipped to China illegally about ten years ago...When a US machine tool company shut down then some of there machines went to China. These were considered High tech and it was illegal to send them to China. Clinton was involved if I recall.

It should be no surprise that China studied them and started building there own. After all these machines are key to there manufacturing jobs also. At this point in time I suppose they probably make them better than we do. Our industry is in pure survival mode. Mark my words. China will be the death of prosperity in this once great nation. And wee held there hands and taught them how to kill us. Then we gave them the keys to complete the job.

[Beck_isright]

"I guess when you don't have any manufacturing, you don't need all those expensive machine tools."

Sums it all up pretty neatly.

I wonder how NCR and IBM and those other companies that produce the icon based cash registers for McDonald's and other fast food joints are doing...