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Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EDS_
Regarding the claim that there, "aren't any" manufacturing, goods producing or mining etc. jobs in The US.
Per the BLS there are a little less than ~40,000,000 such jobs in The US.
Manufacturing in the U.S. may be much less than in the past, but it's still around.
One of my brothers is a supervisor at a company that manufactures medical testing devices in California.
I have a CNC laser engraver/cutter (made in Colorado, USA) and besides my own hobby uses, have a couple of good regular side-job customers. For them I make parts that they use in manufacturing their products. One makes a computer network device out of Silicone valley, CA, the other manufactures a machine used in the picture framing industry in the midwest. Whirlpool still makes their appliances in the U.S. as do some other big companies. Whether they can continue to compete with China and other countries is yet to be seen.
It’s an extremely dirty industry. Everything that’s involved in the process of making the products is hard on the planet, it’s inhabitants and plants.
So, what's the alternative? We can just stop making things, and then... what? back to cave man days? Surely there's a way to discover cleaner mining and manufacturing techniques.
Americans don't work cheap enough. Even if they did the supply chain has moved to cheaper places. I predict China will get too expensive (as Japan did in the 80s) and production will move to Africa.
In truth, there were several contributing factors. However, it makes sense to have an appreciation for how dominating US industry was in the post war years. By making almost all of the best manufactured items in the world, it allowed for the dawning of a new age for the American worker. To attract amongst those American workers one might even be given a pension. To fill all of the positions needed, the social barriers segregating American could be broken and America and her huge trade surplus were so tremendous that we could afford to launch a war on poverty alongside a real war in Vietnam and lots of other interesting uses of funds.
There is a small plant in Maine that I worked with years ago. Their invention was the little electrostatic brush on computer printers as paper moved through them. They had a labor intensive process but the parts worked well. They could get about $1.50 a printer, and for years, that's what they did. However, a labor driven process, even in relatively cheap Maine, was no match for competitors in China that realized how to build these things, and they could sell them for .10. If I'm Xerox or HP, I can't give that much of an advantage to Canon or whoever, so I need these parts to be cheaper. What that company did is, rather than outsource, they brought in automation and could turn around and sell the same part now for .04. China was shocked at the price point and attempted to sue to keep them out of China (which was becoming a large assemble point) as price dumping. While the company lost most of its factory staff, it was able to struggle on and keep its market. I don't know that greed was the biggest component at first. I think newly re-industrialized countries were creating local champions. Barring a management staff willing and able to use technology to defeat the price disadvantage, they won.
However, it wasn't just that. Electronic components cost down every year. If I buy component x for $1 this year, I will push to pay .97 the next year. Out of all industry, cost downing ones, so long as they stay available, seem like easy ones to unload. Except there's this myth that engineering and manufacturing can stay separated for long periods of time. They really can't. Where one goes, the other will follow. This was hastened when IP theft became vogue. I recall sitting next a gentleman on a trip to Shanghai who was furious that his next level microphone had copycats out on the market before they'd even released the model. He had a bad contract manufacturer. I went to other CMs where we were speced into the bill of materials, but the CM would buy copycat items of inferior quality, and sometimes have the gumption to send these fake parts to US when they were defective.
But for the biggest blow, I think it's easiest to see in the auto industry (of which all the related components flowed). Your vehicle supports a ton of different industries. When China was first looking to open their market, they really wanted manufacturing to come with it. While Mao starved his people, he had them build cheap steel mills on the way out and the offering was a big one. Access to the Chinese market, cheap labor and cheap input materials. How could a country with so few natural resources offer this? Because the "free" material producing factories were leveraged with loans through the government controlled Big 4 banks. They didn't need to make money. They needed to feed industries to move there, and that steel was for domestic sale only. The carmakers agreed and came over.
Once the carmakers were there, the problem became the tax rates were set very high. However, those could be made much smaller, if only the carmakers would use components that had been built in China. Inevitably, the car makers speak with their supply chain and they agree to go overseas as well to setup a plant to feed the China venture and....by the way, we can export back to the US for free. Fantastic. However, they had the same tax problem. They could get a lower tax rate, if only they bought their inputs from companies in China. Also, to avoid getting the older generation equipment, only new equipment could be shipped into China. Suddenly China, which as a kid was one of the countries where people didn't make a dollar a day, had access to all of the world's major markets, a pro-China tax structure, cheap input labor and cheap input materials...and a blind eye to copycat items. The growth was phenomenal. I recall seeing Shanghai when it was housing 1/3 of the world's cranes. With all of the money coming in, the domestic market truly became worth something.
With financial success in manufacturing, China could set her sights higher. Tech. Development took so long and who knows where underlying technologies were going. The only place with clear visibility on these things was Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley was attractive in many ways. It was a convenient place for communists to stash money in real estate. There was an existing population....and by sending some of the best, brightest and most loyal....they could use the knowledge gained to make a better tech scene. Again, completely willing to take a loss to be the CM on certain industries wanted by the government. As companies accept and move over assembly, the component companies in the US suddenly lost their market after a period of shipping into China. The landed times that once protected producers now worked against them. The final production was happening overseas with only the completed export returning. There was no need for a US supply chain. Depending on which company had which slice, it was moved to China, Malaysia, Singapore Taiwan, Thailand or India...and Shenzhen is the new Silicon Valley. All the components are there, the manufacturing is there, the labor general know how is there....you can simply go from idea to reality quicker...there.
For political leaders here, it wasn't a priority. The dollar was still strong...purchasing power wasn't impaired. There were other industries filling in. We had military wars to fight, with no time for economic ones. And in some combination of the above lies the answer to how the US went from being the electronics leader in all arenas to a consumer for the world's product.
In truth, there were several contributing factors. However, it makes sense to have an appreciation for how dominating US industry was in the post war years. By making almost all of the best manufactured items in the world, it allowed for the dawning of a new age for the American worker. To attract amongst those American workers one might even be given a pension. To fill all of the positions needed, the social barriers segregating American could be broken and America and her huge trade surplus were so tremendous that we could afford to launch a war on poverty alongside a real war in Vietnam and lots of other interesting uses of funds.
There is a small plant in Maine that I worked with years ago. Their invention was the little electrostatic brush on computer printers as paper moved through them. They had a labor intensive process but the parts worked well. They could get about $1.50 a printer, and for years, that's what they did. However, a labor driven process, even in relatively cheap Maine, was no match for competitors in China that realized how to build these things, and they could sell them for .10. If I'm Xerox or HP, I can't give that much of an advantage to Canon or whoever, so I need these parts to be cheaper. What that company did is, rather than outsource, they brought in automation and could turn around and sell the same part now for .04. China was shocked at the price point and attempted to sue to keep them out of China (which was becoming a large assemble point) as price dumping. While the company lost most of its factory staff, it was able to struggle on and keep its market. I don't know that greed was the biggest component at first. I think newly re-industrialized countries were creating local champions. Barring a management staff willing and able to use technology to defeat the price disadvantage, they won.
However, it wasn't just that. Electronic components cost down every year. If I buy component x for $1 this year, I will push to pay .97 the next year. Out of all industry, cost downing ones, so long as they stay available, seem like easy ones to unload. Except there's this myth that engineering and manufacturing can stay separated for long periods of time. They really can't. Where one goes, the other will follow. This was hastened when IP theft became vogue. I recall sitting next a gentleman on a trip to Shanghai who was furious that his next level microphone had copycats out on the market before they'd even released the model. He had a bad contract manufacturer. I went to other CMs where we were speced into the bill of materials, but the CM would buy copycat items of inferior quality, and sometimes have the gumption to send these fake parts to US when they were defective.
But for the biggest blow, I think it's easiest to see in the auto industry (of which all the related components flowed). Your vehicle supports a ton of different industries. When China was first looking to open their market, they really wanted manufacturing to come with it. While Mao starved his people, he had them build cheap steel mills on the way out and the offering was a big one. Access to the Chinese market, cheap labor and cheap input materials. How could a country with so few natural resources offer this? Because the "free" material producing factories were leveraged with loans through the government controlled Big 4 banks. They didn't need to make money. They needed to feed industries to move there, and that steel was for domestic sale only. The carmakers agreed and came over.
Once the carmakers were there, the problem became the tax rates were set very high. However, those could be made much smaller, if only the carmakers would use components that had been built in China. Inevitably, the car makers speak with their supply chain and they agree to go overseas as well to setup a plant to feed the China venture and....by the way, we can export back to the US for free. Fantastic. However, they had the same tax problem. They could get a lower tax rate, if only they bought their inputs from companies in China. Also, to avoid getting the older generation equipment, only new equipment could be shipped into China. Suddenly China, which as a kid was one of the countries where people didn't make a dollar a day, had access to all of the world's major markets, a pro-China tax structure, cheap input labor and cheap input materials...and a blind eye to copycat items. The growth was phenomenal. I recall seeing Shanghai when it was housing 1/3 of the world's cranes. With all of the money coming in, the domestic market truly became worth something.
With financial success in manufacturing, China could set her sights higher. Tech. Development took so long and who knows where underlying technologies were going. The only place with clear visibility on these things was Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley was attractive in many ways. It was a convenient place for communists to stash money in real estate. There was an existing population....and by sending some of the best, brightest and most loyal....they could use the knowledge gained to make a better tech scene. Again, completely willing to take a loss to be the CM on certain industries wanted by the government. As companies accept and move over assembly, the component companies in the US suddenly lost their market after a period of shipping into China. The landed times that once protected producers now worked against them. The final production was happening overseas with only the completed export returning. There was no need for a US supply chain. Depending on which company had which slice, it was moved to China, Malaysia, Singapore Taiwan, Thailand or India...and Shenzhen is the new Silicon Valley. All the components are there, the manufacturing is there, the labor general know how is there....you can simply go from idea to reality quicker...there.
For political leaders here, it wasn't a priority. The dollar was still strong...purchasing power wasn't impaired. There were other industries filling in. We had military wars to fight, with no time for economic ones. And in some combination of the above lies the answer to how the US went from being the electronics leader in all arenas to a consumer for the world's product.
Americans don't work cheap enough. Even if they did the supply chain has moved to cheaper places. I predict China will get too expensive (as Japan did in the 80s) and production will move to Africa.
I'd like to step in and say that it's not US workers being greedy. The average price of a single family detached home in my area is >$320,000. Some of Europe is not cheap, either.
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