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Old 06-22-2020, 08:09 AM
 
14,394 posts, read 11,149,019 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by orbiter View Post
Doubt it.
Since the 80s, we have been seeing the rise of Korean semiconductor chips. At that time, I worked briefly for a German company sourcing for chips, even silver and gold. Then, Samsung bought it over.
Korea is the new Japan. And as their chaebols are similar to Japanese zaibatsu there is strength in having these big conglomerates which can't happen in the US (although Alphabet is getting close).
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Old 06-22-2020, 10:16 AM
 
6,651 posts, read 5,870,108 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by markjames68 View Post
Having spent time doing business in China it's likely further away than most people think.

Without protections for intellectual property, anyone doing innovation in China has to (1) share it with the government and (2) is likely to get ripped off by another Chinese company - either directly or indirectly by hiring away their people.

I've seen it firsthand where a company was set up in China from previous employees of an American software company. They took source code with them and basically cloned something for the Chinese market. Even used screenshots of the previous software (including the old logo). No repercussions.
I witnessed this type of thing all the time when I lived in Taiwan. Very hard working people, but a different tradition of intellectual property from ours.

I.e., no tradition of intellectual property. At that time, you could go into a particular well known bookstore in downtown Taipei and buy cheap photo-reproductions of all the best sellers, textbooks, music, movies, etc. from the U.S. market. Typical price: $1 or $2.

If someone had a successful restaurant, guaranteed at least one other guy would open a copycat restaurant literally right next door, with a very similar name. Of course you'd see a line out the door for the original whereas the clones were almost empty all the time. We dumb foreigners couldn't tell the difference but the locals could always tell you which was the original. It was a bit surreal.
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Old 06-22-2020, 12:57 PM
 
Location: ATX-HOU
191 posts, read 90,561 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by markjames68 View Post
Korea is the new Japan. And as their chaebols are similar to Japanese zaibatsu there is strength in having these big conglomerates which can't happen in the US (although Alphabet is getting close).

And Korea's economy has been stagnate the last several years due to its over-reliance on export chaebols. Korea being the new Japan isn't necessarily a good thing for Korea.
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Old 06-22-2020, 01:01 PM
 
Location: ATX-HOU
191 posts, read 90,561 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts View Post
I'm hopeful. That's why I started this thread. To discuss how we can get back to manufacturing and stop being so dependent on frenemies for our vital supply chains.
It really feels like you underestimate US manufacturing or are too nostalgic for US dominance in manufacturing. I'm not saying we can't do better. Policy is obviously involved, but part of it is cyclical. We weren't going to compete with cheap labor and super lax environmental laws but competing with automation levels the playing field.
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Old 06-22-2020, 01:09 PM
 
3,346 posts, read 2,173,997 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by VitaminB12 View Post
It really feels like you underestimate US manufacturing or are too nostalgic for US dominance in manufacturing. I'm not saying we can't do better.
The idea that we reached some natural peak in the 1960s and have been somehow unfairly stripped of it in the decades since — blame anyone from commies to climate change to Apple to unions to Japan/China/Taiwan/Korea/Vietnam to boomer laziness, as you like — is a powerful notion. It's embedded in not only the national viewpoint but every single stump or floor speech about jobs.

It's also wrong. You cannot make sense of US/global economics, and thus cannot make workable suggestions to continue what's working and improve what's not, without recognizing that 1946-1970 or so was a hugely, massively, overarchingly anomalous time in almost every way, especially economically. It's no more sensible or practical to try and "bring back 1955" as my canned phrasing puts it than to try and return to a horse-and-buggy transportation system.

Expending effort to try and "return" to hitting a Powerball jackpot accomplishes nothing. We are who we are, we are what we are, and we have every tool and resource needed for economic stability and a solid critical manufacturing base. But we won't get from what we have to what we want/need by dragging it all backwards fifty or sixty years.
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Old 06-22-2020, 01:31 PM
 
6,651 posts, read 5,870,108 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by VitaminB12 View Post
It really feels like you underestimate US manufacturing or are too nostalgic for US dominance in manufacturing. I'm not saying we can't do better. Policy is obviously involved, but part of it is cyclical. We weren't going to compete with cheap labor and super lax environmental laws but competing with automation levels the playing field.
Yes we've kind of beaten this topic into the ground. Right now the supply chain is in Asia and likely to remain there for a while, but the potential exists to reclaim some of it, if we can get our act together.
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Old 06-22-2020, 01:46 PM
 
Location: ATX-HOU
191 posts, read 90,561 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts View Post
Yes we've kind of beaten this topic into the ground. Right now the supply chain is in Asia and likely to remain there for a while, but the potential exists to reclaim some of it, if we can get our act together.
Sure, but we currently provide the manufacturing "sprinkles and cherries" to the electronic supply chain "sundae" with our semiconductors.

I think some mid-level manufacturing will naturally comeback due to automation because sooner than later it will be robots doing the soldering to low to medium cost electronics instead of just the high end stuff. Part of that supercycle.
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Old 06-22-2020, 03:59 PM
 
6,651 posts, read 5,870,108 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by VitaminB12 View Post
Sure, but we currently provide the manufacturing "sprinkles and cherries" to the electronic supply chain "sundae" with our semiconductors.

I think some mid-level manufacturing will naturally comeback due to automation because sooner than later it will be robots doing the soldering to low to medium cost electronics instead of just the high end stuff. Part of that supercycle.
Then the question becomes, who makes the robots?
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Old 06-22-2020, 04:19 PM
 
3,346 posts, read 2,173,997 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts View Post
Then the question becomes, who makes the robots?
Whoever does it cheapest and best.

The flaw this argument usually runs into is that somehow robotics and automation will replace the other industries in revenue, employment, tax base etc. Which is wrong.

I'm searching for a term but what comes to mind is "reductive" — production of automation will be largely self-cancelling in that each and every "robot" produced is not a product or a commodity, but a permanent addition to a system that reduces the need for both human workforce and any notable flow of replacement robots. In effect, the system is building its own permanent replacement. What might be called "peak robot" will be reached in some fairly short time (a few decades?), and production will fall drastically after that as it becomes less and less frequent replacement and upgrading... and these will already be systems designed to be 'upgraded in place' and not replaced wholesale every few years.

And then it will be AI/automation designing and manufacturing the next generations.

Something like building a great wall of China... you're going to need a bazillion bricks, but only to a fixed end point, after which you won't be able to give bricks away. It's completely illusory to think that this revolution will somehow generate hundreds of millions of 'replacement' jobs.
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Old 06-22-2020, 05:18 PM
 
Location: Spain
12,722 posts, read 7,518,880 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by blisterpeanuts View Post
If someone had a successful restaurant, guaranteed at least one other guy would open a copycat restaurant literally right next door, with a very similar name. Of course you'd see a line out the door for the original whereas the clones were almost empty all the time. We dumb foreigners couldn't tell the difference but the locals could always tell you which was the original. It was a bit surreal.
We stumbled upon this place in Laos. Not sure if someone else had already taken 7-12 through 7-23.



We also once saw a "Pizza Hot" in SE Asia, complete with similar logo.
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