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I haven't been myself but my wife is a process engineer and had to go to China to install and train people on a new machine so this is only second hand... But

• icefox 10y ago
  Don't know about these days, but Michigan/Ohio area with car parts comes to mind.
  • organsnyder 10y ago
    Still a lot of truth to this. Here in West Michigan, there are tons of auto parts manufacturers, both "boring" manufacturing (plastic molding, etc.) and emerging tech.
    • afarrell 10y ago
      Preserving this cluster was the reason for the auto bailout, correct?
      • organsnyder 10y ago
        Yes, that was a big part of it. If even one of the Big Three had failed, the ripple effects would have crushed the entire industry, as well as the region. The resulting failure of many suppliers (due to them losing ~33% of their business overnight) would have crippled the surviving auto companies as well.
• scottm84 10y ago
  Seattle is this way. Washington state has an airplane factory in the woods and a car fiber (BMW) plant out in the desert. In the city you can find businesses to build anything.
  • brightball 10y ago
    That's interesting to hear. In South Carolina we've got BMW in the Greenville area and Boeing in Charleston. The Greenville area itself virtually imploded 30 years ago with the textile industry and BMW has largely driven the recovery. Now it's one of the best places to live in the state.
    • scottm84 10y ago
      We also have a LIGO detector out by walla walla in case gravity gets shifty in the pursuit of red.
  • blakeyrat 10y ago
    The big question is what happens when the Chinese government puts a high priority on getting into aerospace and tries to replicate their own 787s or A-350s. That said, Boeing's defense contracts might keep is secure regardless of what happens in civil aviation. United Airlines might buy a plane from China (in a decade), but the US Navy certainly wouldn't.
    • mikeash 10y ago
      The "quick, cheap, disposable" stereotype of Chinese manufacturing (whether deserved or not) seems like it would be a major hurdle for breaking into the Western civil aviation market. I see a lot of people leery of Airbus due to their approach to computer control and fly-by-wire, and that's without any doubts about their manufacturing care or attention to quality control.
    • greedo 10y ago
      China has been trying to improve their commercial air industry, but engines have been a problem, both for their airliners and their military jets.
• carsongross 10y ago
  China wasn't always that way: it was a choice they made to become the worlds manufacturers, with the complicity of the global financial elite. We moved the factories over there, we can move them back.
  • mercurysmessage 10y ago
    To be automated, which is what will, and is happening.
    • carsongross 10y ago
      I'm perfectly happy with that, although I think it is oversold and used as an excuse in many cases. So long as the productive capacity, intellectual property and knock on effects are kept domestic, good.
      • witty_username 10y ago
        Have you heard of comparative advantage? It may not be advantageous for the U.S. to keep such things domestic; instead the intellectual property may be better utilized in China.
        • carsongross 10y ago
          I took two years of economics indoctrination at Cal. Yes, I'm aware of the theory. Suffice to say, I no longer believe that ceteris is paribus.
          • witty_username 10y ago
            Why?
            • carsongross 10y ago
              Watching the asian economies thrive with mercantilist practices, learning about America's early mercantilist practices, and reading Vox Day, John C. Médaille and Steve Keen on the matter.
• hacknat 10y ago
  > Although I hope it is true. I don't know if being a manufacturing powerhouse is actually all that exciting anymore. There aren't really that many jobs in manufacturing anymore. Some of Toyota's modern car plants employ a meager 1500 people which is about and order of magnitude decrease from what car plants used to employ. This las election was frustrating for this very reason everybody assumes getting manufacturing back is going to be great. It's not. Sorry, it just won't be. Manufacturing is moving back to the US because distributed supply chains are becoming worth the cost increase in labor.
  • mattnewton 10y ago
    Or worth the cost increase of higher automation.. I don't see people living off of what it costs to manufacture goods today. I don't think those particular jobs are coming back.
  • brightball 10y ago
    One of the big perks to manufacturing is that it draws the entire supply chain around it naturally. Even if the manufacturing job itself isn't as abundant, the peripheral jobs that comes with it from shipping materials, producing materials, distribution, sales agreements, logistics, building construction and maintenance...they all provide benefits. With the manufacturing hub overseas all of that's overseas too, which is why China is more vertically integrated. If I recall, one of the major reasons that Dell took off years ago was that they consolidated the entire supply chain for production and significantly increased profit margins.
    • redler 10y ago
      Yes, but since China is the manufacturing hub for so much of the world, its local surrounding galaxy of expertise, supply chain, and related resources will exceed the size of such a galaxy built only in the US — especially if the US efforts are by dint of tariffs and related policies, and not economics.
      • brightball 10y ago
• SEJeff 10y ago
  Well see "Musk Enterprises" (aka SpaceX and Tesla) for the new American idea of vertical integration. He's trying to literally own the entire supply chain from the bottom to the distribution of the finished goods at the top.
• ddlatham 10y ago
  > I do feel like shipping goods by container ship is bad for the environment and bad for consumers. How is it bad for consumers (beyond the environment)? Shipping goods does include an environmental cost which is not incorporated into the price of things - an unfortunate externality. We should have a carbon tax to properly reflect the true cost of items made and shipped so the market can choose between a locally made good and one made elsewhere. There seems to be a popular opinion that even if the environmental cost were accounted for (carbon neutral) that it is still somehow inherently superior to make things nearby rather then trade for them from another city, state or country (especially food).
  • amluto 10y ago
    > We should have a carbon tax to properly reflect the true cost of items made and shipped so the market can choose between a locally made good and one made elsewhere. I agree, but the results may be a bit surprising. Shipping by container ship is extremely efficient [1]. On the West coast, for example, it might be cheaper (possibly far cheaper) to buy goods from Asia than from the Midwest. And wine drinkers in New York who care about energy consumption might be better of with French wine than "local" California wine. [1] http://business.tenntom.org/why-use-the-waterway/shipping-comparisons/ http://business.tenntom.org/why-use-the-waterway/shipping-co... for example
    • mikeash 10y ago
      It's not so bad if your land transport uses the train. Although I'm really surprised at how unsafe trains are, according to that. Is that all from automobile/train collisions at level crossings?
      • amluto 10y ago
        I don't know, but I'd guess so. On the other hand, the N/A for nonfatal truck injuries is suspicious.
    • ZeroGravitas 10y ago
      This probably also explains factories in the middle of the US closing, since they do not have easy transport links in and out of the country. They would have been built there in the past because of easy transport links within the country.
• codeddesign 10y ago
  I would think that this would be the lesser of the problems. Growing up in metro-Detroit, the Big 3 had thousands of smaller 3rd party companies surrounding it that made molds, plastic components..etc. The larger issue that I see would be union's and the large wage gaps. There were plenty of my friends parents that worked on the line making well over $100k each a year (as a line worker!). Everyone enjoys good news, but line work, manufacturing, and coal are not "coming back" beyond those that are highly skilled in the field.
• jamra 10y ago
  I read an article from the economist awhile back detailing how Mexico is a better source of manufacturing than China due to raw materials being available from within the country. In that article they stated that raw materials are actually scarce in China and have to come from abroad, causing larger fluctuations in pricing during depressions.
• kurthr 10y ago
  Yes, mostly we sell the equipment and design services that make the manufacturing possible. There is huge leverage in that and the higher margins that WallStreet demands. For quite some time (mostly) Asian governments have been investing in education, infrastructure, and equipment to manufacture the consumer items of the world. It is much harder to do development and understand the real manufacturing bottle necks when you don't see them first hand... even harder when you can't easily get the raw materials. I was struck with this the first time I tried to order in the US a PCB to the tolerances available in China. The yield was so bad, they basically weren't available. It was cheaper and faster to have the parts built in China and shipped back than to order from a proto house in the US. Why? They used similar equipment in China (I saw it myself), but they ran it 2-3 shifts every day and it was completely dialed in. In the US they turned it on once a week and tried to make enough prototypes to pay for it.
  • yourapostasy 10y ago
    Yep. The feet on the ground experience tells you, me and others like us that in the war to create automation, the odds favor China, because in the end, they own the myriad little details that get expressed as "edge cases" and resolved issues during development of the automation solutions, and which are completely unavailable unless you own the literal physical factory. This feet on the ground experience is discounted by the policymakers, so it will be an interesting case study to watch unfold over the next couple of decades. If our experience-informed observations are correct, then US senior management will experience a nasty automotive-industry-style shock when it "suddenly" discovers China is far better at automation than the presumptive US comparative-advantaged expertise led them to believe. My take is there are no shortcuts for doing the actual work. Just like there is no replacement for lifting the actual weight and eating a clean diet instead of reading yourself into expertise on fitness.
• empath75 10y ago
  Silicon Valley is called that because that's how it used to be. They actually made the chips there, and if you grew up there, you could get computer parts cheaply and easily. Jobs and Wozniak could build the Apple I in a garage only because of where they were.
  • mc32 10y ago
    Exactly this. North San Jose (the 237 triangle) used to have PCB, chip, chassis, component, etc., manufacturers in proximity to each other. Consider: Sun used to make and assemble their "workstations" over in the East Bay not far from the 237 triangle. As the late '90s approached much of that local manufacturing was off-shored to the Foxconns and Flextronics, etc. as well as overseas foundries.
    • afarrell 10y ago
      As a consequence of all of that concentrated manufacturing, Silicon Valley is now a cluster of EPA superfund sites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites_in_Cal...
      • rb808 10y ago
        Check out the SuperFund sites in the original Silicon Valleys of NJ & Boston. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Superfund_sites.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Superfun...
      • DrScump 10y ago
        Lorentz Barrel and Drum was particularly reckless. That lot is across the street from the Solar For America Ice complex (formerly Sharks Ice) on 10th.
    • lambdasquirrel 10y ago
      And when it all went over there it made room for Google and Facebook. Today it's hard for a startup to find space in downtown PA because of Palantir. What's a "problem" for the rest of the U.S. is creative destruction here. I worry we may have learned the wrong lessons because of current politics and inequalities. And it's worth remembering that automation is going to result in that manufacturing resulting in less jobs. What's going to happen when people expect the jobs to come back but then they don't? I know this has all been said, but I'm not sure everyone's connected all the dots.
• rrggrr 10y ago
  Relieved to see Deloitte issuing a report sure to ease the firm's path toward sizable billings from Chinese businesses, SOEs and government entities who are currently struggling with overcapacity and other existential economic threats. I chuckle as I see energy, currency and infrastructure inputs seemingly underweighted in their analysis. As one example... the USD is expected to continue appreciating sharply against developing nation currencies to the great detriment of US manufacturers who exports goods.
• sandworm101 10y ago
  That may be true for inegrated circuits, but for other things north america has clusters. Im in vancouger. Want to film a movie? Everything from costumes to CG is here. And we can have whatever celebs you need here overnight. China cannot do that. Want to build something out of wood? We got that too, with a world-class wood sciences program in town (UBC). If you want you can see your product from tree to shelf all within an hour's drive. China cannot do that either. Get out of the consumer elecronics mindset and you will find all sorts of local clusters.
• MR4D 10y ago
  The oil & gas industry in Texas is just like that. Someone else mentioned Silicon Valley too. We need to figure out how to expand this to other regions and industries.
• Itsdijital 10y ago
  Wired just released a great docu on hardware in China. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY Doing electronics here in the states is a pain in the ass. Maybe a little less so in some parts of CA, but for the rest of us it sucks. Pretty much everything has to be shipped to get anything done. You spend more days waiting on UPS then actually moving forward. Unless of course you can foot same day / next day shipping all the time.
• dominotw 10y ago
  not to mention thousands of people willing to work tedious shifts and live in cramped quarters. People willing to leave their villages and move wherever the opportunity presents. People who culturally respect authority of their superiors. People whose memory of dire poverty is still fresh. Contrast that with Americans who have been told from birth that they are special and their life is exceptional, a philosophy that doesn't gel very well with tedious work at factories.
• tomarr 10y ago
  You'd be surprised how negligible the environmental impact of shipping compared to production is. As an extreme example, it's cheaper in terms of CO2e emissions to produce and ship lamb from New Zealand to the United Kingdom than produce it in the UK.
  • aaronblohowiak 10y ago
    How is that possible?
    • beachstartup 10y ago
      why wouldn't it be? raising sheep requires land, remember? it's livestock, grass/feed, water, veterinarians, medication, sheepdogs, abattoir, compliance, inspection, processing, packing, refrigeration, shipping. if you're producing wool, let's substitute/add shearing, washing, drying, processing, packing, etc. not to mention sales, marketing, client relations, accounting, human resources, payroll taxes, corporate taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, value added taxes, etc. because a ranch is a business that turns over probably millions a year. how much does all that cost in the UK? how much does it cost in NZ? find the difference, and compared to the shipping costs, which are trivial, probably a couple of thousand dollars to get a refrigerated 30 foot container from Auckland to Amsterdam, then another few hundred pounds to get it across the channel and into a distribution center in the south of england. i don't know a damn thing about farming or logistics, but all it takes is about 2 minutes of thought to see how the economics would work.
    • kalleboo 10y ago
      I dunno about NZ and the UK, but from what I've seen of farms in Australia and Sweden, I can believe it. In Australia, I see cattle in absolutely massive fields where they eat whatever is growing there. In Sweden, I see small fields that can't sustain the livestock (especially not in winter) and they need to feed them farmed food, which takes a lot of energy to grow, store and harvest.
    • toomanybeersies 10y ago
      Producing lamb in NZ is a veryow intensity operation. Usually lambs are just out on a hill and left there for a few months before slaughter. There's also drenching and other stuff, but the actual land they're in isn't irrigated or worked at all. Not so much these days, but it used to be fairly common to just run sheep up a mountain valley and then twice a year muster them down the valley (often with only horses and dogs) for shearing and slaughter. Any sheep that fall ill would either recover or die. That's still the case usually, a lamb is worth a lot less than the vet costs.
• Keyframe 10y ago
  Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware documentary illustrates this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY
• DoodleBuggy 10y ago
  Once upon a time the USA was like that. I think it's unrealistic to return to that with current production needs, but perhaps it's possible with select future industries.