3 ms·
This reminds me of a conversation I had at a New Year's party not too long ago - a gentleman I'd never met before and I got to talking, and in the process of ge
by hguant 7y ago
This reminds me of a conversation I had at a New Year's party not too long ago - a gentleman I'd never met before and I got to talking, and in the process of getting to know one another (however much you can know someone after 4-5 drinks at a black tie party you go to once a year), he bemoaned the issues he was having trying to open a US branch of his company. Apparently medium scale sheet metal forming operations in the States have all but disappeared - everything is either outsourced to China, or is small scale, high precision work that can't meet demand of more than N hundred pieces a week. It's a boring issue - "oh no, there's no one to subcontract this work to, you have to buy from China for X percent of what it would cost to do here" - but speak volumes as to the loss of a critical component of that manufacturing ecosystem.
- Cthulhu_ 7y agoIt's because people have been pushed to both sides of that; manufacturing used to be a comfortable middle class job, but it's shifted to the sides, being a high value, specialist job on the one hand, and a low education required job of handling incoming finished or half-finished products coming over from abroad.
- brigandish 7y agoI got chatting to the bloke next to me on a long haul flight from the UK to Japan. He was going there to buy a printing machine (he was a printer) and when I asked why go all the way to Japan he told me that, basically, only Germany and Japan make printing machines any more. He even pointed out that the pulp he bought was from abroad. I wonder if freight companies receive subsidies though - lots of airlines certainly get subsidies - that might change things in favour of more local producers. Maybe.
- pastage 7y agoTransport is one of the least taxed emission sources there are, in o e way thats subsidies.
- owenversteeg 7y ago>Apparently medium scale sheet metal forming operations in the States have all but disappeared - everything is either outsourced to China, or is small scale, high precision work that can't meet demand of more than N hundred pieces a week. I can personally confirm this. Very unfortunate, and I'm positive it's helping stifle innovation. Having to go to China for your custom sheet metal needs (with the communication difficulties and shipping times involved) can be -really- debilitating.
- rwmurrayVT 7y agoYou can get custom sheet metal work, if you're willing the pay the price and possibly are in the right industry. Sheet metal, welding, carpentry, pipefitters, and pretty much every trade are in massive demand in shipbuilding/repair. NNSY fails a significant portion of welder applicants just because they can't lay a proper weld. They pay... a lot of money.
- ethbro 7y agoYou definitely see it in defense-related locales. Driving around Newport News, Groton, or even Birmingham is like being on another planet economically speaking. But I definitely see the point, as most of the suppliers are sized for defense, not commercial industrial volume. And from their perspective, I get the choice. Why risk expansion, when the trend has been towards free trade and offshoring? A 100x customer who decides to switch suppliers in a year isn't a win. At least DoD is a semi-reliable customer.
- rwmurrayVT 7y agoDriving around Newport News is like driving around a desolate shithole. There are very few nice neighborhoods in the area. Newport News and Hampton are the worst cities in the Hampton Roads area.
- ethbro 7y agoThat's what a shrinking population and economy does to an area.