8 ms·

The US has become engineering/design while manufacturing is overseas. Broad stereotype, but I hope this is an opportunity for the US to recognize that manufactu

The US has become engineering/design while manufacturing is overseas. Broad stereotype, but I hope this is an opportunity for the US to recognize that manufacturing may actually be an issue of national sovereignty.

thinkloop 7y ago
The US is the #2 manufacturer in the world [1] and will overtake China this year to become #1 [2]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_... [2] https://www.industryweek.com/the-economy/competitiveness/media-gallery/22011658/top-10-manufacturing-countries-in-2020/slideshow?slide=10 https://www.industryweek.com/the-economy/competitiveness/med...
- anonsubmit2671 7y ago
  I would bet this is only for final assembly. I seriously doubt there is any "Made in USA" product that isn't completely dependent on some tooling or components made overseas.
  - creddit 7y ago
    Yes, but be careful with that conception. That exact same thing can be said of just about anything made anywhere. This is the nature of globalization of supply chains.
    - baddox 7y ago
      I mean it goes back long before the word “globalization” was used to mean “anything I don’t like that involved more than one country.” There was very long-distance trade thousands of years ago. Not every raw material you might want will exist in your immediate vicinity.
  - thinkloop 7y ago
    It would be hard to find any product these days that isn't dependent on the world-wide supply-chain, but I agree that how "manufacturing" is quantified and measured leaves a lot of room for tomfoolery.
  - parkaboy 7y ago
    Couple of things: - For products containing electronics: short of the electrical components themselves, there is a healthy amount of US electronics+mechanical manufacturing, but it's more geared for lower-volume higher-margin type stuff (think for energy / agriculture / etc.) - IIRC having spoken to someone at Jabil a few years ago, vague recollection of being told that the US is the largest manufacturer of high volume plastic goods (as well as other products using automated processes). Not so much enclosures for consumer electronics, but rather stuff like shampoo bottles, and that sort of tooling is done here in the US. - Just keep in mind that manufacturing has a broader scope than what it seems you're implying. Not all manufactured goods involve electronics or injection molding.
    - Mvandenbergh 7y ago
      Shampoo bottles make little sense to make in China. The processes are highly automated, the feedstock is cheaper in the US (way more petrochemical inputs and cheaper energy) and it would be madness to ship empty shampoo bottles over long distances.
    - kube-system 7y ago
      Even US industrials like the metals industry is still chugging along, and some of it even ends up in Chinese products. It's just that the US has shifted to making more specialized metals and alloys, rather than cheap and basic metals.
    - double0jimb0 7y ago
      True on high volume plastic bottles, caps, etc. Those must be manufactured geographically near final distribution, too expensive to ship billions of empty plastic bottles half way around world. And lots of the tooling for this high volume plastic bottles, lids, etc is made in Germany. Consensus is Germans make best tools for this volume (100’s of millions of parts per year)
  - Cthulhu_ 7y ago
    Counterpoint / However: A lot of the "made in China" products were developed and designed in the US.
  - Mvandenbergh 7y ago
    Sure but most Chinese factories operate using manufacturing equipment made in the US or Germany.
    - anonsubmit2671 7y ago
      This is absolutely and patently false for 99% of Chinese manufacturing. I suggest you watch Strange Parts videos to see what manufacturing in China is actually like before making a fool of yourself.
  - nutjob2 7y ago
    Final assembly only would be the last strategy applied in the US due to high labor costs. The competitiveness of US manufacturing is due to high levels of automation.
- pinkfoot 7y ago
  Is this adjusted for PPP?
- gojomo 7y ago
  I wouldn't trust a projection from 2015 (!) about relative US-vs-China manufacturing volume. Hell, I wouldn't trust a projection from 2 weeks ago.
anonsubmit2671 7y ago
That's a problem. If a country doesn't have manufacturing capacity, other countries can use that as leverage in the geopolitical sphere. This is one example of where the interests of corporations and countries conflict.
- andromeduck 7y ago
  That's Taiwan and Hong Kong in a nutshell.
  - anonsubmit2671 7y ago
    Sadly, true. The flip-side of globalization is there are unlikely to be any more large-scale conventional or NBC wars (only proxy, cyber and economic wars) because of extreme economic interdependency.
Dahoon 7y ago
This wont change in a capitalist society. The only ways to fix this that have a chance to actually work that I can think off is 1) Americans work for as low wages as workers in China to compete or 2) non-capitalism. I would love to learn of any other ways but this has been discussed by people way smarter than me for ages and I have seen no other solutions that wouldn't sink the US economy or cause a revolution.
- acqq 7y ago
  > no other solutions that wouldn't sink the US economy After this pandemics is over I think we'll know better what "no other solutions that wouldn't sink the US economy" actually means. I suspect that behind the typical talk about sinking "the US economy" is not what it appears to be, especially if one talks about "capitalism" versus others. Namely, since a some decades ago both China and Russia are technically capitalistic societies. Therefore I interpret the statements only as "will our empire continue to be the empire." The empire is kept primarily with the arms, and they aren't going away, whatever changes.
- AlgorithmicTime 7y ago
  Or... higher tariffs on imported manufactured goods. We did that in the past to protect industries from dumping by the British. Think late 18th, early 19th Century.
- nutjob2 7y ago
  You seemed to have missed the option that has been driving economic growth for centuries: improved worker productivity through improved technology and methods. A machine can work cheaper and faster than any Chinese worker. Eliminating work is even more efficient than that. So basically work smarter than harder or cheaper. The way to compete with the Chinese is through better ideas.
  - varjag 7y ago
    That's the theory we heard since 1980s: then Japanese robots will run over everyone. In practice however, you have Chinese workers instead. Outside some very high volume, certain simplicity manufacturing processes it's still mostly manual labor on assembly line.

thinkloop 7y ago

The US is the #2 manufacturer in the world [1] and will overtake China this year to become #1 [2]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_... [2] https://www.industryweek.com/the-economy/competitiveness/media-gallery/22011658/top-10-manufacturing-countries-in-2020/slideshow?slide=10 https://www.industryweek.com/the-economy/competitiveness/med...

anonsubmit2671 7y ago
I would bet this is only for final assembly. I seriously doubt there is any "Made in USA" product that isn't completely dependent on some tooling or components made overseas.
- creddit 7y ago
  Yes, but be careful with that conception. That exact same thing can be said of just about anything made anywhere. This is the nature of globalization of supply chains.
  - baddox 7y ago
    I mean it goes back long before the word “globalization” was used to mean “anything I don’t like that involved more than one country.” There was very long-distance trade thousands of years ago. Not every raw material you might want will exist in your immediate vicinity.
- thinkloop 7y ago
  It would be hard to find any product these days that isn't dependent on the world-wide supply-chain, but I agree that how "manufacturing" is quantified and measured leaves a lot of room for tomfoolery.
- parkaboy 7y ago
  Couple of things: - For products containing electronics: short of the electrical components themselves, there is a healthy amount of US electronics+mechanical manufacturing, but it's more geared for lower-volume higher-margin type stuff (think for energy / agriculture / etc.) - IIRC having spoken to someone at Jabil a few years ago, vague recollection of being told that the US is the largest manufacturer of high volume plastic goods (as well as other products using automated processes). Not so much enclosures for consumer electronics, but rather stuff like shampoo bottles, and that sort of tooling is done here in the US. - Just keep in mind that manufacturing has a broader scope than what it seems you're implying. Not all manufactured goods involve electronics or injection molding.
  - Mvandenbergh 7y ago
    Shampoo bottles make little sense to make in China. The processes are highly automated, the feedstock is cheaper in the US (way more petrochemical inputs and cheaper energy) and it would be madness to ship empty shampoo bottles over long distances.
  - kube-system 7y ago
    Even US industrials like the metals industry is still chugging along, and some of it even ends up in Chinese products. It's just that the US has shifted to making more specialized metals and alloys, rather than cheap and basic metals.
  - double0jimb0 7y ago
    True on high volume plastic bottles, caps, etc. Those must be manufactured geographically near final distribution, too expensive to ship billions of empty plastic bottles half way around world. And lots of the tooling for this high volume plastic bottles, lids, etc is made in Germany. Consensus is Germans make best tools for this volume (100’s of millions of parts per year)
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  Counterpoint / However: A lot of the "made in China" products were developed and designed in the US.
- Mvandenbergh 7y ago
  Sure but most Chinese factories operate using manufacturing equipment made in the US or Germany.
  - anonsubmit2671 7y ago
    This is absolutely and patently false for 99% of Chinese manufacturing. I suggest you watch Strange Parts videos to see what manufacturing in China is actually like before making a fool of yourself.
- nutjob2 7y ago
  Final assembly only would be the last strategy applied in the US due to high labor costs. The competitiveness of US manufacturing is due to high levels of automation.
pinkfoot 7y ago
Is this adjusted for PPP?
gojomo 7y ago
I wouldn't trust a projection from 2015 (!) about relative US-vs-China manufacturing volume. Hell, I wouldn't trust a projection from 2 weeks ago.

anonsubmit2671 7y ago

That's a problem. If a country doesn't have manufacturing capacity, other countries can use that as leverage in the geopolitical sphere. This is one example of where the interests of corporations and countries conflict.

andromeduck 7y ago
That's Taiwan and Hong Kong in a nutshell.
- anonsubmit2671 7y ago
  Sadly, true. The flip-side of globalization is there are unlikely to be any more large-scale conventional or NBC wars (only proxy, cyber and economic wars) because of extreme economic interdependency.

Dahoon 7y ago

This wont change in a capitalist society. The only ways to fix this that have a chance to actually work that I can think off is 1) Americans work for as low wages as workers in China to compete or 2) non-capitalism. I would love to learn of any other ways but this has been discussed by people way smarter than me for ages and I have seen no other solutions that wouldn't sink the US economy or cause a revolution.

acqq 7y ago
> no other solutions that wouldn't sink the US economy After this pandemics is over I think we'll know better what "no other solutions that wouldn't sink the US economy" actually means. I suspect that behind the typical talk about sinking "the US economy" is not what it appears to be, especially if one talks about "capitalism" versus others. Namely, since a some decades ago both China and Russia are technically capitalistic societies. Therefore I interpret the statements only as "will our empire continue to be the empire." The empire is kept primarily with the arms, and they aren't going away, whatever changes.
AlgorithmicTime 7y ago
Or... higher tariffs on imported manufactured goods. We did that in the past to protect industries from dumping by the British. Think late 18th, early 19th Century.
nutjob2 7y ago
You seemed to have missed the option that has been driving economic growth for centuries: improved worker productivity through improved technology and methods. A machine can work cheaper and faster than any Chinese worker. Eliminating work is even more efficient than that. So basically work smarter than harder or cheaper. The way to compete with the Chinese is through better ideas.
- varjag 7y ago
  That's the theory we heard since 1980s: then Japanese robots will run over everyone. In practice however, you have Chinese workers instead. Outside some very high volume, certain simplicity manufacturing processes it's still mostly manual labor on assembly line.