4 ms·

The US followed the advice of the business schools long ago and outsourced all its core competencies. The US' loss of technical and manufacturing expertise is g

by api 6y ago

The US followed the advice of the business schools long ago and outsourced all its core competencies. The US' loss of technical and manufacturing expertise is going to be extremely hard to reverse, and reversing it is going to require a rejection of financial capitalist economic ideology and things like "maximizing shareholder value" as the prime directive. Unfortunately this election gives us a choice between an utterly unacceptable racist crackpot and a bland candidate who belongs to the old guard who still believes that you can have an economy based on nothing. That doesn't make me optimistic.

tharne 6y ago
Don't know why this is getting downvoted. Tone aside, it's a fairly accurate assessment.
- g-b-r 6y ago
  I'd wager it's because he criticizes Biden (too), but come on, people...
- evgen 6y ago
  I can't say for certain, but I believe that statement is being downvoted because the first paragraph is factually inaccurate in each sentence: > The US followed the advice of the business schools long ago and outsourced all its core competencies. Bashing metal and low-tech widget-forming has never really been a core competency of the US. It was useful to keep people employed for a 50 years or so but for the past century the US seems to have aimed for technological synthesis and increasingly high-tech production as a core strength. > The US' loss of technical and manufacturing expertise is going to be extremely hard to reverse, and reversing it is going to require a rejection of financial capitalist economic ideology and things like "maximizing shareholder value" as the prime directive. It is unnecessary to reverse something which was not lost in the first place. As others have repeatedly pointed out all over the comments on this article the US has continued to climb up the manufacturing food chain and dominates the top-end. It may employ fewer people, but the productivity and economic benefit of the US manufacturing sector has simply not declined at all and therefore no 'rejection of financial capitalist economic ideology' will be required.
  - michaelt 6y ago
    > Bashing metal and low-tech widget-forming has never really been a core competency of the US. If you think the far east only dominates low-tech widget forming, you should look into where the iPhone and Macbook are manufactured :)
    - evgen 6y ago
      I know where they are assembled. I also know where the displays are actually manufactured, where the RAM comes from, and where the CPU is fabbed, and where the various radio chips are sourced from. I also know where the software is written that makes it all work. I also know that the iPhone and Macbook are not particularly difficult pieces of engineering and that the tech required to make the shiny bit of tech you see in the store is the bit of the iceberg beneath the waterline that represents a lot of the value in what we are talking about.
      - michaelt 6y ago
        > I also know that the iPhone and Macbook are not particularly difficult pieces of engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
        evgen 6y ago
        It is not a No True Scotsman fallacy, it is simply that the tech and machines/processes used to create the components are far more impressive and represent a more important tech base than the actual output from those processes. If we want to trade vaguely related aphorisms: “Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics.” The tip of the spear is less impressive than the logistical tail that makes it possible.
        salawat 6y ago
        This. I've always been most fascinated by industrial machinery and process engineering more so than the end result of it. It's that piece that represents the Golden egg of industry; and like it or not, the capability to keep the people of your country employed making widget X, receiving paychecks, etc is valuable. Incredibly so. Possibly even more valuable than the money it makes as the know-how it takes to have formulated that process stand-up is nearly impossible to codify, and closer to a luck based emergent outcome than anything you can plan for. Similar, if you'll excuse the long-jump analogy to how all the enzymatic processes our cells must undergo to live and thrive are all based on a fundamentally chaotic process; diffusion.
mikequinlan 6y ago
I don't know about the rest of your comment, but it starts with a false statement. > the advice of the business schools long ago and outsourced all its core competencies. Business schools recommend the opposite. Outsource everything OTHER THAN core competencies. Core competencies are your competitive advantage; keep them in house.
- erichocean 6y ago
  > Outsource everything OTHER THAN core competencies. The core competency of the US today is finance. We've been actively outsourcing everything else we can.
  - jfk13 6y ago
    > The core competency of the US today is finance. Since when? It didn't look very competent in 2008...
    - erichocean 6y ago
      We're not even competent anymore at our core competencies…
  - mikequinlan 6y ago
    I've looked and it seems that our actual core competency (the thing we do better than others) is raise soybeans, beef, and chicken. https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/07/news/economy/top-us-exports/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/07/news/economy/top-us-exports... for example.

by api 6y ago

tharne 6y ago

Don't know why this is getting downvoted. Tone aside, it's a fairly accurate assessment.

g-b-r 6y ago
I'd wager it's because he criticizes Biden (too), but come on, people...
evgen 6y ago
I can't say for certain, but I believe that statement is being downvoted because the first paragraph is factually inaccurate in each sentence: > The US followed the advice of the business schools long ago and outsourced all its core competencies. Bashing metal and low-tech widget-forming has never really been a core competency of the US. It was useful to keep people employed for a 50 years or so but for the past century the US seems to have aimed for technological synthesis and increasingly high-tech production as a core strength. > The US' loss of technical and manufacturing expertise is going to be extremely hard to reverse, and reversing it is going to require a rejection of financial capitalist economic ideology and things like "maximizing shareholder value" as the prime directive. It is unnecessary to reverse something which was not lost in the first place. As others have repeatedly pointed out all over the comments on this article the US has continued to climb up the manufacturing food chain and dominates the top-end. It may employ fewer people, but the productivity and economic benefit of the US manufacturing sector has simply not declined at all and therefore no 'rejection of financial capitalist economic ideology' will be required.
- michaelt 6y ago
  > Bashing metal and low-tech widget-forming has never really been a core competency of the US. If you think the far east only dominates low-tech widget forming, you should look into where the iPhone and Macbook are manufactured :)
  - evgen 6y ago
    I know where they are assembled. I also know where the displays are actually manufactured, where the RAM comes from, and where the CPU is fabbed, and where the various radio chips are sourced from. I also know where the software is written that makes it all work. I also know that the iPhone and Macbook are not particularly difficult pieces of engineering and that the tech required to make the shiny bit of tech you see in the store is the bit of the iceberg beneath the waterline that represents a lot of the value in what we are talking about.
    - michaelt 6y ago
      > I also know that the iPhone and Macbook are not particularly difficult pieces of engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
      - evgen 6y ago
        It is not a No True Scotsman fallacy, it is simply that the tech and machines/processes used to create the components are far more impressive and represent a more important tech base than the actual output from those processes. If we want to trade vaguely related aphorisms: “Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics.” The tip of the spear is less impressive than the logistical tail that makes it possible.
        salawat 6y ago
        This. I've always been most fascinated by industrial machinery and process engineering more so than the end result of it. It's that piece that represents the Golden egg of industry; and like it or not, the capability to keep the people of your country employed making widget X, receiving paychecks, etc is valuable. Incredibly so. Possibly even more valuable than the money it makes as the know-how it takes to have formulated that process stand-up is nearly impossible to codify, and closer to a luck based emergent outcome than anything you can plan for. Similar, if you'll excuse the long-jump analogy to how all the enzymatic processes our cells must undergo to live and thrive are all based on a fundamentally chaotic process; diffusion.

mikequinlan 6y ago

I don't know about the rest of your comment, but it starts with a false statement. > the advice of the business schools long ago and outsourced all its core competencies. Business schools recommend the opposite. Outsource everything OTHER THAN core competencies. Core competencies are your competitive advantage; keep them in house.

erichocean 6y ago
> Outsource everything OTHER THAN core competencies. The core competency of the US today is finance. We've been actively outsourcing everything else we can.
- jfk13 6y ago
  > The core competency of the US today is finance. Since when? It didn't look very competent in 2008...
  - erichocean 6y ago
    We're not even competent anymore at our core competencies…
- mikequinlan 6y ago
  I've looked and it seems that our actual core competency (the thing we do better than others) is raise soybeans, beef, and chicken. https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/07/news/economy/top-us-exports/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/07/news/economy/top-us-exports... for example.