3 ms·

> If this pandemic does not teach nations, governments and people why it is so important to have short local and capable supply chains, I don't know what will.

> If this pandemic does not teach nations, governments and people why it is so important to have short local and capable supply chains, I don't know what will. I doubt it will. I order a lot of construction materials, so I've been exposed to most of the supply chain issues. Some of the worst and most unexpected delays have been from the local suppliers. Presumedly because they are also constrained on some parts, and they don't prioritize me simply because I'm local. So going forward, I certainly don't see why I would pay a premium for local suppliers..

robomartin 5y ago
It's a chain reaction. We don't make almost anything in the US any more. Which means everything in the supply chain has serious external dependencies. From screws and wires to electronic components, tools, machinery and almost every basic material used in industry. We have done an excellent job of destroying entire layers of our industries. A lot of what we are seeing is rooted in failed economic and foreign policies spanning at least five decades. To add to my prior statement: If this doesn't teach people that our politicians are incompetent and selfish, I am not sure what will. Note I do not make political party distinctions. We have allowed ambulance chasers run our country for decades. The realities of the next few decades are entirely on the voters who never woke up to understand that incompetent, selfish, power-hungry people never produce good outcomes. I can't think of many politicians I would hire to run a mid size cooking baking operation. That's how bad it is.
- nradov 5y ago
  The pandemic has caused some short term disruptions but overall the US manufacturing sector is huge and growing. Revenue was $2.3T in 2019. We make a lot of stuff. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/manufacturing-output https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/manu...
  - robomartin 5y ago
    > We make a lot of stuff No, we don't. We assemble a lot of stuff and somehow manage to call it "US made". Let's not fool ourselves. Most "Made in USA" product is nearly 100% comprised of components and assemblies made in China (mostly) and other places. I know entire companies that operate this way. If you read through the ISIC divisions 15-37 categories it is very easy to see that there are entire categories of items could not be made even with 25% US-made content. https://unstats.un.org/unsd/publication/seriesm/seriesm_4rev3_1e.pdf https://unstats.un.org/unsd/publication/seriesm/seriesm_4rev... Start on page 44. Divisions, 17, 18, 19, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 and 36 are almost certainly either made outside the US or assembled in the US with nearly 100% non-US materials. Take Ikea as an example. Or, for that matter, almost any piece of furniture you can buy from Walmart or most furniture stores. The other classifications run a range between genuinely US-made, assembled in the US from foreign materials and 100% non-US. To be clear, I am not proposing that we should have a 100% inshored supply line. That cat is out of the bag. There are entire industries that will never come back. Ever. We could do better though. Yet this, at a minimum, requires unity and a solid commitment to actually focus on things that really matter. We have not demonstrated being able to do this for quite some time. A real analysis would require detailed data per ISIC division along with an analysis of the products and their actual US-made content. Having been in manufacturing for some four decades, I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, that there are very few things we can truly call "Made in USA", even if the criteria is 75% domestically manufactured content. A few hours browsing the Alibaba website should give anyone a good sense of where we are. Pick an item. Go find a manufacturer on Alibaba. You are likely to find hundreds of them in China. Now go find manufacturers of the same item in the US or Europe. Good luck. If I send out for a quote for a part or assembly in China, I'll get 10 to 50 quotes overnight. If I do the same thing in the US I would consider myself lucky if I get one quote in two to four weeks. And when I do finally get it, it costs 2x to 5x more and takes five times longer to get it done. It's that bad. In a lot of cases the US companies are just middle men who get the products made in China. And then there are real questions about these numbers. Simple example: Are Apple iPhone sales counted as US manufacturing output?

robomartin 5y ago

It's a chain reaction. We don't make almost anything in the US any more. Which means everything in the supply chain has serious external dependencies. From screws and wires to electronic components, tools, machinery and almost every basic material used in industry. We have done an excellent job of destroying entire layers of our industries. A lot of what we are seeing is rooted in failed economic and foreign policies spanning at least five decades. To add to my prior statement: If this doesn't teach people that our politicians are incompetent and selfish, I am not sure what will. Note I do not make political party distinctions. We have allowed ambulance chasers run our country for decades. The realities of the next few decades are entirely on the voters who never woke up to understand that incompetent, selfish, power-hungry people never produce good outcomes. I can't think of many politicians I would hire to run a mid size cooking baking operation. That's how bad it is.

nradov 5y ago
The pandemic has caused some short term disruptions but overall the US manufacturing sector is huge and growing. Revenue was $2.3T in 2019. We make a lot of stuff. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/manufacturing-output https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/manu...
- robomartin 5y ago
  > We make a lot of stuff No, we don't. We assemble a lot of stuff and somehow manage to call it "US made". Let's not fool ourselves. Most "Made in USA" product is nearly 100% comprised of components and assemblies made in China (mostly) and other places. I know entire companies that operate this way. If you read through the ISIC divisions 15-37 categories it is very easy to see that there are entire categories of items could not be made even with 25% US-made content. https://unstats.un.org/unsd/publication/seriesm/seriesm_4rev3_1e.pdf https://unstats.un.org/unsd/publication/seriesm/seriesm_4rev... Start on page 44. Divisions, 17, 18, 19, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 and 36 are almost certainly either made outside the US or assembled in the US with nearly 100% non-US materials. Take Ikea as an example. Or, for that matter, almost any piece of furniture you can buy from Walmart or most furniture stores. The other classifications run a range between genuinely US-made, assembled in the US from foreign materials and 100% non-US. To be clear, I am not proposing that we should have a 100% inshored supply line. That cat is out of the bag. There are entire industries that will never come back. Ever. We could do better though. Yet this, at a minimum, requires unity and a solid commitment to actually focus on things that really matter. We have not demonstrated being able to do this for quite some time. A real analysis would require detailed data per ISIC division along with an analysis of the products and their actual US-made content. Having been in manufacturing for some four decades, I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, that there are very few things we can truly call "Made in USA", even if the criteria is 75% domestically manufactured content. A few hours browsing the Alibaba website should give anyone a good sense of where we are. Pick an item. Go find a manufacturer on Alibaba. You are likely to find hundreds of them in China. Now go find manufacturers of the same item in the US or Europe. Good luck. If I send out for a quote for a part or assembly in China, I'll get 10 to 50 quotes overnight. If I do the same thing in the US I would consider myself lucky if I get one quote in two to four weeks. And when I do finally get it, it costs 2x to 5x more and takes five times longer to get it done. It's that bad. In a lot of cases the US companies are just middle men who get the products made in China. And then there are real questions about these numbers. Simple example: Are Apple iPhone sales counted as US manufacturing output?