4 ms·

> When mass-produced, the cost per can will drop to an estimated $2,000 to $3,000. I'm sorry, but that is still embarrassing. If the U.S. still had a strong ma

> When mass-produced, the cost per can will drop to an estimated $2,000 to $3,000. I'm sorry, but that is still embarrassing. If the U.S. still had a strong manufacturing base, these things would be trivial to produce cheaply. To start with, certain aspects of the design would be simplified to allow for easier production. Operations and tooling engineers could help with that process, but we barely have any engineers left with the required speciality. Next you'd find someone that can stamp out the blanks from sheet metal. But of course we don't have many places that deal with a lot of sheet metal and have the ability to retool cost effectively. In China, there are thousands of such places.

mindslight 4y ago
Sure, I went on to address why that is. US labor is expensive, because our currency has been continually hollowed out by the deliberate government policy that prices must always go up, despite continual technological and economic progress trying to make things less expensive. The real cost of producing consumer goods has dropped through the floor, yet nominal prices are a bit higher than they were. Meanwhile domestic labor, and everything depending on domestic labor, has shot through the roof due to this policy. And as labor gets more expensive, even more manufacturing leaves. Employing individuals is cost prohibitive for other individuals (eg calling a plumber costs too damn much), which causes further centralization of the economy where only big business is able to stomach the cost of doing business (they're also well connected to the supply of newly printed money). Also I would be surprised if relatively small runs of long lasting municipal fixtures could be "stamped out from sheet metal". This seems to be a bias towards disposable consumer crap talking.
- atwood22 4y ago
  > Sure, I went on to address exactly why that is. US labor is expensive, because our currency has been continually hollowed out by the deliberate government policy that prices must always go up, despite continual technological and economic progress trying to make things less expensive. Sorry, what policy is that? Are you talking about how the Federal Reserve targets 2% inflation? Every country does that. It's important that nominal prices increase. Otherwise, people just old on to their money and the economy slows down. If that's not the government policy you're talking about, or if you have an example of a country without inflation targets, I would like to see it. > Also I would be surprised if relatively small runs of long lasting municipal fixtures could be "stamped out from sheet metal". This seems to be a bias towards disposable consumer crap talking. Sheet metal is an amazing material. It lets a company focus on producing a high quality steel without worrying about how every consumer downstream will consume it. It also allows for highly efficient shape forming and stamping. The fins on the garbage can almost certain come from sheet metal. Airplanes and cars are made with sheet metal. It's probably one of the most important materials in modern manufacturing.
  - mindslight 4y ago
    > Are you talking about how the Federal Reserve targets 2% inflation? Specifically 2% inflation defined in terms of a consumer price index where the cost to produce manufactured goods is continually dropping. Draw a diagram of the feedback loop, and you'll see that the only way to make that target happen is for the cost of non-offshore-manufactured goods to increase much quicker than 2% to compensate. Put another way, manufacturing was offshored with the idea it would lead to cheap prices, and then the Federal Reserve went and deliberately stopped those cheaper prices from happening. This left Americans with fewer jobs but also no increased economic power to make up for it. > It's important that nominal prices increase. Otherwise, people just old on to their money and the economy slows down I understand the orthodoxy, but the computing industry has had four decades of overwhelming deflation and has been quite vibrant the entire time. Re: sheet metal, how much is the tooling cost to create a die for 1/4 inch steel? I don't have much experience, but at the relatively low quantity a municipality wants CNC plasma might still make more sense. That seems to be the case for tractor implements.
    - atwood22 4y ago
      > I understand the orthodoxy, but the computing industry has had four decades of overwhelming deflation and has been quite vibrant the entire time. This is an interesting point I haven't thought of. Perhaps the reason it happens with the computer industry is that the utility of digitization is so high that the impetus to do the work now usually outweighs waiting for a cheaper price. Thanks for the insight, though. It has changed how I view this issue.
      - mindslight 4y ago
        That's a good point, but the same thing can be said about food, or even discretionary leisure spending. It's a scalar result rather than a binary one. So to me, the real question is do we need more or less manufacturing/consumption in the world today?
HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
> If the U.S. still had a strong manufacturing base What's this "if?" I've worked my entire 30+ year engineering career for companies that manufactured things. From the 6-person company I started at to the $4bn corporation that owned 80% of their market, they've all been based on making things. There's nothing wrong with the US manufacturing base. We just don't focus on low-margin consumer goods. Even the company I worked at which also did consumer electronics, farmed that part of their manufacturing to Viet Nam. Higher margin stuff was built here.
- atwood22 4y ago
  Here is an article that quotes Tim Cook on why Apple produces the iPhone in China: https://www.inc.com/glenn-leibowitz/apple-ceo-tim-cook-this-is-number-1-reason-we-make-iphones-in-china-its-not-what-you-think.html https://www.inc.com/glenn-leibowitz/apple-ceo-tim-cook-this-... > The products we do require really advanced tooling, and the precision that you have to have, the tooling and working with the materials that we do are state of the art. And the tooling skill is very deep here. In the U.S., you could have a meeting of tooling engineers and I'm not sure we could fill the room. In China, you could fill multiple football fields. Low-margin things used to be farmed out overseas due to cost. Now things are produced overseas because we lack the expertise locally.
  - iancmceachern 4y ago
    That's not the correct interpretation of his quote. Tooling engineering is a commodity thing, not a tech leadership thing. Apple products are designed in the US, because the same problem, you couldn't find 1000 engineers able to design an iPhone all in one place anywhere else. Yes, the Tooling engineers are in the lower cost to manufacture countries we export the manufacturing to, but the designers of the product are in the US, bay area specifically. Often tunes tooling engineers assemble production lines, molding stations, etc. From components and tools designed and built in the US and Europe. I.e a tooling engineer will design an automated work cell with a robot arm and an injection molding machine. The robot and injection molding machine are designed and built by a us, Japanese or European company, and the rest is sourced locally and then assembled together.

mindslight 4y ago

Sure, I went on to address why that is. US labor is expensive, because our currency has been continually hollowed out by the deliberate government policy that prices must always go up, despite continual technological and economic progress trying to make things less expensive. The real cost of producing consumer goods has dropped through the floor, yet nominal prices are a bit higher than they were. Meanwhile domestic labor, and everything depending on domestic labor, has shot through the roof due to this policy. And as labor gets more expensive, even more manufacturing leaves. Employing individuals is cost prohibitive for other individuals (eg calling a plumber costs too damn much), which causes further centralization of the economy where only big business is able to stomach the cost of doing business (they're also well connected to the supply of newly printed money). Also I would be surprised if relatively small runs of long lasting municipal fixtures could be "stamped out from sheet metal". This seems to be a bias towards disposable consumer crap talking.

atwood22 4y ago
> Sure, I went on to address exactly why that is. US labor is expensive, because our currency has been continually hollowed out by the deliberate government policy that prices must always go up, despite continual technological and economic progress trying to make things less expensive. Sorry, what policy is that? Are you talking about how the Federal Reserve targets 2% inflation? Every country does that. It's important that nominal prices increase. Otherwise, people just old on to their money and the economy slows down. If that's not the government policy you're talking about, or if you have an example of a country without inflation targets, I would like to see it. > Also I would be surprised if relatively small runs of long lasting municipal fixtures could be "stamped out from sheet metal". This seems to be a bias towards disposable consumer crap talking. Sheet metal is an amazing material. It lets a company focus on producing a high quality steel without worrying about how every consumer downstream will consume it. It also allows for highly efficient shape forming and stamping. The fins on the garbage can almost certain come from sheet metal. Airplanes and cars are made with sheet metal. It's probably one of the most important materials in modern manufacturing.
- mindslight 4y ago
  > Are you talking about how the Federal Reserve targets 2% inflation? Specifically 2% inflation defined in terms of a consumer price index where the cost to produce manufactured goods is continually dropping. Draw a diagram of the feedback loop, and you'll see that the only way to make that target happen is for the cost of non-offshore-manufactured goods to increase much quicker than 2% to compensate. Put another way, manufacturing was offshored with the idea it would lead to cheap prices, and then the Federal Reserve went and deliberately stopped those cheaper prices from happening. This left Americans with fewer jobs but also no increased economic power to make up for it. > It's important that nominal prices increase. Otherwise, people just old on to their money and the economy slows down I understand the orthodoxy, but the computing industry has had four decades of overwhelming deflation and has been quite vibrant the entire time. Re: sheet metal, how much is the tooling cost to create a die for 1/4 inch steel? I don't have much experience, but at the relatively low quantity a municipality wants CNC plasma might still make more sense. That seems to be the case for tractor implements.
  - atwood22 4y ago
    > I understand the orthodoxy, but the computing industry has had four decades of overwhelming deflation and has been quite vibrant the entire time. This is an interesting point I haven't thought of. Perhaps the reason it happens with the computer industry is that the utility of digitization is so high that the impetus to do the work now usually outweighs waiting for a cheaper price. Thanks for the insight, though. It has changed how I view this issue.
    - mindslight 4y ago
      That's a good point, but the same thing can be said about food, or even discretionary leisure spending. It's a scalar result rather than a binary one. So to me, the real question is do we need more or less manufacturing/consumption in the world today?

HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago

> If the U.S. still had a strong manufacturing base What's this "if?" I've worked my entire 30+ year engineering career for companies that manufactured things. From the 6-person company I started at to the $4bn corporation that owned 80% of their market, they've all been based on making things. There's nothing wrong with the US manufacturing base. We just don't focus on low-margin consumer goods. Even the company I worked at which also did consumer electronics, farmed that part of their manufacturing to Viet Nam. Higher margin stuff was built here.

atwood22 4y ago
Here is an article that quotes Tim Cook on why Apple produces the iPhone in China: https://www.inc.com/glenn-leibowitz/apple-ceo-tim-cook-this-is-number-1-reason-we-make-iphones-in-china-its-not-what-you-think.html https://www.inc.com/glenn-leibowitz/apple-ceo-tim-cook-this-... > The products we do require really advanced tooling, and the precision that you have to have, the tooling and working with the materials that we do are state of the art. And the tooling skill is very deep here. In the U.S., you could have a meeting of tooling engineers and I'm not sure we could fill the room. In China, you could fill multiple football fields. Low-margin things used to be farmed out overseas due to cost. Now things are produced overseas because we lack the expertise locally.
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  That's not the correct interpretation of his quote. Tooling engineering is a commodity thing, not a tech leadership thing. Apple products are designed in the US, because the same problem, you couldn't find 1000 engineers able to design an iPhone all in one place anywhere else. Yes, the Tooling engineers are in the lower cost to manufacture countries we export the manufacturing to, but the designers of the product are in the US, bay area specifically. Often tunes tooling engineers assemble production lines, molding stations, etc. From components and tools designed and built in the US and Europe. I.e a tooling engineer will design an automated work cell with a robot arm and an injection molding machine. The robot and injection molding machine are designed and built by a us, Japanese or European company, and the rest is sourced locally and then assembled together.