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American manufacturing looks like low-wage workers making $12 an hour (a few years ago) making windshields. A real American manufacturing renaissance would be G

American manufacturing looks like low-wage workers making $12 an hour (a few years ago) making windshields. A real American manufacturing renaissance would be German, with high skilled trained professionals designing, building, and operating advanced machines to create complex products. Basically what the Chinese are continually getting better at. There is no hope. America can’t even agree on giving community college to poor kids, let alone training a generation of toolmakers, electronic engineers, programmers, and every other profession involved in making things out of atoms more complex than a handtool or a radiator. This country is dying and wildly unstable politically.

stacktrust 4y ago
TSMC is sending recent American college graduates to Taiwan for 12-18 months of internship/training, in preparation for work at the TSMC fab in Phoenix, AZ, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29676073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29676073
- Godel_unicode 4y ago
  That’s pretty short for actual education on those kinds of processes, sounds like they have found the raw engineering talent they need at US universities. They then send them for a short stint in Taiwan to learn “the TSMC way” and then send them back.
throwawaylinux 4y ago
> There is no hope. America can’t even agree on giving community college to poor kids, Working on factory production lines does not require a bachelor's degree. Germany isn't assembling cheap power tools either. One reason is that labor costs are too high, and requiring low skill jobs have a college degree does the opposite of helping that. > let alone training a generation of toolmakers, electronic engineers, programmers, and every other profession involved in making things out of atoms more complex than a handtool or a radiator. This isn't true. USA has some of the best EEs and programmers in the world. > This country is dying and wildly unstable politically.
nwiswell 4y ago
> A real American manufacturing renaissance would be German, with high skilled trained professionals designing, building, and operating advanced machines to create complex products. So like Applied Materials, Lam Research, and KLA Tencor? The global leaders in semiconductor machinery are predominantly American, with honorable mentions for the Japanese (Tokyo Electron, Dainippon Screen) and Dutch (ASML, ASMI). Most of the equipment is made stateside, e.g. Applied Materials manufacturing is in Austin. > America can’t even agree on giving community college to poor kids, let alone training a generation of toolmakers, electronic engineers, programmers, and every other profession involved in making things out of atoms more complex than a handtool or a radiator. The "America is doomed!" rhetoric is older than the hills and, while we are in decline as the global hegemon, economically we are still as vibrant as ever. Last year KLA Tencor opened a second headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan... not in China.
- devin 4y ago
  It may be a bit overblown but it’s not wrong. We should invest in the future of engineering. I doubt you’d say that statement is controversial.
  - Godel_unicode 4y ago
    The second sentence has nothing to do with the first and is universally true. Everyone, regardless of the state they are currently in or their current trajectory, should invest in the future of engineering. The first statement is an extraordinary claim for which extraordinary proof is required (especially as a direct response to a post explaining how the opposite is true).
jrockway 4y ago
I don't know if that's a fair assessment, really. While it's not economically viable to pay American wages to put drills together, we do make things like jet engines and CNC machines here. The complexity has to be high enough to justify the high cost of labor. If you can build something from raw materials in your garage over the weekend, then it's probably not worth paying someone's mortgage, health insurance, and 401(k) to get it done.
- catawbasam 4y ago
  Health insurance. Which manufacturing companies in other countries don't have to deal with.
- datavirtue 4y ago
  Wouldn't it be cool if we could buy kits from Milwaukee and assemble them ourselves?
rayiner 4y ago
- blt 4y ago
  Please show me a single person who is both strongly anti-racist and strongly against free community college in the USA.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - rayiner 4y ago
    I didn’t say they opposed free college. I said the folks you would expect to support free college (those left of center) have been co-opted by a version of “anti-racism” that treats acknowledging civilizational competition with China as “racist.” There’s lots of people who support free college(or at least claim to)—but not as a means to rebuild the American industrial base and get jobs back from China. They support free college, but also oppose tariffs and other America first policies.
    - swores 4y ago
      What's the point of this apparent straw man? The reason the US can't / doesn't / shouldn't (not sure which, but presume you're suggesting at least one of those otherwise your comment's irrelevant) provide free college is because too many people who support they policy also support continued collaboration with China? I don't see how that's relavent even if we set aside nuances and just agree for the sake of this topic to say that whatever your view on how relations with China should or shouldn't be is the right one. edit: oh my bad it's not a straw man, you did create a link in your first comment it was just so tenuous I'd forgotten it. > Because the folks who would ordinarily be advocating for free community college don’t want kids to go to school to learn those things. So it's the fault of the left wing for not being left wing enough?
      - rayiner 4y ago
dharmab 4y ago
> A real American manufacturing renaissance would be German, with high skilled trained professionals designing, building, and operating advanced machines to create complex products. You mean like how Standard's US factories makes automotive parts? https://youtu.be/JhqaaYNgCO4 https://youtu.be/JhqaaYNgCO4
baybal2 4y ago

stacktrust 4y ago

TSMC is sending recent American college graduates to Taiwan for 12-18 months of internship/training, in preparation for work at the TSMC fab in Phoenix, AZ, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29676073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29676073

Godel_unicode 4y ago
That’s pretty short for actual education on those kinds of processes, sounds like they have found the raw engineering talent they need at US universities. They then send them for a short stint in Taiwan to learn “the TSMC way” and then send them back.

throwawaylinux 4y ago

> There is no hope. America can’t even agree on giving community college to poor kids, Working on factory production lines does not require a bachelor's degree. Germany isn't assembling cheap power tools either. One reason is that labor costs are too high, and requiring low skill jobs have a college degree does the opposite of helping that. > let alone training a generation of toolmakers, electronic engineers, programmers, and every other profession involved in making things out of atoms more complex than a handtool or a radiator. This isn't true. USA has some of the best EEs and programmers in the world. > This country is dying and wildly unstable politically.

nwiswell 4y ago

> A real American manufacturing renaissance would be German, with high skilled trained professionals designing, building, and operating advanced machines to create complex products. So like Applied Materials, Lam Research, and KLA Tencor? The global leaders in semiconductor machinery are predominantly American, with honorable mentions for the Japanese (Tokyo Electron, Dainippon Screen) and Dutch (ASML, ASMI). Most of the equipment is made stateside, e.g. Applied Materials manufacturing is in Austin. > America can’t even agree on giving community college to poor kids, let alone training a generation of toolmakers, electronic engineers, programmers, and every other profession involved in making things out of atoms more complex than a handtool or a radiator. The "America is doomed!" rhetoric is older than the hills and, while we are in decline as the global hegemon, economically we are still as vibrant as ever. Last year KLA Tencor opened a second headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan... not in China.

devin 4y ago
It may be a bit overblown but it’s not wrong. We should invest in the future of engineering. I doubt you’d say that statement is controversial.
- Godel_unicode 4y ago
  The second sentence has nothing to do with the first and is universally true. Everyone, regardless of the state they are currently in or their current trajectory, should invest in the future of engineering. The first statement is an extraordinary claim for which extraordinary proof is required (especially as a direct response to a post explaining how the opposite is true).

jrockway 4y ago

I don't know if that's a fair assessment, really. While it's not economically viable to pay American wages to put drills together, we do make things like jet engines and CNC machines here. The complexity has to be high enough to justify the high cost of labor. If you can build something from raw materials in your garage over the weekend, then it's probably not worth paying someone's mortgage, health insurance, and 401(k) to get it done.

catawbasam 4y ago
Health insurance. Which manufacturing companies in other countries don't have to deal with.
datavirtue 4y ago
Wouldn't it be cool if we could buy kits from Milwaukee and assemble them ourselves?

rayiner 4y ago

blt 4y ago
Please show me a single person who is both strongly anti-racist and strongly against free community college in the USA.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rayiner 4y ago
  I didn’t say they opposed free college. I said the folks you would expect to support free college (those left of center) have been co-opted by a version of “anti-racism” that treats acknowledging civilizational competition with China as “racist.” There’s lots of people who support free college(or at least claim to)—but not as a means to rebuild the American industrial base and get jobs back from China. They support free college, but also oppose tariffs and other America first policies.
  - swores 4y ago
    What's the point of this apparent straw man? The reason the US can't / doesn't / shouldn't (not sure which, but presume you're suggesting at least one of those otherwise your comment's irrelevant) provide free college is because too many people who support they policy also support continued collaboration with China? I don't see how that's relavent even if we set aside nuances and just agree for the sake of this topic to say that whatever your view on how relations with China should or shouldn't be is the right one. edit: oh my bad it's not a straw man, you did create a link in your first comment it was just so tenuous I'd forgotten it. > Because the folks who would ordinarily be advocating for free community college don’t want kids to go to school to learn those things. So it's the fault of the left wing for not being left wing enough?
    - rayiner 4y ago

dharmab 4y ago

> A real American manufacturing renaissance would be German, with high skilled trained professionals designing, building, and operating advanced machines to create complex products. You mean like how Standard's US factories makes automotive parts? https://youtu.be/JhqaaYNgCO4 https://youtu.be/JhqaaYNgCO4

baybal2 4y ago