[TheForge] Conventional wisdom- Wrong again?

[RIES NIEMI]

All this talk about cincinnati milacron going out of the machine tool
business has got me to thinking about America's shrinking industrial base.
The standard received wisdom is that all of american industry is leaving,
going to asia beacuse:
A- some sort of bad gubbimnt poicy
B- Corporate greed going for short term profits
C- You cant compete with countries where people will work for a dollar a
day.
Now personally, I think there is some truth to all three of these arguments,
but theres more to this picture than that.
Recently I bought a milling machine. (just to make tooling for the power
hammer, I swear) I looked at Bridgeports, at about 15 grand, and ended up
buying a taiwanese machine for about 5 grand. Now I have used both in the
past, and for what I am doing, there is no functional difference to justify
triple the price. The bridgeport style milling machine has become a
commodity, and the americans cant compete on labor costs, so the asians take
over the market. But what if I wanted a slightly larger CNC machine? the
asians would clean our clock again, right? well, no- I could have spent 5
grand more than the bridgeport, and gotten a Haas, made in Ventura
California. Now this doesnt  make any sense at all. Here is a guy who
started his company, in America, about 20 years ago, right when all of the
american machine tool companies were going out of business. He produces a
line of high quality, cost competitive machine tools right in the socialist
republic of california, with its high costs of living, high taxes, high
labor rates, and business unfriendly environment. Whats going on here?
As I looked around my shop, I saw machines made in germany, turkey, china,
japan, italy, spain, and, surprisingly, quite a few made in the US. And all
of these american made products are on top of their market, even though
theoretically the chinese could make them all cheaper. But if you have ever
used chinese copies of enerpac hydraulics, or miller welders, or johnstown
compressors, or ellis bandsaws, or good old hossfeld benders, you would know
that they arent any good, no matter how cheap. And why is it that Honda and
Makita tools both make almost all of their US sold product here in america?
Actually a lot of american companies are very competitive, but only the ones
that dont sit back on their asses and expect things to continue the way they
always have. There is all kinds of new manufacturing taking place all up and
down the west coast, mostly in small, smart shops. Hell, if there was a war,
I am sure my shop could tool up to make 80 mm mortar tubes in about a month.
What has happened is a change from the old rust belt economy of 2000 man
shops, to a new paradigm of small cnc shops all over america. In my area of
rural washington state, there are, within a few miles, cnc machine shops,
waterjet cutters, a guy with the largest 3d cnc router on the west coast,
electronics manufacturers, cnc sheet metal shops, a company that makes
aluminum livestock management corrals, another one that makes NBA basketball
hoops, aluminum boat shops galore, and tons more. No smokestacks, no big
factories visible from the highway. Small distributed industry, but
industrial capacity nonetheless. A lot of these companies sell stuff to the
asians. My powdercoater does the aluminum benches for ferries in hong kong.
America still does have what it takes, it just isnt quite so obvious as it
used to be.
Ries