[TheForge] Second Rate USA?

[ries]

On Jun 9, 2008, at 8:09 AM, craig.schaefer at verizon.net wrote:

"....that we would become a second-rate industrial player? "


I disagree.  We are on par or better than anyone in the world,  
technologically.  It's costwise where we have trouble competing.



Craig


I would say that in a lot of ways, we compete just fine.
A few examples-
Caterpillar and John Deere both export hundreds of millions of dollars  
worth, if not billions, every year.
Not cheap, but miners, roadbuilders, and construction companies  
worldwide gladly pay for the best.
Ditto for Kenworth and Peterbilt, Terex, and other construction  
equipment.

Boeing, of course, sells airplanes by the bushel. Less of them are  
made here than used to be, but in my little area, there are still  
plenty of subs to Boeing- machine and fab shops, including Janicki,  
which, from a standing start less than 10 years ago, now employs over  
500 people, has the largest milling machines in the world, and is  
selling tooling to Airbus, among others.

The US auto industry exported Billions of dollars worth of cars and  
trucks last year- not enough to overcome structural problems in the  
big 3's business plan, but they units were still made and sold. We  
send Honda's to Japan, BMW's and Mercedes to Germany, and so on.

Haas is the largest manufacturer of machine tools in the world- based  
in Ventura Ca.
  They sell more than 100 CNC machines a month to the chinese.
We have probably 50 more machine tool manufacturers here, making  
oddball, expensive machines, that they ship worldwide. Giddings and  
Lewis, for instance, sends metal to china as well.

Everybody in the world knows the difference between a real designed in  
the USA I-Pod, and a cheap chinese knockoff, and they all want the  
real thing.


If you subtract the oil imports from our balance of trade, it isnt  
half bad. Not as good as it could be, but nowhere near as bad as  
people say it is.

Where we dont compete is on low priced commodities that are mass  
produced by unskilled labor.
But we do very well, especially considering how small our population  
is, on things that require brains.


Ries Niemi
Industrial Artist
http://www.riesniemi.com/