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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Tech Innovation in the US

One of my suppliers built a digital CATV distribution amp for structured cabling environments. They found that poor manufacturing tolerances and QC by their Chinese partner was costing them more than having them made here by a better supplier. They moved production to the US.
The real losers in all of the outsourcing are relatively low skilled blue collar American workers. Their decent middle class income jobs are gone and not coming back. The options left to them are service industry jobs paying far less. US companies are also using the threat of outsourcing to depress manufacturing wages here too. Under new contracts most American auto workers can no longer afford to buy the cars they make.
 
David Rasberry said:
Under new contracts most American auto workers can no longer afford to buy the cars they make.
Click to expand...

Well I'm a photographer, and I can tell you that at least right now, I couldn't afford to buy my own artwork for my living room, or I couldn't afford to pay me to take family portraits.

Believe me, I understand your point, and I'm not trying to be contrary, but just because you are paid to produce or manufacture something doesn't mean you should be able to afford to buy it for yourself.
 
I know times change Austin but wasn't Ford Motors, the grandfather of the Detroit car manufacturing industry built on principles like "cars that the workers can afford".

This is no moral judgment, just a reminder of how far things have changed.
 
Eren Ozkural said:
I know times change Austin but wasn't Ford Motors, the grandfather of the Detroit car manufacturing industry built on principles like "cars that the workers can afford".

This is no moral judgment, just a reminder of how far things have changed.
Click to expand...

You have a good point. I hadn't thought of it that way. I guess the times really do change, don't they?

Here's an emoticon for the topic: :driving:

:biggrin:
 
Labor is a commodity. At present, we have more labor than is needed for the work quota.

I'm thinking there is a level-seeking dynamic in manufacturing at play in a free-trade world. If we want to become protectionists, we can manipulate the work/labor dynamic, at the expense of new ideas (i.e., complacency sets in when you don't have to innovate to stay in business).

Quality of work and dependability of the manufacturing process is probably why RED, like many other companies who can now afford to, are locating their manufacturing in the U.S.

And the extensions for jobless benefits in the U.S. are a subsidy for having too much labor, just like subsidies paid to farmers for over-producing commodities.
 
It's only going to get worse. Sure it's china today, but that's only because everything can't be produced by "Lights Out Manufacturing".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lights_out_(manufacturing)

They could make an automated McDonalds today. It's just not affordable... yet.

The only jobs which are safe even in the mid term are those which require high level human interaction and intelligence. We don't have robotic screenwriters yet. But there will be far fewer of those positions than there is population.

A point I often make is: people complain about outsourcing post production, but what if someone made a magic box application that automatically perfectly rotoscoped? We would herald it as a miraculous innovation. Well... such software exists. It's called an FTP server and an inexpensive Chinese Rotoscoper. There is a double standard we apply where outsourcing is bad, but automation is good. In reality both are the same problem--except automation poses a far greater long term 'threat' to employment rates. At some point we're just going to have to accept high double digit levels of unemployment as part of society and restructure our economy to the new realities.

I imagine it'll happen within my lifetime.
 
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