'Amazon couldn’t make a Kindle [in the U.S.] if it wanted to'

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Torwan

Well, now the US knows what it has to do and fix. Invent stuff, develop stuff, manufacture stuff. China is "producing" more engineers than anybody else. How many Americans become engineers and how many of them end up in financial markets?

I can't count the number of my former (HW engineering) co-workers and bosses that are now selling Real Estate here in California

Come to think of it None of the manufacturing companies (Some very big) I had worked for exist.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Torwan

Well, now the US knows what it has to do and fix. Invent stuff, develop stuff, manufacture stuff.

We do invent and develop. By and large we still manufacture as well, just not electronics.

Originally Posted by Torwan

China is "producing" more engineers than anybody else.

China has around 1.3 billion people, India around 1.1 billion, the US is in 3rd place with 312 million -- or 1/4 that of China. Of course they're going to educate more engineers than us. That is, assuming your unsourced comment is in fact correct.

Why is that a problem, anyway?

Originally Posted by Torwan

How many Americans become engineers and how many of them end up in financial markets?

There's probably somewhere around 500,000 people whose employment is directly connected to the financial markets. 6 million people are employed in the "business and finance" sector, but that includes accountants, insurance agents, human resources, real estate etc.

There's around 3.2 million tech engineers, and 2.3 million architects and other engineers.

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#00-0000

I don't think we have all that much to worry about. Engineering may not be terribly glamorous, but the pay is decent enough. The US also still has many of the finest universities in the world, and people are clamoring to get a US education.

[OtterBooks]

and Nike couldn't make shoes in the U.S. if it wanted to. ah well.

[crich70]

Part of it is that there are less stringent guidelines on how the waste products generated by manufacture (in China) are to be disposed of as well as I understand it. You hear often enough of health crisis' over there because the bi-products of circuit board manufacture aren't disposed of properly and get into the local water table etc. not to mention people in other parts of the world do work at a lower wage than here in the U.S. I used to work cleaning up at a plant called Advance Transformer here where I live and they moved their plant down to Mexico because it is cheaper to manufacture down there than it is here. They were already talking about moving before I got sick (type 1 diabetes) and sometime after I was unable to work they finally moved.

[Torwan]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

We do invent and develop. By and large we still manufacture as well, just not electronics.

China has around 1.3 billion people, India around 1.1 billion, the US is in 3rd place with 312 million -- or 1/4 that of China. Of course they're going to educate more engineers than us. That is, assuming your unsourced comment is in fact correct.

Why is that a problem, anyway?

There's probably somewhere around 500,000 people whose employment is directly connected to the financial markets. 6 million people are employed in the "business and finance" sector, but that includes accountants, insurance agents, human resources, real estate etc.

There's around 3.2 million tech engineers, and 2.3 million architects and other engineers.

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#00-0000

I don't think we have all that much to worry about. Engineering may not be terribly glamorous, but the pay is decent enough. The US also still has many of the finest universities in the world, and people are clamoring to get a US education.

I didn't think that this fact (China as biggest manufacturer of engineers) needed sources, but well:
http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/29/news...tune/index.htm
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/...eers-rise.html
http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/201...7280-575a.html

Those are easy found press sources from 2010/2011. Now, there was a controversy when those numbers were published first, in 2004 to 2006:
http://online.wsj.com/article/1,,SB1...tml?mod=COLUMN

The echo was "oh, those numbers are overstated" and blabla. But that was before the 2007-crash when the US economy was still booming.

Fact is, a lot of manufacturing was moved to China in the last decades. That meant that manufacturing skills rose there and dropped somewhere else. The next logical step was to do more and more engineering there and the situation now is that the Chinese are at least as good as anyone else.
You are right that their numerical superiority is helping them a lot. However, only 30 years ago, even the economy of West-Germany with its 60 million inhabitants was more powerful than the Chinese economy of 1 billion. That advantage is now completely gone, the Chinese have caught up. And with their rise in engineering, they'll probably not just go on being the "big manufacturing plant of the world", but to develop themselves.

The old way was to make R&D in the West and the manufacturing in China. That worked as long as R&D couldn't be done in China. That is different now. When China and the West are similarly qualified, cost determine. Can we win a cost duel with China?

[CommonReader]

Somehow it seems natural to assume that consumer goods are made almost exclusively in Asia by now. I was quite astounded when I bought a cheap plastic bucket for the kids to play with at the beach at a French resort recently and found a "Made in Italy" stamp at the bottom.
There seems to be a certain disdain for the "metal bashing" side of the business, particularly so in the US and in the UK. People ignore that Western nations are rapidly losing the know-how of advanced production technologies and even companies like Apple may find themselves at the mercy of a few select Asian production companies in the near future.
While companies like Apple and Amazon certainly earn a lot of money by selling their goods we shouldn't ignore the fact that they are also funneling billions and billions of $ from Western economies to Asian economies. This only works as long as Asian producers are willing to exchange goods for ink printed on paper.

The situation seems to be basically the same in all Western countries. Manufacturing is still held in good regard here in Germany and some companies have even repatriated their production from Asia to Germany (e.g. Sennheiser Audio). Demand from China has also kept the production lines of German luxury car manufacturers working at full capacity over the past year. China has replaced the US as the biggest market for Mercedes S-Class and BMW 7-Series by now. The Chinese are also buying plenty of high-end German machine tools, so the trade isn't entirely one sided.

[mcooke66]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

My point is that everyone should get a fair wage for the work they do. And the prices of goods/services should go up to cover that wage.

Right, and I should be taller.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Torwan

I didn't think that this fact (China as biggest manufacturer of engineers) needed sources...

OK, great, they have more engineers.

Why is this a problem? Or are you genuinely going to suggest that the US quintuple the number of engineers? Or perhaps China should revert to an impoverished agrarian economy?

Oh, and let's not forget that a big reason why China is doing well now is because their government loosened its iron grip over its economy. It's not so much that "zomg the US is declining," it's that China is improving.

Originally Posted by Torwan

Fact is, a lot of manufacturing was moved to China in the last decades. That meant that manufacturing skills rose there and dropped somewhere else.

This is not a zero-sum game. It's not like there is a finite amount of manufacturing experience that gets distributed around the world.

Besides, it wouldn't take long for the US to ramp up production if we really needed to. And why would we need to?

Originally Posted by Torwan

And with their rise in engineering, they'll probably not just go on being the "big manufacturing plant of the world", but to develop themselves.

Seriously, you haven't offered a single cogent argument to the effect that it's a bad thing for China's economy to advance and improve.

[miguel1626]

People focus too much on manufacturing jobs (even people who really should know better). These guys should try working at a factory to see how they like it...

Even though most consumer electronics are manufactured outside the US, the (large) added value is accrued to american companies more often than not.

[CommonReader]

Originally Posted by miguel1626

People focus too much on manufacturing jobs (even people who really should know better). These guys should try working at a factory to see how they like it...

Even though most consumer electronics are manufactured outside the US, the (large) added value is accrued to american companies more often than not.

Like working in a manufacturing job as compared to doing what? Compared to sitting in a board room twiddling your thumbs - no question what's preferable. Compared to flipping burgers in a fast food joint at minimum pay - manufacturing suddenly looks very appealing.
Well paid manufacturing jobs were the basis of mass prosperity in the West after WWII. We've been told that these jobs can be replaced by "service jobs". Well, they can as long as Asians are willing to pay for your consumption of manufactured goods in a sort of vendor financing system. As soon as they start to question if you will ever be able to repay your debt the system starts to collapse.

The claim that production of sophisticated products can easily be returned home or moved around is that sort of make believe economy that emanates from accounting folks who have never been involved in manufacturing. Boeing's Dreamliner fiasco is a prime example for that sort of thinking.

[Barty]

I don't begrudge the jobs American companies are creating overseas. After all, Chinese people people gotta eat too, and the lifting of millions of people out of utter poverty is a good thing. But loss of mfgr jobs in America is a large factor in our shrinking middle class. The profits do largely flow back into America, but into fewer and fewer hands. What we think of as the golden age of American prosperity, the post war Eisenhower years, was marked by a large middle class, good mfgr jobs (and incidentally, downright confiscatory tax rates on top earners). We are never going back there, but seems like it should be a huge concern that we're relentlessly moving in the opposite direction.

Not that I know what to do about it! I hope I can retire before all the IT jobs go overseas because dang I don't know what else I can do. I'm too ugly for show business or the service industry, too gimpy for manual labor, and too honest for politics

[miguel1626]

Originally Posted by CommonReader

The claim that production of sophisticated products can easily be returned home or moved around is that sort of make believe economy that emanates from accounting folks who have never been involved in manufacturing. Boeing's Dreamliner fiasco is a prime example for that sort of thinking.

Here and Here.

BTW, Boeing is another matter entirely. And yes, they made very poor decisions.

[Rtturvwsxmavpduc]

It's about money. More specifically greed. How much is enough profit? America has one of the largest income gaps between wealthy and poor in the world. Google it: the population of Nigeria lives in a more equitable environment.

Actual wealth in America is in the hands of the top 1/2 of 1%. Many people vote against their own best interests because they can't grasp the American Dream has been a sucker's bet for the last half century and truly went off a cliff in the last two decades.

Manufacturing off shore is so business owners bring more money to the bottom line. It's that simple. Unfortunately, those now unemployed American workers aren't paying taxes nor are they buying goods. This won't end well. Want a peek ahead? Watch Blade Runner and keep in mind it's set in 2019.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by Rtturvwsxmavpduc

It's about money. More specifically greed. How much is enough profit? America has one of the largest income gaps between wealthy and poor in the world. Google it: the population of Nigeria lives in a more equitable environment.

Actual wealth in America is in the hands of the top 1/2 of 1%. Many people vote against their own best interests because they can't grasp the American Dream has been a sucker's bet for the last half century and truly went off a cliff in the last two decades.

Hardcore debaters is that way -->

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

................................besides, it wouldn't take long for the US to ramp up production if we really needed to. And why would we need to?.................

This is a huge mistake to assume in any manufacturing field - it would take an enormous amount of resources, effort, will, people who would want, and would be qualified, to do the jobs.
For a perfect example, look at what happened to the British motorcycle industry in the 60's/70's. A long time ago, but the same lessons are there, including the assumption that ground can easily be made up - especially with the pace of technology development nowadays.
It is a perfect pointer for us today as to what happens when manufacturing "surrenders", or thinks it knows best - which usually turns out to be for economic reasons, or for simple failure to be aware of consequences.

And just think of the cost of such an exercise ! Particularly in the economic climate today, and for the forseeable future.

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"China has around 1.3 billion people, India around 1.1 billion" [Kali Yuga]

Now reversed, figures released last week show India now has the biggest population on the globe.