Since the Middle Class still votes, trade tariffs are the reasonable outcome for our future. If only just to protect the few remaining jobs that are still here, possibly in retaliation for the Europeans having trade tariffs first. Can they afford not to? Greece, Italy, and Spain are all doomed. France and the UK are next. They can't survive, politically or economically, unless they can employ their voters. Anything less will lead to economic and possibly real civil war. At the very least the destruction of wealth. The torches and pitchforks uprisings came from Europe after all. Imagine those angry mobs lobbing mortars into rich people's mansions or storming banks to empty the vaults of gold. Such things have happened before. Remember Sarajevo? Europe certainly does.
Everybody needs to take a hard look at China and decide if doing business with them really makes sense. Societies that destroy their Middle Class are societies begging for civil war. Greed does have a limiting factor: its called "Revolution". If Capitalism is to survive in an increasingly Socialist world, then Capitalism needs to reign in its Greed and think hard about the people its trampling for Profit.
More and more trade is being forced on the world in Yuan instead of Dollars, but remember the value of that currency is decided by the whims of COMMUNISTS. We can kid ourselves, but China does what it does for its own selfish reasons. We are obstacles to China's ambitions of being the Only Empire. I have to remind people we don't have to kowtow to China. They can make things cheap, but so can we.
Make Blog points to Micro, short-run manufacturing being the future, or rather "the Present". People are doing this now. Home workshop crafting of professional level components is no longer just for experts. 3D printing, CNC machining, all sorts of new ways to make things using Hobby-level machines can do the majority of work so you don't have to become a master machinist, a career in and of itself. This is a huge step towards solving problems in physical hardware for specialized applications. Since you can use machined parts created by Rapid Prototyping (RPT) methods, to then build the actual components or assemble them, tooling up a factory in a fraction of the time that it used to take in the 1980's, costs are way down, and you don't have to make so many to make a profit. A recent article on this subject over on The Kneeslider is a good positive read on the trend.
Imagine if all the bicycle factories were washed away in a Typhoon. Suddenly we have only the parts in warehouses and on our own bikes to keep our bikes operational. What do we do? Scan the part with a 3D laser array. Disassemble and scan again. Use the uploaded data to build a computer model of the part, including fit and bearing surfaces. Use RPT to build the machines to make the parts (if not making them directly), presumably listed in libraries of mechanical devices for those specific tasks. Do a run for the needed number of that part. Store the extra in a box in a warehouse for shipping. Save the plans and crucial parts for manufacturing in your archives for future runs. Voila. This is the modern way to do it. Maybe pass the base parts to an engineer for improvements or designation of materials or heat treating requirements, as that's a good idea. Keeps the engineers occupied enough to get them creating new stuff. Designers with better tools can bridge the gap and solve the problems without involving China at all.
Repeat the above steps for all sorts of material goods, using people for the assembly portion because its usually cheaper. I have done lots of manufacturing like that. Its boring work, but you can train people for it easily, and the simpler the job is, the quicker you can train people to do it, the less they mind being retasked to a new simple job when you complete the Run and retool for the next product.
Crews of people doing this reliably, showing up sober and ready to work, that's worth hanging onto. Managing them, making sure they get paid, get healthcare, get reliable wages, that's a career. I see a future in that, for lots of people. Expand the idea into owning manufacturing space, taking on contracts, owning RPT equipment and specialists to operated and design. Eventually you've got a design house and manufacturing capability instead of just a team of temps. There's expansion. Pass shares down to the workers so they have motivation for the company to succeed financially. Give big bonuses. Take a modest cut rather than a greedy one. This is a huge difference compared to the old way of doing things, the Exploitation route that drove all our jobs to China and India. Greed MUST take a back seat for there to be any future for manufacturing and employment in America.
Operating this way is a huge change that modern businessmen need to adapt to. They can try doing things the Old way, but that probably won't work. These days retaining employees is your STRENGTH and you must cater to them or all you've got is yourself. If its easy to train people to do something, you can bet someone else can do it cheaper than you, and even if they can't, you'll be competing with them viciously, and once they succeed, you've lost your profit margin. That's not a good business to be in. Retaining employees, and thus capability through knowledge and experience, that solves most problems or reduces their impact at least. Ergo, Quality is still King. And quality always costs money. A strong manager is someone willing to restrain their greed in favor of business longevity and overall survival. I can't tell you how many times I've watched businesses consume themselves with short term greed and ultimately fail. Really, I can't. I signed NDAs.
I think small scale manufacturing is the main alternative to being a farmer, and its going to take a lot of work to bootstrap ourselves up to this. I had hoped that all the out of work Detroit autoworkers and engineers would have started thousands of businesses, doing what they do best but weren't allowed to produce thanks to their jobs preventing them. With the freedom of unemployment, I thought: "Wow! We will finally see what American engineers can do." No such luck. If it's happening, they're still in the R&D stages.
Seeking hobbyists solutions to problems is a big part of why I read the motorcycling blogs, because small hobbyists are doing some very interesting things to bikes, sometimes just looks, but sometimes serious engineering. I respect that effort and cheer them on. I'd like to see that same concerted effort put into car parts, improving them through after market parts for horsepower, lightness, handling, fuel economy. Stuff that people care about today or will care about soon enough.
I think that America has a lot of advantages over Castro's Cuba, and we will find ways like the Yank Tanks to keep our vehicles on the road, even if we're down to bicycles and pedi-cabs with electric assists. China may be content with that huge gap between Rich and Poor, but America has higher standards of living, standards most of us agree on. China may someday stop exporting parts for housewares to America (maybe because we impose a trade tariff on them), and spare parts for our dishwashers and washing machines. We will make our own. Probably better too. Repeat procedure for every piece of "Made In China" we've bought for the last 15 years. We'll figure something out because we're too mean to die. And we don't need China to live. Sorry, China.
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