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Kyle Kraft
07-26-2006, 9:34 AM
I recently read a resurrected thread on the Machinery forum and I have to see if others have noticed a trend. Have you noticed that very few items are made in the US anymore? What would happen if the situation in Israel/Lebanon did actually evolve into a World War? I don't see how we could build any war materiel (sp) when there are very few solely US owned manufacturing facilities left.

Let's say we want to build a whole bunch of tanks in a hurry (or repair them), and I need some bearings...oops they are made in China. Or maybe I need an integrated circuit (computer chip)...made in Singapore. Hey, this forging is cracked, call Brazil and have them send some up...oh, they are batting for the other team.

Seems this country is becoming a place where we simply work so we can buy stuff made in some other country and improve their economy.

Sometimes it helps to vent!:D My apologies if I offended anyone, as this was not the intent.

tod evans
07-26-2006, 9:39 AM
kyle, glad you`re thinking! that was the entire reason i started that thread months ago......to get folks thinking.
it`s better if we start manufacturing again because we want to not because we have to.....02 tod

Bob Childress
07-26-2006, 9:50 AM
Fortunately, Kyle, there is very little (possibly not any) critical defense materiel which is not either manufactured in the USA or for which there is not a viable back up source. The Pentagon is actually very careful about this sort of thing. We may have $600 toilet seats, but they are USA toilet seats. :D

Outside of defense materiel, however, we are certainly not self-sufficient. Our oil and gas reserves, for example, would be depleted fairly quickly in any protracted struggle. Part of what happened to Japan in WWII. But we DO produce SOME oil and gas, so could muddle along with strict civilian rationing. We are a net exporter of food, so we can feed ourselves. But our way of life would suffer considerably. :(

Before 1954, we were primarily a manufacturing country. That was the year that white collar jobs first outnumbered blue collar ones. It's been downhill for manufacturing ever since. Cheaper foreign labor exacerbated the problem because it was less expensive to invest in plants overseas than to figure out how to increase productivity at home.

The American consumer is partly to blame as well. We vote with our wallets.

Scott Loven
07-26-2006, 9:52 AM
We participated in a bid to provide lighter weight bullet resistant protection for DOD and other government agencies. The contract required that ALL of our materials come from US manufactures. We buy 95% of our materials from domestic sources. Manufacturing is not dead in the US.
I am sure that GM and Ford would LOVE to build all of the tanks, planes, etc that the US government would want.
Scott

Tyler Howell
07-26-2006, 11:09 AM
Dig in brothers and sisiters.
The quality of some American products just ain't up to speed.:(
We can all play a part in this.:o
Do your best. In what ever you do.:cool:

Randy Johnson
07-30-2006, 3:06 PM
Fortunately, Kyle, there is very little (possibly not any) critical defense materiel which is not either manufactured in the USA or for which there is not a viable back up source. The Pentagon is actually very careful about this sort of thing. We may have $600 toilet seats, but they are USA toilet seats.

The problem with that idea is that it only covers current DOD needs.
On 12-7-41 most of the aircraft available to US forces was just adequate to outdated. Most of the US military was in pretty sorry shape as far as equipment went. While Ford was able in a very short time to build a huge factory for making B-24s where there had been nothing but an empty field, MOST of the US's awesome war production came from factories that already existed. In my little town an assembly line that once produced Cord automobiles was converted to outer wing panels for B-24s among other things. Another factory went from making refrigerators to making munitions.
The .45 my father carried on missions over Europe was made by the Remington typewriter company. Computers have no doubt made the building used to make typewriters empty. The building in Connersville where the Cords were made no longer exists, and the one where munitions were made now houses a business that recycles toxic waste.
If we were ever faced with the necessity of placing everything on an emergency war production footing again I really don't see how it would/could happen. The buildings are empty or even gone, and even if workers can be trained to run the machines, chances are good that the machine was not made in this country.

Matt Meiser
07-30-2006, 3:26 PM
even if workers can be trained to run the machines, chances are good that the machine was not made in this country.

The machines I've seen in the numerous factories I've visited for my job tend to mostly be made in the US with Germany being the second most common. I'm sure many machines are made in other places, but that's what I've seen.

Since production in the 21st century is highly automated, machines tend to be specialized for the product they produce. Many times smaller machines are just junked rather than retrofited to produce a new product. It would be quicker today to start with an empty building than say one set up to produce an automobile dashboard since you would have to clear out the old equipment first. I did hear that when Ford retrofitted their Chicago Assembly Plant for flexible manufacturing a couple years ago they significanty reduced the time to complete the job by bulldozing the old equipment out the door rather than removing it piece by piece.

Comparing today to the early 40's would be difficult as manufacturing was totally differnt then than now.