It is this power, combined with amazing precision—its tolerances are measured in thousandths of an inch—that gives the Fifty its far-reaching utility. It has made essential parts for industrial gas turbines, helicopters, and spacecraft. Every manned U.S. military aircraft now flying uses parts forged by the Fifty. So does every commercial aircraft made by Airbus and Boeing.
So says The Atlantic in a fascinating short piece about the rehabilitation of the Alcoa Fifty. In one of those examples of government-industry collaboration that twists the knickers of libertarians and ultra-liberals alike, the United States Government sponsored a “Heavy Press Program” after World War II so American industry could forge massive aircraft parts. The presses were paid for with public money then used by private companies such as Alcoa. Having been brought back to life after a shutdown, the Fifty will now make parts for the Joint Strike Fighter and operate for at least thirty more years.
Russia has a 75,000-ton press, and the Chinese are working on an 80K monster. Without a press of the Fifty’s scale, it is impossible for an individual nation to build large-scale aircraft without outside assistance.
So… if large-scale government intervention and engineering assistance has made the Jet Age possible, why couldn’t something similar be done for American industry?
It’s very tempting to draw some sort of generic lesson concerning this country from a compare-and-contrast between 1950 and 2009. Sixty-two years ago, it was assumed that American know-how and engineering were equal, or superior, to what any other country had to offer. Furthermore, it was assumed that America would build the future, not leverage it, hostile-takeover it, credit-default-swap it, download it, or watch it happen overseas. The Heavy Press Program was based around that idea that the American Government would build the presses and American companies would use them to ensure the greatness of America. That idea was a sound one, and it worked.
When the “bailout” happened, there was no talk about greatness, or innovation, or the future in the Donald Fagen “I.G.Y.” sense. Instead, an unthinkable amount of money was borrowed from China and others then handed over to GM and Chrysler. Chrysler later on became a partner with FIAT, while General Motors continued to pursue an aggressive program of manufacturing expansion in China, Mexico, and elsewhere while mailing-off the major portions of its small-car programs to Korea.
If the United States Government in 1950 was playing the role of the father who agrees to buy tools so his son can build a Pinewood Derby car and win an important competition, in 2012 it played the role of indulgent grandmother to a pair of crackheads, handing cash to people who promise to clean up and get a job right after they score their next hit. The bailout may well have saved the American auto industry, and it almost certainly prevented a major section of the economy from simply disappearing, but it didn’t do anything to promote greatness. The “Fifty” produced the Boeing jet bombers and a global era of American aeronautical dominance; the bailout produced the Volt Dance.
It’s also tempting to suggest that there should be some sort of governmental program to produce the next step in personal mobility, but the truth is the country needs energy answers a lot more urgently than it needs a 100-mpg super-hybrid, even if such a thing could be built. One of the commenters on the Atlantic article suggested a “Heavy Fusion Program”, which is probably closer to the mark. A Manhattan-Project-style national effort centered around creating a safe, future-proofed source of energy would do more to promote world peace and harmony than anything else.
One thing nobody is suggesting doing, obviously, is building a press to match or beat the new Chinese giant. This is 2012. The Space Shuttle is grounded, the American teenager is on Facebook, and the future is made in China.
If Mr. Romney were to hire you as his primary speech-writer, JB, his victory would be assured. Keep tellin’ the truth.
And as his driver, as well. Then you could coach him on his speeches while blowing past plebes on the freeway shoulder on the way to his public appearances.
If you do accept; since Mr. Romney is such a sucker for bailouts of all and any kind; throw in a few lines about how the competitiveness of America’s auto industry declined in close lockstep with declining investment in the Panther platform….
We are facing a PANTHER GAP with the Chinese! They have the Hong Qi!
I’ve been told that Jack doesn’t sell out. Romney will have to outbid Gawker for Ray Wert.
Plus, I don’t think Romney would take kindly to Jack’s calling out his efforts at Bain: “Furthermore, it was assumed that America would build the future, not leverage it, hostile-takeover it, credit-default-swap it, download it, or watch it happen overseas.”
“Bain” is not a synonym for “financobabble”.
I’m just hoping we can export the MBA virus to China. Our worries are over if it infect Chinese industry as it did ours.
You only need MBAs where there are payrolls to cut or benefits that can be slashed, or trace amounts of dignity that can be removed from a work environment. I think the Chinese already have that wrapped up
We still produce a vast surplus of LLBs and JDs. Perhaps we could interest the Chinese in our excess.
Maybe I’m mixing you guys up, but didn’t you write an article supporting the auto bailouts? Without proper restructuring, if you give a failure money, they’ll continue to fail, but with your money.
Maybe I just don’t understand how business works, but if GM were to fail, wouldn’t its customers and suppliers just start supporting whatever company fills the GM shaped hole? Ford?
I did write multiple articles supporting the bailouts. It needed to be done. It just wasn’t done *right*.
You’re telling us that a non-for profit, inefficient, political organisation can effectively manage any sort of bankruptcy? There is no *right* gov’t bailout. We’re lucky the outcome wasn’t any worse.
tresmonos, as seen by Renault you’re absolutely right. Didn’t they go bankrupt and disappear?
Thanks, Jack. Correction on just one point, though: As a card-carrying ultra-liberal, I think government-industry cooperation that results in the creation or retention of thousands of industrial jobs is GREAT. (So long as the objects being made are themselves economic stimulators, not just stuff that will be buried in a mountainside.) And without any intent of sarcasm, I’ll say in the same breath that I’m also a big fan of the WPA.
The bailout was never going to be done perfectly. But in the way that mattered, it was plenty “right” enough. People forget far too easily the context of early 2009: the abrupt loss of a couple million carmaker and ripple jobs right then would quite probably have pushed us the remaining two inches over the cliff to the next Great Depression. We couldn’t afford to lose all those jobs right then. Even if we eventually lose GM, it was utterly the right move for its moment.
Tresmonos, “we’re lucky the outcome wasn’t any worse.” Agreed: We’re lucky the bailout took place, or else the outcome assuredly would have been far worse. I get tired of all these Koch Brothers trolls taking their five-dollar spiff to moronically demonize any and all role for government (except to protect the rich from indemnity, of course). My typing fingers are getting tired.
J.B. “I did write multiple articles supporting the bailouts. It needed to be done. It just wasn’t done *right*.”
Just like many people say about Communism “it’s a great idea, just not done right by the Soviets and the Chinese and the North Koreans and the Cubian and the Viets and the Albanians.”
tonycd: Perhaps you should investigate keyboard shortcuts. “Ctrl+K” for “Koch brothers”, “Alt+T” for “teabaggers”, and perhaps “Ctrl+Shift+W” for “war on women”.
I suspect you could produce the same insight (or lack thereof) in roughly 75% fewer keystrokes.
“…and the future is made in China.”
There still are good paying jobs in which you get to tell the Chinese how to make the future. Try it out and you’ll see there’s still a lot of time before China will be able to make things without insane amounts of baby sitting.
I welcome globalization. The sooner we reach economic parity with developing nations, the sooner we’ll reestablish our working class, unless we fall victim to the self entitlement disease affecting the EU. Your protectionist mindset is so 1990’s Japan.
Neal Stephenson once wrote that “globalization levels the working class of the world down to what a Pakistani bricklayer would consider mild prosperity”, or something to that effect. I’m not sure he is wrong.
+1
That sounds about right.
When media talks about globalization they often make you think that it will raise the standard of living in third world nations to our standards. This simply cannot happen. While the standard of living will improve somewhat in countries like China and India, our standard of living will have to come way down to reach that parity.
Tell that to the ex farmers in Chinese manufacturing plants.
If the working class is laying bricks, who would be buying those bricks? You can cull or euthanise the herd, but you still have to feed it to keep your money moving. Economic power enables human rights.
Perspective: it hasn’t yet been 4 generations since my ancestors were living in the equivalent of sod houses. Why the outrage? Is life really that hard for even the most subsidized portion of our population?
“Is life really that hard for even the most subsidized portion of our population?”
Wait, are we talking about oil company executives now?
@stryker1:
Haha
Jack,
Even that prototypical Pakistani bricklayer aspires to greater prosperity. I’m not convinced that increased affluence in the developing world necessarily means reduced circumstances for those in the developed world. Eventually there will be no low cost producers. Eventually you run out of Eastern Europes and Mongolias.
+2
If I hear the word “Austerity” one more time on NPR, I’m going to coat myself in vomit. “Austerity” is the new “Occupy” which was the new “Hope and Change”, then “FEMA”, the follow up for “Blame Bush.” Buzz words that imply the speaker knows more than they do without actually knowing anything. Random rant over.
By parity, do you mean in wealth? That would imply economics is a “zero sum” game. I’m not sure I agree with that. There’s an unlimited amount of wealth in the world. If I make a buck, you don’t lose one. Therefore, I’m not sure if parity can exist. I do think we’re in an era of adjustment, and the sooner it ends, the sooner we can get back to prosperity.
“That would imply economics is a “zero sum” game. I’m not sure I agree with that. There’s an unlimited amount of wealth in the world. If I make a buck, you don’t lose one.”
I think a non-trivial percentage of working Americans would beg to differ. Wages have been stagnant in this country long enough for it to feel like a Zero Sum game despite whether or not it actually is.
“There’s an unlimited amount of wealth in the world.”
This biologist would disagree.
There is NO unlimited wealth in the world.
We are right now seeing constraints by the very real limits on raw materials.
Oil is a perfectly good example. With mainly China an India increasing their consumption, as well as a host of other developing countries, the good old days of sub-$100/barrel are gone.
On my previous job, we were driven almost to extinction by the exponential increase in cost of cooper and steel, driven by an insatiable Chinese demand.
There are many examples like these.
The largest consumer will ‘win.’ Whatever that may be. China by sheer numbers is a more powerful economic entity that we will ever be. Ingenuity has to offset resources in order to maintain parity.
Stagnant wages are an indicator of lacking business innovation. Once new business opportunities are discovered, things will start moving again.
Raw materials will be replaced/obsoleted/updated with substitute alternatives that are more business friendly and bring with them new markets.
“There’s an unlimited amount of wealth in the world.”
That’s more myth and ideology than fact. It’s a central mythical presupposition whose primary function is to justify and motivate certain very questionable social, economic and political practices and policies.
Wealth has grown since the beginning of time right?
“Wealth has grown since the beginning of time right?”
I’m sorry, but I honestly don’t know what that means. Nevertheless, even if true, it certainly doesn’t follow that there’s “an unlimited amount of wealth in the world.” It doesn’t follow from the fact that universe may have expanded from some initial big bang that it will continue to expand indefinitely.
There is good evidence to suggest that there are limits of various kinds in the world, and the belief that you can have indefinite growth is a relatively recent phenomena (viewed historically, it seems to have its roots in western religion and theology, and begins to take hold with the rise of modern technological, industrial society). It is also highly questionable.
“Wealth has grown since the beginning of time right?”
Actually, no, it hasn’t. Per capita real GDP was essentially flat until about 1500-1600 AD.
http://econ161.berkeley.edu/TCEH/1998_Draft/World_GDP/Estimating_World_GDP.html
Wealth began to increase when Europeans started their wholesale theft of resources from the New World. But things only really took off once manufacturing was invented. Manufacturing made labor more efficient, which increased production capacity, which then created a need to have markets that could turn that production into consumption.
When everything was handcrafted, people didn’t produce much wealth of any sort. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, humans couldn’t do enough work fast enough for that to happen.
Philsophil: I’m sorry, but I honestly don’t know what that means.
Ask any older relatives what life was like in their time. My 99-year-old grandmother can remember when it was a big deal to have one radio, many working class families had NO car, and cancer, heart disease or a stroke were automatic death sentences.
Polio left a lot of people crippled, and rubella and pertussis left a fair number of small children dead.
Air conditioning didn’t exist for businesses, let alone cars or houses, and a house with more than one toilet and bathtub meant the family was filthy rich.
Growing wealth means that more and more of us can afford machines and systems that make us more comfortable, and can support medical research that either cures these diseases or ameliorates their effects. So, yes, wealth has grown, certainly since, say, 1850 or 1900. The fact that all of us can spend time communicating over a system and machines that did not exist in 1930, instead of working the fields so that we don’t starve to death, or working 60 hours to keep a roof over our heads, is proof of that.
People who believe that wealth is limited must be the great-great-grandsires of the man who suggested, in the late 19th or early 20th century, that the United States close its Patent Office, because everything that could be invented had already been invented.
Geeber.
The reason for my confusion lies in a lack of clarity about exactly what ‘wealth’ means. Does it mean quality of life? Affluence? GDP? I would accept something of what you and Pch101 have said as indicators of wealth, at least according to some measures.
I personally come from a working class family and it’s fair to say that we would have been formerly classified as ‘poor’ by any measure of that time. My parents lived through the depression and both world wars, and I think it’s fair to say that we never had a lot when defined by today’s measures, so I know something of what things were like compared with today.
I have studied the history of the idea of and belief in indefinite growth and indefinite wealth to some extent, and I can say with some confidence that, as a social and economic faith, it has very dubious basis (and historical affiliations).
Also to affirm the existence and reality of limits is not to imply the kind of fixed, mechanistic world that one might associate with Cartesian and Newtonian ideas of nature (which implied that everything could be known in some complete sense). Limits do not entail a cosmology of absolute completeness.
The idea that wealth is finite is generally based on the notion that things don’t change.
It was the kind of thinking that underpinned the “Population Bomb” – happily defused by the “Green Revolution”
The problem with the finite view of anything is that it disregards the innovation (i.e. technology) that replica speaks of.
It is impossible to argue that the standards of life today are not far beyond at any other point in history (I would argue this is true even in the sub-Saharan Africa, etc.)
Quite a thread. For my two cents I would ask what is the definition of wealth? Do we define wealth in tangible things as expressed in raw materials, land, products, or precious metals? Do we define it as an intangible such as human effort, which in theory grows with population, effort which is traded for ‘money’ in order obtain things from the physical world which of course are finite. So gentleman, what is wealth?
This is a fun discussion and I’ve got a million ideas swirling around in my head, however, its a bit difficult to discuss them in a comments section. Interesting comments everyone.
“I would ask what is the definition of wealth?”
Wealth is pretty straightforward: wealth = resources. In a modern context, that means a combination of assets, economic output and spending power.
One can have philosophical discussions about the importance of wealth in comparison to other things, or how one can measure whether some have too little or too much of it. But wealth itself is easy to define.
There is no unlimited anything anywhere.
“So… if large-scale government intervention and engineering assistance has made the Jet Age possible, why couldn’t something similar be done for American industry?”
Just look at the direction of the US space program for the answer. In real dollars, the US government has effective shrunk NASA’s budget, handing development over to private firms to figure out. How they will do this for a profit I don’t know.
Without the concept of a ‘war’ to fight, the government is unlikely to step in and declare that energy production is worth assisting. Under this administration – which is ashamed of American leadership – energy production is the enemy, not the friend.
Not really. The space program was all contractors like Boeing and Lockeed Martin, being funded by government dollars. I think the plan now is to do the same; fund a different set of private companies with those same government dollars.
All I know is I lost my job over it.
Under this administration – which is ashamed of American leadership – energy production is the enemy, not the friend.
Agreed, but I truly can not see their reasoning. Sometimes I wonder if they just purposely oppose everything sensible.
“Under this administration – which is ashamed of American leadership – energy production is the enemy, not the friend.”
What on earth are you talking about? This administration has been pushing alternative and renewable energy like no other. That is the future and that is leadership.
Disagree, the current batch of ‘alternative’ technology holds little practical promise. While it is wise to push forward beyond fossil fuels, this should be done in the background like any other R&D work and released as it becomes stable, not being made a political spectacle. The administration touts this point because they do no want to appear friendly to fossil fuels in order to appease their radical base, one who cares not for the practical energy costs of most of society. Solar panels will probably become mainstream in the next 25 years, but will people on average be able to power their whole home on solar? What about in areas with low natural light? Hybrid automobiles seem to have taken hold, but the technology hasn’t spread as much as I thought it would. I honestly believed in 2005 that by 2015 most cars sold would be hybrid powertrains, as of 2012 this looks unlikely. Wind farms don’t seem to pan out as hoped. Hydrogen fuel cells may be an avenue worth pursing but the technology isn’t finished. What about the billions of new people projected to be born in the next 25 years, how can we practically provide power to them on a large scale without current technology?
In this case the practical leadership which is needed, and would be very impressive to see from this administration, would be a simple admission that we need cheap fossil fuels in order to power society BUT we as a species need to push forward with new types of energy technology if we we are to grow and flourish in the future, and then perhaps show a small success story for alternative energy (if there are any). I think this tells enough truth and could even get some excited about prospects for the future. I haven’t paid attention to everything the White House has said or done, but at no time have I heard or been aware of any statement affirming the cold hard reality of fossil fuels, all I can recall of their rhetoric are rosy promises of what may be if we just have hope and can change.
Oh and then there’s the millions misappropriated to Solyndra and I think the former Green Jobs czar was a hardened communist and lunatic… so there’s that too. I realize nobody’s perfect and sometimes people make mistakes, but it was so easy to criticize the former administration and yet so difficult when the shoe is on the other foot. Sadly our country isn’t going to get the leadership it needs this November no matter which party wins. I do however remain somewhat optimistic on the future of some forms of alternative energy, mostly because of the expressed interest of the BRICS countries in solar and hydrogen cell development, not because of the White House’s political issue du jour.
People forget that there has always been one major source of research, innovation, and development that has always been heavily funded and ‘run’ by government, namely, the military (and that’s not even to mention universities). It is arguable that more innovation and development has come through government funded military research than through free market forces combined (which often takes the grounding research work that has been funded by the government through military and then runs with it in various directions as if it was all their own doing, e.g. computers).
You forget the critical distinction in that defense is a constitutionally mandated role of the federal government, picking winners and losers like venture capitalists is not. Also, you ignore the historical fact that many of the innovations during the “age of invention” in the 19th and early 20th centuries had nothing to do with the military. You have a point post WWII, but again, one can at least argue that the internet, GPS and integrated circuits for the space race came out of a legitimate constitutional role of the federal government. That’s a far cry from giving half a billion dollars to Solyndra to waste and giving the UAW equity in GM while ignoring the rights of senior secured creditors.
I wouldn’t argue against much of that. I was simply pointing out that government can play a vital role in helping support and advance certain kinds of research and development. I would argue that the best route likely involves some combination of government driven programs and policies combined with independent, market driven initiatives.
Military ends was a major source of innovation long before it became the sole domain of government. People have always put their best foot forward when under the gun.
The original “The Atlantic” article explained that this program was in response to the Soviet Union actually building some massive forges.
Later, the arguably greatest technological/industrial achievment of the XX-century, the space progam that culminated with the moon landing, –it was much longer in duration and far larger in scope than the Manhattan Project– was also created and fully funded by the US government, in response to a Soviet “threat”.
Many spinoff technologies by the program have driven US technology might for three decades.
However, for unfathomable reasons, the USA no longer has that drive or desire, the need to rise to a challenge. Or perhaps it is impossible now, since -with a few exceptions- we have outsourced innovation.
We no longer have the drive or desire because our priorities have changed. I’m from the boomer generation and those growing up in the 50s and 60s were obsessed with the space program. Beat those damn Commies to the moon or die trying! Today it’s Medicare, Social Security and our pension plans that have priority for a lot of us. We’ve turned our eyes from the stars to stare at the ground – our next home.
Interesting point, but what about those who have thirty years of work ahead of them in order to pay for those endangered programs, where do you see our priorities and where should they be?
Phooey…anyone know where I can buy a brand-new made-in-USA Zenith Space Command TV? Best Buy and H.H. Gregg don’t sell them…
My dad sold them, and wouldn’t own one, or a Philco, Admiral, Quasar, and several others. They were pretty much junk. They were “hand crafted” with a lot of bad solder joints. Their failure rates caused a lot of headaches as they had to have some service guy go to the owner’s homes, and start hitting the joints with a soldering iron. Sometimes it had to be repeated several times to get it going for the long term. RCA was about the best back then, and if you wanted a Japanese set, Panasonic (for normal sized sets), or Sony (for little ones). I think the RCAs were made in Indianapolis back then. We had two great RCA TVs, and one dud that was at the end of US manufacturing with an IC for the audio amp. It got hot and failed repeatedly. We got to the point, we hoped lightning would hit it. In the spring of 1972, we got our wish, it was smoked, along with the TV in my parent’s bedroom. I had to drag the smoking guts of them out to the side of the house alone, and the big RCA was really a load. I finally took it apart to make it easier to carry. It got replaced with a Sharp that lasted forever. After the filament in the picture tube died, I took a tube rejuvinator and got it going again! I sold it to a co-worker for $20, and it was still working on it’s 25th birthday.
We still manufacture goods. We just don’t need many people to do it.
Independent of manufacturing worker numbers, we have lost a lot of capability. For example, if you want a big pressure vessel forging for a nuke power plant, you can get it done. The only company doing it built the barbettes for the Yamato and Musashi in WWII. They are booked up for years. But, hell, we need bankrupt solar photovoltaic and solar heliostat companies more, plus the ‘windmill’ guys who have been going bankrupt with government subsidies for four decades. My own stupid state is paying 2X the typical power cost for a new guaranteed unreliable wind turbine energy project. That’s like you paying $3 for a gallon of gas (rest is tax) and the government paying the oil company another $3, so don’t tell me about subsidies to big oil – they are vanishingly small comparatively speaking. Who cares – its free money and everyone pays! Wait a minute, that last doesn’t make any sense, but it is the argument made.
Actually, the re-activation of the Fifty is surprising in that I’m surprised we could find American workers capable of learning how to run the damned thing….
Looks like we were fortunate. Amazes me how knowledge is lost so easily so so quickly, not even in the span of a generation.
Amazing, isn’t it? We could not easily launch a Saturn V rocket anymore because the folks with the knowledge and the infrastructure to do so no longer exist. I can’t help but wonder how quickly we could have a “knowledge collapse” where something causes widespread death that kills off a large chunk of the population. Chances are pretty good that we could find the remaining population living in a radically different world…
Sounds like a good background for a dystopic fiction novel, get writing!
The pervasiveness of this is scary, too.
I worked in broadcasting for some time; the U-Matic videotape format revolutionized the industry. Sony made hundreds of thousands of these machines over a 25-year span beginning in the ’70s.
But try to find somebody in the wild who can work on one. The engineers who cut their teeth on those things retired when HDTV hit.
Not that I can blame them. Anymore, if there’s a problem you don’t break out a soldering iron and an oscilloscope, you break out your iPhone and have the manufacturer send you a replacement circuit board.
Thanks to an education system hell bent on producing students geared for college degrees. If you didn’t fit that mold you fell through the cracks. The state of vocational education in this country is deplorable. There is a real need for people who can operate machinery not design them.
Last summer there were some articles where educators admitted that it was a mistake to let vocational programs atrophy and recently everybody,s favorite cult otherwise known as Apple talked about why they setup up production at a Chinese plant.
Part of their answer was the lack of vocational talent in the US. IIRC, they filled the post ins in china in about 13 weeks, in the US that would have taken a twice that or longer.
B.S. Apple set up in China for the same reason everyone else does. Cheap labor. They are just making excuses to defer criticism.
Yes, and part of that cost savings comes from not having to pay your entry-level employees enough to repay their student loan debt. Vocational degrees would make American workers, who are already advantageous in a number of ways, quite a bit cheaper.
“Independent of manufacturing worker numbers, we have lost a lot of capability”
Agree 100% with your statement. The Mesta Machine Co, which built hte press in the photo, went bankrupt in 1983, after 95 years building the world’s most colossal machines
OMG! 1983! That was during the presidency of Saint Ronald Reagan. You must be mistaken.
“Error of causal connection”
Spoken by a man whose income is based on the existence of legally enforced government regulation and bureaucracy. You, sir, have a vested interest in an expansive government. You’re the opposite of a disinterested party.
It’s just too bad that government agencies and their employees are exempt from the consumer protection laws that generate your income. One regularly sees government employees and politicians engaging in behavior that would carry civil and sometimes criminal penalties if done by someone in the private sector.
What “consumer” protection do I have against a government monopoly?
“Mr. President, we must not allow a forge press gap!”
At least we don’t have a gap in MFAs in puppeteering…
You might look up National Forge. They make hot isostatic presses among other things. Do you know anything might use a HIP manufactured part?
Yes, the Kyocera knives in my kitchen.
As for forge presses, can anyone say why having a larger forge press than China would benefit the US (other than the obvious mine-is-bigger-than-yours willy waving rights?)
Doctor
Also the sintered pistons, rods and crankshaft in your car, unless you have a high power car that needs forged parts instead.
And those pouches of guacamole at the store? Not heated, but subjected to high pressure to extend the shelf life. The high pressure apparently disrupts the cells of the bugs that spoil it. The pressure is about 6000 atmospheres, hard to believe.
So, ceramic knives, engine pistons and guacamole – all the staples of life.
We do need to be able to do some of these things ourselves. No need for a race for the most gigantic forge but having a business/tax environment that encourages people to invest in equipment is worthwhile.
All forged in my car I’m afraid but I agree 100% with you about a business-friendly environment. What I disagree with is the view that the government needs to fund projects that have problems finding private financing.
“Gentlemen. You can’t fight in here. This is the war room!”
Sir! I have a plan… [stands from his wheelchair] Mein Führer, I can WALK!
“Sixty-two years ago, it was assumed that American know-how and engineering were equal, or superior, to what any other country had to offer. Furthermore, it was assumed that America would build the future, not leverage it, hostile-takeover it, credit-default-swap it, download it, or watch it happen overseas.”
None of this really has anything to do with what happened after WWII.
The US gained a couple of lessons from the Second World War: (a) isolationism was toast and (b) a Third World War wouldn’t afford the lead times that the previous two world wars had had — nuclear weapons, long-range aircraft and the evolution of missile technology made the US vulnerable to attack.
In order to induce private industry to keep the nation on a perpetual war footing, it became necessary to subsidize military production during peacetime. There would have been no reason for private industry to have constructed facilities such as this without support, as the construction costs were too high.
As for leverage, you must know that US paid for WWII with war bonds, and that war bonds were debt. Without a massive debt buildup, the US could have never paid for WWII. The alternative to using debt would have been to create hyperinflation. Government is not a household — it does not have the sorts of limitations on borrowing that a household has.
Hyperinflation to fund wars is really only possible i the very, very short term. It probably worked better back when communication and capital movement wasn’t so rapid, but by WW2, it would have been a non starter.
The “third” way of funding wars, taxation, works for smaller wars. The big, existential ones requires not only huge material outlays for the military, but also that those who cold have paid taxes quit their dayjob and drag their ass out on the battlefield.
So, as you say; debt is pretty much it. As for the savings that allows for all that debt; that is the other, often unreported, story about WW2. Pretty much all Americans worked their rear end off; many in unusually hazardous and unpleasant jobs, for pretty much a pittance. Since, in the very big scheme of things, savings is the difference between current production and current consumption; this created an enormous savings glut, that could be lent to the war effort.
Trying to draw lessons from the experience of total, existential war to pretty much any other state of being, is very speculative for that (and probably other) reasons. Under existential threats, people are individually willing to do whatever it takes to survive long enough to later be in a position to pay back what the surviving cost. Absent such a threat, faced by pretty much everyone, all talk about bailouts, industrial policies etc., is just fancy excuses for funding some, at the cost of others. Which is a totally different proposition.
The government paying for the tooling or tools to make a product to be consumed by the government makes sense. The government picking winners and losers in the economy does not make much sense unless you are very confident you will be one of the winners. Who the winners are can change with every election unless one party buys off enough of the voters by ensuring that those voters will be the (economic) winners. That’s the California or Illinois model and it’s not working out very well.
” That’s the California or Illinois model ”
I don’t know about Illinois, but California does not subsidize (for example) car manufacturers with nearly the same about of tax breaks and other incentives like a host of other states.
Also- this particular press was not just for military/government applications. It was for everything, government and civillian. The government is not omniscnet obviously. But that doesn’t mean the government shouldn’t try to invest in long term projects that improve our competitiveness.
The trouble with that line of thinking is that, to a cocooned and cronied part of the population, Solyndra seemed like a great long-term project to improve our competitiveness.
If the deal still looks good, after having been negotiated above the table and in the light of day, then fine — but I want a return on my investment.
While its a nice theory to think that all innovation can only come from private companies acting on their own accord, it is also unilateral disarmament. Japan, Korea, Germany and China all have programs that support their auto industries and, if we are to compete with them, we have little choice but to do the same. I am not talking about direct subsidies but strategic assistance in developing the technology we need to compete with the rest of the world.
Yea. This ain’t the 1940’s anymore
The only Manhattan Project the US needs for energy is a massive anti-NIMBY and anti-environinny campaign in support of deployment of thorium molten-salt reactors (LFTRs). The technology and engineering was proven nearly 50 years ago, and there’s enough thorium being thrown away or sent up coal-mining flues to fuel current US energy needs for hundreds of years. Thorium’s a byproduct of rare-earth mines (in fact, it’s considered a toxic waste byproduct) as well as common in coal (the average ton of coal has far more energy in its trace thorium than in burning the coal itself).
The biggest problem with thorium is that it’s pretty close to impossible to use its byproducts to build atomic weapons.
+1000 There needs to be the energy and will to support such a campaign, and I do think its out there. We in the United States has lacked real leadership for many, many years.
Well, I’m more interested in the press than the politics.
There is another 50,000 ton press in the US, a 50,000 ton Wyman-Gordon forging press at North Grafton Massachusetts made by a different company altogether.
Alcoa’s was made my Mesta Machine Co., the Wyman-Gordon’s by Loewy. Didn’t know much about these machines but Jack’s and the Atlantic’s narrative made no sense to me. If Alcoa’s machine had been laid up for three years, how did Boeing make 787 bulkheads or whatever in the meantime?
There are other pretty big press forges in Europe as well, so it all depends on just how big you want that forging to be.
“If Alcoa’s machine had been laid up for three years, how did Boeing make 787 bulkheads or whatever in the meantime?”
The 787 is composite. The handwriting is on the wall for large scale aluminum aircraft.
No wonder they were pinning their hopes on it…
“The bailout … didn’t do anything to promote greatness.”
This! This, this, a thousand times THIS!
While I’d argue that artificially sustaining failed enterprises is doomed to ultimately fail anyway, my biggest problem with the bailouts is that they did nothing to force Detroit to revamp its business practices and mindset in order to once again be superior on the global stage.
I have no problem at all with the government offering funds to spur technological innovation (DOE loans, for example) but I have a big problem when government steps in to “save” enterprises that didn’t learn their lessons. The bailouts saved “manufacturing” jobs (if you can call what the UAW does ‘manufacturing,’ versus being ridiculously well compensated for performing the 21st Century equivalent of inserting Tab A into Slot A) without doing anything to promote intellectual growth.
We used to design the world’s best cars in this country; the fact that Detroit must now rely on the likes of Daewoo and Fiat to do most of the heavy lifting there is utterly shameful.
I agree with your first main paragraph. However to say the manufacturing jobs being done by the UAW member workers are not “true” manufacturing jobs, means you don`t consider any of the automotive manufacturing jobs done by any company in the US as manufacturing jobs. This would apply to VW workers in Tennessee or Toyota assembly line workers in Texas since both do pretty much the same job as UAW workers at a Michigan GM or Ford plant.
As for the Daewoo connection – yes they helped/conceived/whatever term you want to use the Cruze and Sonic. But Malibu or Regal. Or look at Ford their car lineup is essentially European. What is wrong with a company having different areas specialize? US has experience at designing trucks and SUV’s, Europe – small/medium sized cars, Asia (excluding Japan) has experience with cheap cars.
Good points. The Regal is rebadged Opel product, and the Malibu is based off that platform as well. If we’re going to rely on other countries to provide engineering know how, I’d prefer Germany over South Korea (especially such a shitty automaker as Daewoo) or Italy. Even if that German company is a unit of General Motors, its credentials are still ever-so-slightly better. Ditto Ford’s European operations.
As for the workers, the fact that workers at Toyota, Honda, Nissan, et al plants in the U.S. have an incentive to actually do good work (else they get fired, without any union interference) gives them a greater degree of respectability in my book. None of what they do should be considered skilled labor, though – they’re still overpaid.
Workers at the transplant operations received the same pay as workers at GM, Ford and Chrysler plants. The problems were outdated work rules and higher absentee rates at the domestic plants.
Even your nom de plume reveals your bias. The Volt is turning up in the neutral Consumer Reports survey as one of the MOST reliable, trouble-free cars on the road. The minor, oddly overlooked detail about the ones that caught fire is that they’d just been in crashes first.
“Intellectual growth” is a lovely concept, whatever the hell it means. But the real point of the GM bailout was to step in and prevent the instantaneous loss of millions of jobs at the very moment we were about to collapse into a total Great Depression. It achieved that goal brilliantly. Anything else (and there’s already been plenty of else) has been a delightful bonus.
OT: What’s with this “this” all the time nowadays?
Is it just because nobody can spell “Hear, hear!” any more?
The example of that press was not, as you are implying, government support of private industry. It was about the military, period. This was the beginning of the Cold War and the jet aircraft it was initially used to produce were all for government contracts. There was absolutely no thought given of how this would help Boeing eventually compete in commercial aviation.
Likewise with integrated circuits, the internet and GPS. The gov’t funding of those technologies came out of the legitimate constitutional role of the federal gov’t in regard to defense. Paying for a forge to help Boeing make B-52s is not the same as playing venture capitalist.
I would like to point out that the United States has a pretty good record of making technologies originally developed as weapons available to the world for peaceful uses. Killing our enemies is the job of the federal government but America is a life-positive culture and we recognize that some tools are just too valuable to use just to kill folks.
That is nonsense. Just like the Interstate highways, it was sold as a ‘defense’ project just to placate the anti-cmmi a-holes. Anyone and his golden retriever knows that it is a civillian project through and through.
Let’s face it- the government can and have played a positive role in the economy. It totally wrecks the right wing belief that government must always be inefficient and bureacratic; and that the holy Free Market is always right and should never to tinkered with.
Exactly what limits are there to the federal government’s powers?
Can you give me five examples of anything done by government that’s efficient and not bureaucratic?
Are you saying that the people who pointed out that Stalin and Mao killed millions of people are a-holes? Are you saying that the Rosenbergs weren’t spies? Are you even familiar with the Venona files?
Government cannot do anything with the economy that doesn’t distort it. It’s up to the people to determine which distortions are acceptable and which are not.
Also, if you check the engineering standards for the interstate highway system, you will find that the curves are gentle enough to allow a semi-tractor pulling an ICBM to go 80 mph and that some of the straightaways will work as runways.
You can laugh at it in your comfort, with a fashionably chic keffiyah around your neck, but the Cold War was real and communism was a bad thing.
icemilkcoffee,
I agree with you that the Interstate Highway system was sold, improperly, as “Defense” highways back when there was at least an attempt to follow the Constitution. What makes it at least palatable for me was a financing scheme based on user fees (fuel taxes) in a trust fund. States actually did, or contracted for, the actual construction using Federal standards and mostly Federal funding. The original purpose of a Federal highway system, much like the subsidized construction of the transcontinental railroad before it, was farm commerce.
Forge presses, GPS, internet, space program, etc. were funded 100% with the intent of use for military purposes, even if sold to the public otherwise.
+1
If the military was privatized, it would still be a hotbed of innovation, simply because not being at the cutting edge in that particular field, has such incredibly unpleasant side effects.
Government is only beneficial for innovation to the extent that they have monopolized the military arts.
I think this century will be a more significant lifetime than the last.
It’s tempting to compare the 1950’s to 2012, but it would be wrong. America led the world in manufacturing from 1940 well into the 1960’s for one reason: our manufacturing base wasn’t bombed into rubble during World War Two like all the other major industrial powers of the world. We Americans love to reminisce about the salad days of the 50s, but we forget that in order for that to happen, Germany, Italy, France, England, Japan, all of Eastern Europe, and much of Soviet Russia and China, and then later Korea had to endure ground wars, carpet bombing, and in the case of Japan, two atomic bombs aimed directly at their industrial base. There was no competition to speak of for American industry during those years, and it finally started to awaken in the late-fifties and early sixties in the form of Volkswagen. But it would be another ten years before the Japanese would find any success in exporting cars, and twenty-five years after that before the Koreans showed up.
Personally, I think America needs to rethink what “Made in America” means or should mean. I don’t think we should try to compete with Korea and Japan and China and India to make the cheapest passenger cars in the world. European companies labor under higher taxes, higher labor costs, higher costs for materials, and environmental laws that are at least as stringent as American companies, but they seem to remain profitable by charging a premium price for their premium products and manufacturing the cheaper cars in Brazil, Mexico, India, China, and Eastern Europe.
So what does that leave us? I think we should concede that cheap cars are made in Asia and Latin America, and luxury cars are made in Western Europe. American companies have completely wiped their asses with their premium brands. Cadillac, Chrysler and Lincoln would need to design and manufacture cars that are better than BMWs, Mercedes, Audis and Porsches to be competitive, and I don’t think they have the vision, the money or the will to do that. I think America should make the world’s best most durable commercial vehicles — pickup trucks of all sizes, delivery trucks, vans, people-movers, farm equipment, tractors, forklifts, and tractor-trailers. “Made in America” should mean “Built To Last Forever.”
But I agree with you: we should be investing in infrastructure in a million ways, because we share that, we have a collective interest in rebuilding our crumbling bridges and roads, updating and upgrading the facilities in our national parks, expanding and upgrading the power grid and water treatment facilities as well. And we should be investing in expanding every form of clean energy we can get our hands on — geothermal works beautifully, as do wind famrs, solar farms, wave tech, and nuclear and natural gas. We should invest in getting to hydrogen fuel cells, and we should find a better way to make ethanol than from corn. I think those are all excellent uses of taxpayer dollars.
Few people ever think about just how massive an undertaking it was, to shift American manufacturing into wartime mode for WW2. Kudos for bringing that up!
I’m late to the party here, but sfbiker’s comment is my favorite of this fascinating thread. I would just add the following thoughts:
1- Why are we passing moral judgement on globalization? It’s not a choice to be accepted or rejected, but a reality that we must simply adapt to and make the best of. And leaving aside the sheer inevitability of globalization, where’s the moral highground in expecting our quality of life in the developed world to endlessly improve while denying the struggling masses of the developing world an opportunity to improve their quality of life to a tiny fraction of what we take for granted?
3- More to the point of Jack’s article, how can we condemn the challenges of globalization while simultaneously decrying America’s apparent loss of economic vigor? Those of us lucky enough to be born into the comforts of the developed world need to accept the reality of global labor competition as THE ANTIDOTE to our lack of dynamism (our “retreat to Facebook”), not the cause of it. If every American taught their offspring that billions of people with a tiny fraction of the resources and privileges we enjoy are eager to fight to achieve a slightly less tiny fraction of said resources and privileges, would it not inspire a rebirth of American dynamism? Alternatively, if we tell ourselves that the developing world’s struggle for basic dignity trades off with our traditional economic strengths, and as such should be fought, are we not teaching a fear of competition that leads inevitably to malaise? Rather than yearning for a past that is never coming back, or nursing a resentful sense of entitlement to a specific lifestyle or career, shouldn’t we embrace the challenges of the present as an opportunity to create a new age of dynamism? I think the psychology with which we approach our economic circumstances is at least as important as the economic circumstances themselves.
My general problem with politics is that they tend to pander to our innate desire for shelter from the harsh realities of life. That was an admirable instinct when our air was filthy and 9-year-olds worked the coal mines, but in our age of unprecedented wealth and lifestyle (both historically and compared to the majority of the globe’s inhabitants), we are reaching the point where it does more harm than good. We’ve forgotten that most social, economic, cultural, and even personal growth comes from confronting adversity, not avoiding it. This theoretical argument explains my basic dislike for the bailouts… what Jack calls a lack of aspiration to “greatness,” I call an unwillingness to pragmatically deal with harsh reality, or endure short-term hardship for long-term vitality. At the end of the day, I think these are all ways of saying essentially the same thing.
Doesn’t the U.S. already have a “Heavy Fusion” project? Look up “National Ignition Facility” on Google.
The Boeing 787’s claim to fame is that large portions of it are made from carbon fiber. If that’s the future for large aircraft production, the Chinese could be building a dinosaur.
On the broader subject of public-private partnerships, in the build-up to World War II, the government cut all kinds of private deals to get production ramped up for the defense industry. In some cases the government paid for the plant, which was leased from the private company. In others, the private company built the plant and it was leased by the government. There were lots of variations. The public wouldn’t be too keen on a lot of these cozy relationships in 2012.
Lest folks think that it is a given that a democratic society/capitalist economy is best for maximizing production, in World War II, in the US, centralized planning took the place of market forces to a large degree. Nazi Germany escalated production greatly in a fascist/capitalistic economy. The Soviet Union was the “most improved player” taking second place overall with a Communist government. State planning moved entire cities over the Ural mountains, and even with the disruption the Soviets produced astounding quantities of war materials.
You’re conflating the legitimate role of the federal government to provide for defense, particularly during wartime, with the idea of “public private partnerships” in the peacetime civilian private sector.
From what I’ve read about the Third Reich’s industrial policy, it was very inefficient. Fascism is a system where the government tells companies what they will do. Germany produced about 25,000 heavy tanks during the WWII era. The US produced three times that number.
Also, if the Soviets were so adept at producing “astounding quantities”, why did a generation of Russians use “Studebaker” as a synonym for truck?
As for the centralized planning of the US war effort, the War Production Board was run not by government officials, but mostly by people from industry, like “Engine” Charlie Wilson, president and CEO of GM and George Romney, later to head American Motors. Also, it seems to me that those government officials who did have a major role in war production were primarily military officers, not bureaucrats.
The rate of tank production is not necessarily a good measure of efficiency. The kinds of tanks being made combined with a whole host of other conditions (e.g. availability of raw materials, transportation resources, complexity of design, and so on) all need to be taken into account here. If you take the simple rate of production as the measure of efficiency, then the Soviets would be the clear winners there (with the mass production of the Soviet t-34’s, combined with the great effectiveness of those tanks relative to cost–they weren’t as over-engineered as some of the German tanks–playing a significant role in the defeat of the Germans on that front). I know you’re likely going to counter by saying you were only talking about “heavy tanks,’ but that kind of selective cherry picking and ideologically driven argumentation only serves to weaken your overall position.
I would never defend the kinds of authoritarian governments cited here, but this kind of self-aggrandizing myth-making is what made Sputnik and Gagarin so shocking to the West, for everyone had convinced themselves that such feats were not possible in non-capitalistic societies.
Free markets have their place, but so does government, and each can play a significant role in spurring research and development. Further, government support of research and development initiatives need not be anti-democratic (as is often suggested here). I am an adamant defender of democracy, but I still see a positive role for government in helping to spur, support, and direct research and development initiatives.
The Soviets were heavily dependent on the American equipment they received even before our official entry into World War II. As Ronnie correctly notes, Russians made “Studebaker” synonymous with “truck” because of the trucks sent by the U.S., and Stalin was regularly begging Roosevelt for more Jeeps.
After the war, the Soviets propped up their industrial base by basically taking everything that wasn’t nailed down in East Germany and the rest of eastern Europe and shipping it back home.
FYI, America is home to the second largest aluminum extrusion press in the industry. Not sure if that makes anyone feel any better…
Asking out of curiosity, where’s the first largest one?
Alcoa bought out a Russian company. Last I checked though, it didn’t run very well. China may have one of comparable size by now, but I haven’t heard about it if they do.
I wonder if that Russian company become available as a result of the 2009 Sayano–Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station accident that cut off a bunch of aluminum smelters? That was a truly spectacular and horrifying accident where turbines popped out of their housings like champagne corks…
@chuckrs
Not sure. I seem to remember hearing about it shortly after ours went online in 2005, so I doubt it.
…One thing nobody is suggesting doing, obviously, is building a press to match or beat the new Chinese giant. This is 2012. The Space Shuttle is grounded, the American teenager is on Facebook, and the future is made in China…
Exactly.
We’re boned.
I’m not boned. And I’m assuming I’m a subset of we.
Aggregating people by nation states, as the 20th century should have demonstrated quite pointedly, about as close to the root of all evil as one can get. In addition to simply being silly.
How naive comrade.
Lets do away with borders, a global government. A global people. One people. Free to move around one another and share in the rich bounty. Ya, that will go over great. Those angry Muslims will forget all about the thousand years of killing each other. The angry Christians will of course embrace the Buddhist monks that moved in next door. I will of course happily respect the Korean family that ate my dog, because dogs in their culture have little value, and in our brave new one world pet ownership is akin to slavery anyway. Why yes, I will happily throw away my national identity, and submit to the will of a centralized global government that makes the singular decisions for seven billion people.
Oh what a wonderful world it will be. That is until human nature like envy, hatred, fear, and most importantly, corruption moves everyone into a kind of borderline third-world living state. Just enough so we’re not starving, but enough to keep us all in line. 1984 comes to mind dear comrade, or THX-1138.
I’m sorry, I’ve committed a thought crime, let me go take my pills.
No one thinks you have committed a thought crime. You make some good points, APaGttH. But watch your cynicism, it can cause some who may need to hear you to turn a deaf ear.
By the way- to bring all this back to automotive discussion- one of those Soviet giant forges were actually used to produce the incomparable Regamaster Evo wheels. It is sadly out of business now, but these were and are the strongest and lightest performance wheels you could buy back in the 90’s and early 2000’s.
Jack, manufacturing hasn’t shrunk. Manufacturing is simply growing slower than the rest of the economy. What has happened is that manufacturing requires fewer people than before.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-03-18/news/ct-oped-0318-chapman-20120318_1_manufacturing-sector-rick-santorum-products
Instead of a massive government plan to support big manufacturing, I’d like to see an effort to reduce the regulatory compliance costs for lower volume products. For example, I’d love to buy a car like the Holden Ute, but the regulatory cost of manufacturing small numbers of this existing design for the US is too high to make it available at a price I would pay. Contrast this with motorcycle manufacturing where even the highly dysfunctional Teutuls can build successful manufacturing businesses in the high-cost state of New York.
@George B: “What has happened is that manufacturing requires fewer people than before.”
Here’s a good article that illustrates your point. Apparently Canon is eliminating those human things from their factories. The article mentions Toyota and Honda as well. I think we’ll see a big increase in US manufacturing as a tactic to decrease transportation costs and time, but a drop in actual jobs due to automation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/canon-moving-toward-full-automation-requring-no-workers-in-camera-production/2012/05/14/gIQAZJuxNU_story.html
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1) The plant and it’s equipment are (were?)
owned by the US Government.
2) The US Government made similar
investments with the renewable energy programs. Somehow, some folks can never
stop talking about Solyndra where a US Government loan guarantee spurred
private investment. That one went south, however the cost to the taxpayers for
the US
government loan guarantees for the monies invested by private lenders will not
be known before the liquidation of Solyndra is complete.
3) There may be some good news in the medium term future, see this opinion piece:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/an-economic-boom-ahead/2012/05/04/gIQAbj5K2T_story.html
take that opinion piece in conjunction with this news brought to my attention by some car nut web site
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canada-seen-benefiting-as-us-auto-makers-scramble-to-restore-capacity/article2425602/4) Yes, we need to make things, but
perhaps recycling things be it aluminum, or steel, or not consume things in the
first place like energy might have a bigger bang for the buck both now and long
term, just as the move back to cities helps the economy.
Yeah we have big problems in the US, Yeah China,
India, and Ubekibeckistanstan might all present challenges to us, but look at what Germany and China face, to say nothing of
various NIC’s.
Government is not the enemy, government by amateurs is. The Obama administration did the
best that could have been done for the auto industry, lets not forget the times
we were living in just 4 years ago.
Thanks Mr. K. Oil, raw materials, land…it’s limited. Sustainability is the name of the game from here on out. 80+ ton presses are not as sustainable or nation building or able to provide us leverage on a global scale as other things like…information, experience, networking, (i.e. FACEBOOK!!!!!), flexibility…
However, at the same time… an interesting piece Mr. Jack Baruth. It’s thrilling to see an old relic back online. May I, again, point out: SUSTAINABLE. Not to mention; inspiring.
But one phrase jumped out at me:
“large-scale government intervention and engineering assistance…”
There’s just one thing that’s been rubbing me the wrong way about the right lately and it’s this: there seems to be a “war on government” as of late. As if it’s too bloated. And in the name of shrinking it, politicians cut programs that build industry here while rewarding CEO’s and top execs for staying liquid on paper by allowing them to move production overseas and employ slave labor.
I’m sorry did you just suggest Facebook as something the United States can leverage on a global scale? I hardly think the pictures you posted of your drunken weekend rank high in our list of export items.
Sarcasm aside though, I do agree there is a war on government and its a very necessary one. The scope of government should be limited to a few key things we can all agree on, such as national defense, law enforcement, diplomacy, etc, not involved with most of what they are currently doing on our supposed behalf. If government wants to make quasi-socialist investments in industry such as the Fifty (or even more recently, GM), I see no problem with that, provided the investment will actually benefit the nation as well as interested non-government parties. What seems to happen though (at least in my lifetime of thirty years) is instead of ‘setting the rules’ and perhaps providing the investment, they seem to want to create huge lumbering and expensive bureaucracies to support these dalliances into the private sector, which besides wasting huge amounts of time and money, as a by product create political and ideological voting blocks. I point out as an example the more recent creation of the TSA. Born out of fear in 2001, this agency is rife with stories of mismanagement and corruption as of late, and I can’t even imagine the cost of this agency over the past ten or so years to the taxpayers. If I recall correctly there have been several close calls since its creation (the shoe bomber comes to mind) where other forces had to intervene in order to prevent disaster. Was this due to the fault of the TSA? Not necessarily, but just because we have not experienced another terrorist event does not necessarily justify the government investment in this agency. I agree there was a definite need for security improvement in 2001, but wouldn’t it have made far more sense then to create a new mandatory security standard all US airports would follow (hiring, firing, bag searching etc), find or invest in a few private firms to manage regions of the country, and then give oversight and enforcement of these standards to an existing agency such as the FBI? This is the sort of thing I’m talking about, just given the fiscal problems of the last five years shows government cannot manage a balance sheet. Be a silent partner with your appropriations and simply ensure the investment pays dividends, if there are issues then call the private parties on it, but don’t become them.
Whoa. Sorry about the FB comment. Though I don’t think I meant it in the way you think. I was just referring to networking in general and using FB and an example.
I respect your views on the Government and, IDEALLY, what it should be involved in and what it should try and stay out of. I just see most (not all) of the multi-billion dollar global corporations, banks and insurance companies as having become more powerful than the government in the last 10 to 15 years. This doesn’t have as much to do with the president in office as the trend in politics/economics.
Most millionaires and business owners pay a lot of taxes so I’m NOT talking about THEM. I’m referring to multi-billion dollar global corporations. The obscenely wealthy. If you follow the top 100 earners and their corporations you will find that most of them have continually bought off politicians and have leveraged for deep tax cuts while not passing that on to the workers. Instead they’ve sent most production overseas.
One example of how money took my vote: Romney and Santorum. At the time Santorum resigned his campaign, Romney had spent 40 times the cash–just enough to beat Santorum. It is my belief that had he spent a little less he would have lost that neck-and-neck race.
I’m a republican trained in the tool and die industry. And, for the life of me, I don’t understand how so many hard working blue collar workers don’t see what’s happening. Except to say this: major media outlets (largely owned by those who also bully the government) continually create smoke screens by scapegoating the poor, and dedicating hours of broadcasting time to shit about gays, and how the government wants to control your health, and solve all your problems. When in reality, it’s THEY who want to be free to control everything. Commerce, information…Just Google “Citizens United” or the Koch Brothers or Goldman Sachs…if you don’t believe me. Just do your own research.
Bottom line is: I can always tell those who primarily listen to Fox news and don’t do their own research. Deep throat had it right. Follow the Money. It’s not the Government that’s too big. It’s the obscenely wealthy.
Wait a minute, we don’t need some fancy new pie-in-the-sky tech like a 100mpg hybrid, but we need a Manhattan-project style Heavy Fusion program?
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/01/nuclear-fusion/
I will quote you Jack from another article: The solution to energy problems is right in front of us: it’s time we just start to consume less, and enjoy more.
Thanks for pointing out a great example of government boosting business to get things done. China knows all about that, not having lost its collective mind picking its nose and reading Atlas Shrugged, telling how that can’t possibly happen.
Here’s a fun postscript on your note about the Boeing planes made, in part, on this press. It’s from a recent nonfiction book called “Jet Age” about the early days of jet passenger aviation (hardly a political tract). In 1952, Boeing was flush with profits from Korean War mobilization. At the time, war profits were taxed at a very high rate, 81%. Rather than lose all those profits to taxes, Boeing reinvested them into a risky project that had no existing market demand among the airlines.
The project was the Boeing 707, the first commercially successful jetliner. If corporate tax rates had been as low as today’s levels, Boeing might not have approved that project, and we might be flying on British jetliners, which were first into the air.
81% tax on war profits?!?!
YOU SOCIALIST!!! ;-)
Oh it was such a quaint time wasn’t it.
All this animosity against Asia shows a lot of ingratitude. Asia, China and South Korea in particular, have done lots to save GM. The Chinese people seem to have such an insatiable appetite for GM cars that GM sells more cars in China than in America. And thanks to Daewoo, 1) GM finally has competitive B and C segment cars and 2) Chevrolet, selling lots of Daewoo-engineered cars, has record sales around the globe. Compare this to money-losing Opel; it seems that Europeans could care less about GM.
If you want GM to succeed, you should give lots of thanks to Asians, Chinese and South Koreans in particular.
”…British jetliners, which were first into the air.”
And the first to come down abruptly (de Havilland Comet, from catastrophic metal fatigue).
“The bailout may well have saved the American auto industry, and it almost certainly prevented a major section of the economy from simply disappearing, but it didn’t do anything to promote greatness. The “Fifty” produced the Boeing jet bombers and a global era of American aeronautical dominance; the bailout produced the Volt Dance.”
True? Sure. But 1955 was a boom year for the US — the best of times, as it were. 2008 looked a lot more like 1929 than 1955. When you pump money into the country in a recession, you don’t get a new jet age; you’re too far in the hole for that.
Truth is, the “Fifty” couldn’t have been built in the ’50s had it not been for the much less glamorous bailouts of the ’30s, and the war economy of the ’40s.
(As for the Volt Dance, I will concede it falls far short of the output of the Federal Art Project.)
The funny thing is, everyone has been decrying the state of American manufacturing for years, but China didn’t actually surpass US manufacturing output until 2011. Even today, we produce nearly as much stuff — just with many fewer workers. US output per worker-hour is almost 5 times that in China, with productivity going up faster in the US than anywhere else.
Or to put it another way: China and the US each manufacture about 20% of the stuff produced each year. China does it with just under 20% of the world population; we do it with less than 5%.
“Truth is, the “Fifty” couldn’t have been built in the ’50s had it not been for the much less glamorous bailouts of the ’30s, and the war economy of the ’40s.”
Truth is, the bailout of 1907 has taught big banks that you are too big to fail and go ahead taking even bigger risks because we will always rescue you. They learned. And there was 1929.
Here’s a 1983 report on whether or not we need anything larger than a 50kt press:
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a132398.pdf
The gist is, we don’t. The reason isn’t explicitly outlined in the report. My roommate and I sat around and did some digging, and as far as we can figure, the only thing you’d make that would require this kind of capacity is tank armor. Since our tanks use a composite armor, we don’t need a big-ass press.
Then there’s always the simple point that China doesn’t have a press of that capacity and they’d like to. It’s not only a point of national prestige, but it also means they can make steel tank armor and their own aerospace components. If you’re gonna build one of these things, you might as well go big, right?
Meanwhile we’ve had two 50kt presses for the last fifty years, and I imagine if we needed something slightly larger, we can call up the consortium in France with a 65kt press, or order something off Russia’s 75kt.
Yeah! This is Amerika! Where we roll up our sleeves and the Gov. builds/does one big thing (The Fifty, A-bomb, Moon walking, Interstates, insert your fav and yell “Amerika ##ck Yeah!”) and that leads (business and industry) us to the promised land. Kennedy was always right “Ask not what your country can do for you…”. Individual entrepreneurship and risk taking was the hallmark of our great-grandparents. The future is as likely to come from a gal in a clapped out barn burning the midnight oil on jamming software on his 3D printer/machine tool robotic kludge as from any R&D department. Anyone of you can be a global competitor because the tools are in front of you: 1) un##cking believable technology, 2) cheap transoceanic shipping, 3) fabulous global communications, 4) a knowledge base that refuses to stop growing. Quit whining, pick up the rock, smack the bone, taste the marrow.