Awesome Story - manufacturing in America

[ms maggie]

After looking up a few more these are also in solar technology:

SpectraWatt
Amonix
Solyndra
Energy Conversion Devices
Mountain Plaza
Brightsource
Stirling Energy Systems
Greenvolts
Satcon
Konarka

So, add those to the five and you get 15 companies. I do believe Anne answered your question.

The five you reference w sun or solar in their name, two of the first three are energy producers. And the list is of companies that are bankrupt or not doing well.

Solar equipment manufacturers--the whole thread is about manufacturing domestically--that have gone bankrupt.

[bullmikey]

As if GE hasn't outsourced 40 to 60 per cent of its operations and production to India and China. The Big Meat Ball only spins to one tune - its bottom line. But they have one of the best propaganda departments since the collapse of the Soviet Union. They also own considerable shares of congressional stock, both houses, both parties. And their current CEO has got one butt cheek firmly planted on Obama's knee. It doesn't get any better for them. I mean unless they were to suddenly changed their name from GE to Goldman Sachs.

[ms maggie]

As if GE hasn't outsourced 40 to 60 per cent of its operations and production to India and China. The Big Meat Ball only spins to one tune - its bottom line. But they have one of the best propaganda departments since the collapse of the Soviet Union. They also own considerable shares of congressional stock, both houses, both parties. And their current CEO has got one butt cheek firmly planted on Obama's knee. It doesn't get any better for them. I mean unless they were to suddenly changed their name from GE to Goldman Sachs.

Oh for Christ's sake. US manufacturing went offshore starting in the 70s. Who doesn't know that? The point is circumstances change and domestic manufacturing is starting to look good for many companies.

The irony here is that the big problem in the 70s was we had on blinders and refused to recognize changes that would clobber our manufacturing base.

Yeah let's do that again. Keep looking backwards.

[bullmikey]

Oh for Christ's sake. US manufacturing went offshore starting in the 70s. Who doesn't know that?

Apparently, the pople who are supposed to buy into this spin.

The point is circumstances change and domestic manufacturing is starting to look good for many companies.

I doubt it, but if it were even remotely true, would that be a good thing, that we can now do it cheaper here than in China? I shouldn't think so. I shouldn't think so at all.

[soulflower]

Yeah let's do that again. Keep looking backwards.

Don't you know that the solution to all of our problems in the 21st century is to do all the things Reagan did 30 years ago?

[ms maggie]

Apparently, the pople who are supposed to buy into this spin.



I doubt it, but if it were even remotely true, would that be a good thing, that we can now do it cheaper here than in China? I shouldn't think so. I shouldn't think so at all.

I know you wouldn't think so. It's counter-intuitive. Which is normally the case with mega-trends I think. Like most truly revolutionary changes, the paradigm shifts. You are assuming the low cost producer will out.

This is from the CNBC link in one of the earlier posts. (I am only doing this for you because I like you. Now there's something you should worry about!!)

So what’s behind this strange counterintuitive trend? For some economists, this represents the start of the “third industrial revolution,” the dawn of the new high-tech, value-added era of manufacturing that follows the first two global revolutions: England in the mid-1800s, and the one sparked by Henry Ford’s mass production innovations in the 1920s in Detroit.

Even if we didn’t have to compete with lower-wage workers overseas, we’d still have fewer factory jobs because the old assembly line has been replaced by numerically-controlled machine tools and robotics. Manufacturing is going high-tech,Robert ReichProfessor, UC Berkeley
“The factory of the past was based on cranking out zillions of identical products,” writes The Economist in a special report on the new trend published in April. “Now a product can be made on a computer and ‘printed’ on a 3D printer, which creates a solid object by building up successive layers of material. … the cost of producing much smaller batches of a wider variety, with each product tailored precisely to each customer’s whims, is falling.”

Manufacturers have discovered the value of bringing production closer to the point of sale, where their employees can engage more directly with customers and adapt quickly to changes in the market. And for all the changes in the global economy, the point of sale, by and large, will still tend to be in the world’s largest consumer economy.

For America, this could be the start of something good, according to the Boston Consulting Group. In 2011, BCG reported that, due to a number of changing economic realities — including rising salaries and economic expectations among Chinese workers, new labor, environmental and safety regulations abroad, the higher cost of energy required to ship products halfway around the world, and the U.S. market and the uncertainties of political risk in these places — the cost benefits of producing in Asia no longer automatically outweigh the risks.

Indeed, the BCG report predicts a “renaissance for U.S. manufacturing” citing the fact that labor costs in the United States and China are expected to converge around 2015.

[bullmikey]

I know you wouldn't think so. It's counter-intuitive. Which is normally the case with mega-trends I think. Like most truly revolutionary changes, the paradigm shifts. You are assuming the low cost producer will out.

This is from the CNBC link in one of the earlier posts. (I am only doing this for you because I like you. Now there's something you should worry about!!)

Well, I can only hope there’s some truth to this as presented, but from where I am on the inside, I don’t see it happening in anything but the most ancedotal way. The corporation I work for (we shall leave it unnamed in order to protect the jobs and reputations – not to mention pensions – of the guilty) pulls crap like this all the time to convince the country that they are a team player or to prove that being “green” or in coherence with some other popular social/political concern is what they are all about.

Don’t believe it.

What they are all about is making as much money as possible.

Average markups are 400% and growing.

You healthcare costs what it does partically because of us.

Meanwhile they have more or less killed half the rivers in China with their industrial runoff and diverted a sizable portion of their administrative support, human resources, customer relations, and payroll assets to India. Or else to Indians working for them in Canada. Try contacting our dispatch or payroll services and you end up talking to someone with an unpronounceable name and a sing-song British accent who tells you to just call her Sue.

And this – hint, hint - is the very same corporation providing the inspiration for this thread. Believe me, the only way these people will bring a sizable part of their operations (especially manufacturing) back into this country is if we are willing to work as cheaply and pollute as freely as the competition.

[Hexexis]

...When our own government starts setting a better example for everyone, then maybe our economy will turn around ...

& What's left of our industrialists needs a better example from gov. why again? Oh? How's that? Because they refuse to handle matters themselves, except maybe the tax shelters?

From its origins in Western Europe in the latter 18th cent., industrial capitalism has always required---nay, demanded---gov. aid. Govs.'ve always provided; capitalists've always complained about gov. interference.

Ages ago, I had occasion to visit a factory that mfr.'d sensitive science laboratory equipment; especially thin glass electrodes for small animal brain research. Nice, independent small biz success story; altho its primary customer was the DoD.

The symbiosis betw. the poorly named private sector & gov.'s always been there; so there's nothing wrong w/ some industry setting that emeffing better example. If it ain't too limp-wristed & lazy to bother.

[ms maggie]

Well, I can only hope there’s some truth to this as presented, but from where I am on the inside, I don’t see it happening in anything but the most ancedotal way. The corporation I work for (we shall leave it unnamed in order to protect the jobs and reputations – not to mention pensions – of the guilty) pulls crap like this all the time to convince the country that they are a team player or to prove that being “green” or in coherence with some other popular social/political concern is what they are all about.

Don’t believe it.

What they are all about is making as much money as possible.

Average markups are 400% and growing.

You healthcare costs what it does partically because of us.

Meanwhile they have more or less killed half the rivers in China with their industrial runoff and diverted a sizable portion of their administrative support, human resources, customer relations, and payroll assets to India. Or else to Indians working for them in Canada. Try contacting our dispatch or payroll services and you end up talking to someone with an unpronounceable name and a sing-song British accent who tells you to just call her Sue.

And this – hint, hint - is the very same corporation providing the inspiration for this thread. Believe me, the only way these people will bring a sizable part of their operations (especially manufacturing) back into this country is if we are willing to work as cheaply and pollute as freely as the competition.

Well I see it quite differently with my company's clients.

So let's hope I'm right sunshine boy.

[MithrilKnight]

I did read the story. And I understand your two points. And I also understand the corporate/executive mindset in this country. It's much easier to save $1 million by laying off $1 million worth of employees than by improving processes and innovation (just made this example up).

And then, of course, giving themselves a $1 million bonus for being so nifty and smart.

[Joy in Mudville]

Another awesome story... and a harbringer. By the way, four days after this ran, the American company had completely sold out of its inventory.

This Is the Greatest Hoodie Ever Made
How American Giant created the best sweatshirt known to man.

http://www.slate.com/articles/techno...wn_to_man.html

The upshot of this model is not only a revival of American manufacturing—you also get better garments at competitive prices. Winthrop wouldn’t tell me the exact cost structure for each of his sweatshirts, but he did give me ballpark numbers. A basic American Giant sweatshirt costs the factory $12 or more to make—about double what it would cost a foreign factory to make a much lower-quality garment. American Giant pays the factory about $25 to $30 each, and then it sells it to you for $60 and up. Compare this to a model under which you’d buy standard sweatshirt at the mall—say, this $58 Levi’s crewneck. The department store likely buys that shirt from Levi’s for about $30. Levi’s, in turn, pays the factory about $12 to $15 for it, and the factory likely makes it for $6. So you’re paying 10 times what the shirt costs to make, and Levi’s is earning $18 per garment. With American Giant, you’re paying five times what the shirt costs, and American Giant is earning $35. Since there’s no retail middleman, everyone does better under the American Giant model—the clothing company, the factory workers, and you.

[dsummoner]

$60 and up for a sweatshirt? It better cook dinner, sweep the floors and walk the dog at that price.

[Joy in Mudville]

$60 and up for a sweatshirt? It better cook dinner, sweep the floors and walk the dog at that price.

Sweatshirts at the GAP range from 50 to 80 dollars and are of poorer quality. That's the point of the article and that having the design, marketing, and manufacturing teams in the same room and closer to market leads to a better product.