US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent

Re:US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent by D_Alex on Sunday February 06, 2011 @08:46PM (#2187156)

Measuring manufacturing in $$$ might be a bit misleading. If China makes 4 $10 business shirts for every one $50 business shirt the US makes ... ?

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Re:US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent by brc on Sunday February 06, 2011 @10:27PM (#2187439)

yes, back in the old days they used to measure an economy by tons shipped. It doesn't apply anymore due to higher value things being lighter, and tracking air-shipments would be a problem.

However, it does underlie a point - tracking the value of shipments by a currency value can easily obscure important facts.

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Re:US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent by uytrhyujkujhy on Sunday February 06, 2011 @09:29PM (#2187280)

Then that shows that the US industrial output is bigger. That's why Germany makes $50,000 cars and Mexico makes $15,000 ones

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Re:US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent by ars on Sunday February 06, 2011 @10:25PM (#2187434)

How else could you possibly compare them?

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Re:US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent by D_Alex on Monday February 07, 2011 @01:29AM (#2187975)

You could compare them in many ways, and $$$ is possibly the best single measure. But the OP article is uncritically self-congratulatory, which is not altogether appropriate given that same products of equal quality do cost a lot less if made in China.

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Re:US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent by Zpirate on Sunday February 06, 2011 @10:47PM (#2187499)

Purchasing power parity in local currency?

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Re:US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent by yummyfajitas on Sunday February 06, 2011 @11:01PM (#2187527)

You didn't answer ars' question, you simply deferred the answer to whoever is defining PPP.

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Re:US manufacturing still tops China’s by nearly 46 percent by StuffMaster on Monday February 07, 2011 @10:30AM (#2189222)

Yeah, it's very non-obvious to the layman that they're talking about value rather than production.

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