Re:The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospec...
by mmooss on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @11:09PM
(#43628543)
> we just need to become a lot more productive than we are now.
To nitpick about terminology:
productivity = output / input
The US would (and maybe will) become less productive; the US is not as efficient at producing many things as non-U.S. competitors, including ship-building. The US is more productive at other things, such as software. (And in 2025, you certainly would trade ship-building productivity for software productivity. Including in warfare.)
If we insist on building ships in the US, we spend more money on the same ships, and - unavoidably - we must shift more productive resources to these less productive tasks. If your neighbor is a great carpenter and you are a great farmer, wouldn't it be smart to trade your vegetables for carpentry, instead of you trying to do carpentry and the carpenter trying to grow vegetables? If you are a Linux maintainer end and the business down the hall back end, do you try to do back end and they try to design OSes? Why?
(Of course, you probably trade your skills indirectly through the wonderful fungibility of money.)
To nitpick about terminology:
The US would (and maybe will) become less productive; the US is not as efficient at producing many things as non-U.S. competitors, including ship-building. The US is more productive at other things, such as software. (And in 2025, you certainly would trade ship-building productivity for software productivity. Including in warfare.)If we insist on building ships in the US, we spend more money on the same ships, and - unavoidably - we must shift more productive resources to these less productive tasks. If your neighbor is a great carpenter and you are a great farmer, wouldn't it be smart to trade your vegetables for carpentry, instead of you trying to do carpentry and the carpenter trying to grow vegetables? If you are a Linux maintainer end and the business down the hall back end, do you try to do back end and they try to design OSes? Why?
(Of course, you probably trade your skills indirectly through the wonderful fungibility of money.)