Apple developing MicroLED tech at secret facility, likely to debut in Apple Watch

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 66
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    melgross said:

    melgross said:
    Soli said:
    Bring it on home! Design, component manufacuture, assembly - the whole works. The pleasant and secure shape of things to come!
    There are so many reasons why it's just not feasible for something whose minerals can't be completely mined in the states all the way to needing staff in the 6 digits with 10s of thousands of parallel assembly lines.

    For even just microLED to be final manufacturing in the US it would have to be completely automated, but even then you'd still need to send all the displays to China for assembly.

    The only reason the Mac Pro could do this was because it was low volume, and even then it was just final assembly and still delayed (the latter aspect may or may not have been because they assembled in the US).

    During the most recent Xmas quarter, Apple sold slightly fewer than 80 million iPhones, about 900,000 a day. Obligingly, a day has 86,400 seconds, so we round up to 90,000 to get a production yield of ten iPhones per second.

    But producing a phone isn’t instantaneous, it isn’t like the click of the shutter in a high-speed camera. Let’s assume that it takes about 15 minutes (rounded up to 1,000 seconds) to assemble a single iPhone. How many parallel production pipes need to accumulate ten phones a second? 1,000 divided by 1/10 equals…10,000! Ten thousand parallel pipes in order to output ten phones per second.

    We can juggle the numbers, but it’s still difficult to comprehend the scale and complexity of the iPhone production machine, to build a reliable mental representation.
    PS: As an American I hope I'm dead wrong and that Apple can bring "the whole works" to the US for all their products from where they source minerals, who designs and build their machines that make their devices, etc., but I really don't see that ever happening.
    I see no reason why a display can’t be made here. Something like a MicroLED is similar to a chip in enough ways so that it could be done here. Only when massive numbers of people are needed is it impractical.

    and we’re manufacturing more that we ever did. This is also something people don’t understand. We took a big hit in the Bush recession, but manufacturing has made a massive comeback, but it’s not politically correct to admit it, even though the manufacturing index shows it to be true. What we don’t make that much of is small consumer facing products that do need that large number of people, such as clothing. Cheap toys as well.
    Huh?
    We haven't recovered from the 1980's when manufacturing left the country.   The Bush recession had nothing to do with manufacturing -- which had already left the country.   The Great Recession was a collapse of the financial system.  Out financial system HAS recovered.   Our industrial empire is long gone.
    Sorry George, but you’re wrong. While many consumer facing manufacturing left the country because of consumer cheapness and indifference, when you look at the manufacturing indexes, you’ll see that last year, we manufactured more goods than ever before. That’s just fact, and I’m not going to argue with you about it.
    I'm glad you aren't going to argue about it.  Because what you say is wrong.  But, you can prove most anything with a statistic.  I would be curious to see that.  It would be good for a chuckle.
  • Reply 42 of 66
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    melgross said:
    foggyhill said:
    melgross said:
    Soli said:
    Bring it on home! Design, component manufacuture, assembly - the whole works. The pleasant and secure shape of things to come!
    There are so many reasons why it's just not feasible for something whose minerals can't be completely mined in the states all the way to needing staff in the 6 digits with 10s of thousands of parallel assembly lines.

    For even just microLED to be final manufacturing in the US it would have to be completely automated, but even then you'd still need to send all the displays to China for assembly.

    The only reason the Mac Pro could do this was because it was low volume, and even then it was just final assembly and still delayed (the latter aspect may or may not have been because they assembled in the US).

    During the most recent Xmas quarter, Apple sold slightly fewer than 80 million iPhones, about 900,000 a day. Obligingly, a day has 86,400 seconds, so we round up to 90,000 to get a production yield of ten iPhones per second.

    But producing a phone isn’t instantaneous, it isn’t like the click of the shutter in a high-speed camera. Let’s assume that it takes about 15 minutes (rounded up to 1,000 seconds) to assemble a single iPhone. How many parallel production pipes need to accumulate ten phones a second? 1,000 divided by 1/10 equals…10,000! Ten thousand parallel pipes in order to output ten phones per second.

    We can juggle the numbers, but it’s still difficult to comprehend the scale and complexity of the iPhone production machine, to build a reliable mental representation.
    PS: As an American I hope I'm dead wrong and that Apple can bring "the whole works" to the US for all their products from where they source minerals, who designs and build their machines that make their devices, etc., but I really don't see that ever happening.
    I see no reason why a display can’t be made here. Something like a MicroLED is similar to a chip in enough ways so that it could be done here. Only when massive numbers of people are needed is it impractical.

    and we’re manufacturing more that we ever did. This is also something people don’t understand. We took a big hit in the Bush recession, but manufacturing has made a massive comeback, but it’s not politically correct to admit it, even though the manufacturing index shows it to be true. What we don’t make that much of is small consumer facing products that do need that large number of people, such as clothing. Cheap toys as well.
    How is it not politically correct? Ho, you mean mister turd in chief has promised those jobs would come back when in fact, they're gone because of automation, not "big bad" foreigners (sic)... Well, hey/.   Yeah, the US is a manufacturing powerhouse despite what orange julep guy, aka I don't know anything guy, at the top says.

    Yeah, US companies have kept high value added productions in the US and shipped out those that's would not make it worthwhile to invest in expensive manufacturing.
    Keeping those things here would be counter productive.
    Yes! It’s not politically correct, because no one on the left or the right wants to admit that the biggest cause of job losses are due to home grown automation, not the export of jobs elsewhere. It’s easy to blame China, India, and other places than blame the increasing, and unstoppable automation that’s cutting jobs from every area of the economy.

    look at these robot answering services companies use. Do you know that those have cut almost 200 thousand Jobs alone? Did they go to China? No, they disappeared forever. It used to take hundreds of people to weld car chassis, now robots do it (better), and about 50 people maintain the robots. Same thing with painting these cars. Same thing almost everywhere.

    We read about productivity. That used to mean that efficiencies had each worker produce more goods during a shift. Now it means that these workers are let go, and robots produce more per shift, which is a term that’s beginning to lose meaning, as robots can work almost 24/7.

    what are they going to say in 2040, when it’s expected that 70% of all jobs will be gone?
    You are correct that automation is costing a LOT of jobs and will cost more.

    You are not correct implying that automation (at least in today's meaning) caused the migration to overseas manufacturing.   Gradually, in the 60's, 70's & 80's the Japanese simply began producing better steel, better cars and better electronics at lower prices than we did.

    Your error is that you seem to believe that the migration of manufacturing happened decades after it had already started in the 60's, 70's, and 80's.  In the 60's the first cracks and trickles appeared.  By the 80's it was torrent. 
  • Reply 43 of 66
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    I wonder what happened to all the hype surrounding quantum dot displays? Not practical?
    Quantum dots and micro-LED go hand-in-hand as I've understood it, and is what Apple is working on.
     http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2018/03/the-discovery-of-apples-secret-micro-led-display-testing-plant-in-california-rattles-display-maker-stocks-in-asia.html
    edited March 2018 SpamSandwich
  • Reply 44 of 66
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    wizard69 said:

    Soli said:
    Bring it on home! Design, component manufacuture, assembly - the whole works. The pleasant and secure shape of things to come!
    There are so many reasons why it's just not feasible for something whose minerals can't be completely mined in the states all the way to needing staff in the 6 digits with 10s of thousands of parallel assembly lines.

    For even just microLED to be final manufacturing in the US it would have to be completely automated, but even then you'd still need to send all the displays to China for assembly.

    The only reason the Mac Pro could do this was because it was low volume, and even then it was just final assembly and still delayed (the latter aspect may or may not have been because they assembled in the US).

    During the most recent Xmas quarter, Apple sold slightly fewer than 80 million iPhones, about 900,000 a day. Obligingly, a day has 86,400 seconds, so we round up to 90,000 to get a production yield of ten iPhones per second.

    But producing a phone isn’t instantaneous, it isn’t like the click of the shutter in a high-speed camera. Let’s assume that it takes about 15 minutes (rounded up to 1,000 seconds) to assemble a single iPhone. How many parallel production pipes need to accumulate ten phones a second? 1,000 divided by 1/10 equals…10,000! Ten thousand parallel pipes in order to output ten phones per second.

    We can juggle the numbers, but it’s still difficult to comprehend the scale and complexity of the iPhone production machine, to build a reliable mental representation.
    PS: As an American I hope I'm dead wrong and that Apple can bring "the whole works" to the US for all their products from where they source minerals, who designs and build their machines that make their devices, etc., but I really don't see that ever happening.
    As for Apple bringing everything here i dont see the point of doing so.   International trade is still important and frankly it is generally a good thing.  What bothers me is that Apple has the option with these new technologies of bringing employment to the USA.  Employment in fact to a class ofvworjers that have gotten royally screwed over by the policies and and practices of corporations and the federal government over the last couple of decades.    It was an act of government policy that sent millions of jobs to China, this is what so many in this forum dont understand.  
    Don’t leave us hanging, bro! What act prompted the executive class to save bucks by exporting US manufacturing jobs first to mexico and then to china? 
    It was triggered when the American Steel and (to lesser extent) auto industries were decapitated by Japan in the 80's.

    We tried protectionism all through the 70's and 80's.   But it failed.
    At that point, the "executive class" realized that they had two choices:
    1)  Move manufacturing out of the country
    2)  Bankruptcy
    In other words, no specific act of government was responsible for this. It certainly was t a government policy.
  • Reply 45 of 66
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member

    Soli said:
    melgross said:
    Yes! It’s not politically correct, because no one on the left or the right wants to admit that the biggest cause of job losses are due to home grown automation, not the export of jobs elsewhere. It’s easy to blame China, India, and other places than blame the increasing, and unstoppable automation that’s cutting jobs from every area of the economy.
    What?! I thought everyone was saying that. It only seems like the fringe nut jobs that want to say…




    edit: If you google automation in us you can find articles from any left or right publication.
    All you need to do is to look back to the 2016 election. Both the Republicans and the Democrats we’re blaming China for the lols of Jobs. From Trump to Sanders. That’s pretty extreme. While automation is understood, and we do see serious discussions and even some outlandish comedy, the big discussion centers around unfair trade organizations taking jobs away, which is mostly rubbish. The truly stupid trade war that Trump is starting, is all about jobs, the less than 1% of the economy in the steel and aluminum industries that he’s bragging about. Of course, the fact that we will lose more jobs in the industries affected by this doesn’t matter, just blame unfair trade, instead of talking about the real problems.
  • Reply 46 of 66
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    foggyhill said:
    wizard69 said:
    I wonder what happened to all the hype surrounding quantum dot displays? Not practical?
    Still heavily investigated from many different avenues.  Display technology in general is one hot area in the world of optics.  There are all sorts of techniques and processes being investigated.  

    As for Apple watch it is very possible it will be targetted with MicroLED.   However i would be surprised if the real goal is a solution for new products.  

    The other "hope" here is that Apple wises up and does manufacturing in the USA.  R&D is nice but there is a broad spectrum of people that will never navigate the world of R&D.  
    If anybody can do it, it's Apple -- if nothing else, because their ultra high margins over straight manufacturing costs give them more leeway to absorb the high American salaries and (especially) benefits.
    The US is a manufacturing powerhouse it's just not needing as many people to produce those things.
    Most of the money from the sale of its products goes to Apple and will eventually be spent in the US, not the supply chain.

    Many of the things in the supply chain that are done abroad are done there because companies like Samsung and TSMC have devellopped the manufacturing capacity to serve not just the US, but the entire world (and they got plants doing chips in the US too of course).

    A multinational company, and a country needs to devolve part of its production to maximized efficiency and concentrate on what you do best.
    That's why tariffs are so bad, they just sustain inefficiencies and make you noncompetitive globally.
    Not only that, by having people having to pay money for this inefficiency, they're starving some more worthwhile and more forward looking area of money.
    (often used to milk money from low R&D mature industries, they're low R&D BECAUSE everyone knows there is no point to putting money there locally )

    Trying to compete on everything and reinvent the wheel locally just so you can have your own crappy special version is what we had in the 1960s and product where both much more expensive on average and thus people had a lot less stuff.

    My mother's only had 2 dresses, which cost 10 times the cost in 2018 money, her washer and dryer cost proportionally 5 times more (it was upper average, but not top end) than the a similar model in 2018 money would have.  We had one stereo, 2 speakers, 1 phonograph, a boombox, a 20 inch black & White TV, washer dryer, oven and range, 2 corded phones and that's it. No other electronics or electrical goods of any kind (that was 1970).

    My parents were working class to middle class (just in between). Nowadays, even a lower working class family has their house filled to the brink with consumer goods.

    Housing and food has followed or exceeded inflation (because they mostly CAN'T BE OUTSOURCED), but everything else has gone way way done in price.
    You can buy a damn dress for $40 that would have cost the equivalent of $250 in 2018 money in 1967; there is a reason why people fixed clothes back then.

    You contradict your own point.
    And no, the U.S. is a poor 'also ran' in manufacturing.

    In the 60's the country actually was the powerhouse that you seem to believe it is today.
    People didn't have just one car, one stereo and one coat because prices were high.  It was because wages were low.  (My 1965 Pontiac Tempest cost only $3,200 new -- but I made $1/hr managing a convenience store.)

    That began to change in the 60's as unions gained power and we had fork lift drivers making $100,000/yr in 1960's money with 13 weeks vacation.   Unions were in no way the only factor involved in the demise of U.S. manufacturing:  There were other factors such as environmental and mismanagement that contributed as much or more.   But, you badly mis-charactize what was happening back then.
    That’s ignorance speaking. The USA is certainly not an also ran. In fact, as costs continue to rise in China, more manufacturing is coming back here. Two of China’s largest companies are in the process of opening up very large factories here. That’s both to sell these products here(automobiles and auto glass), but to also ship them back to China, and elsewhere.

    you really don’t know much about unions. It was in the 1960’s that unions began to lose their power, not gain it. Over the decades since, union workers as a percentage of the working public is at a low.

    basically, you’re just making things up.
    singularity
  • Reply 47 of 66
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    melgross said:

    Soli said:
    melgross said:
    Yes! It’s not politically correct, because no one on the left or the right wants to admit that the biggest cause of job losses are due to home grown automation, not the export of jobs elsewhere. It’s easy to blame China, India, and other places than blame the increasing, and unstoppable automation that’s cutting jobs from every area of the economy.
    What?! I thought everyone was saying that. It only seems like the fringe nut jobs that want to say…




    edit: If you google automation in us you can find articles from any left or right publication.
    All you need to do is to look back to the 2016 election. Both the Republicans and the Democrats we’re blaming China for the lols of Jobs. From Trump to Sanders. That’s pretty extreme. While automation is understood, and we do see serious discussions and even some outlandish comedy, the big discussion centers around unfair trade organizations taking jobs away, which is mostly rubbish. The truly stupid trade war that Trump is starting, is all about jobs, the less than 1% of the economy in the steel and aluminum industries that he’s bragging about. Of course, the fact that we will lose more jobs in the industries affected by this doesn’t matter, just blame unfair trade, instead of talking about the real problems.
    melgross said:

    Soli said:
    melgross said:
    Yes! It’s not politically correct, because no one on the left or the right wants to admit that the biggest cause of job losses are due to home grown automation, not the export of jobs elsewhere. It’s easy to blame China, India, and other places than blame the increasing, and unstoppable automation that’s cutting jobs from every area of the economy.
    What?! I thought everyone was saying that. It only seems like the fringe nut jobs that want to say…




    edit: If you google automation in us you can find articles from any left or right publication.
    All you need to do is to look back to the 2016 election. Both the Republicans and the Democrats we’re blaming China for the lols of Jobs. From Trump to Sanders. That’s pretty extreme. While automation is understood, and we do see serious discussions and even some outlandish comedy, the big discussion centers around unfair trade organizations taking jobs away, which is mostly rubbish. The truly stupid trade war that Trump is starting, is all about jobs, the less than 1% of the economy in the steel and aluminum industries that he’s bragging about. Of course, the fact that we will lose more jobs in the industries affected by this doesn’t matter, just blame unfair trade, instead of talking about the real problems.
    That still sounds like fringe to me. And let’s keep innkind that these are politicians during an era of Citizens United. So they aren’t actually to point a finger at corporations that are major donors.
  • Reply 48 of 66
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    melgross said:
    foggyhill said:
    wizard69 said:
    I wonder what happened to all the hype surrounding quantum dot displays? Not practical?
    Still heavily investigated from many different avenues.  Display technology in general is one hot area in the world of optics.  There are all sorts of techniques and processes being investigated.  

    As for Apple watch it is very possible it will be targetted with MicroLED.   However i would be surprised if the real goal is a solution for new products.  

    The other "hope" here is that Apple wises up and does manufacturing in the USA.  R&D is nice but there is a broad spectrum of people that will never navigate the world of R&D.  
    If anybody can do it, it's Apple -- if nothing else, because their ultra high margins over straight manufacturing costs give them more leeway to absorb the high American salaries and (especially) benefits.
    The US is a manufacturing powerhouse it's just not needing as many people to produce those things.
    Most of the money from the sale of its products goes to Apple and will eventually be spent in the US, not the supply chain.

    Many of the things in the supply chain that are done abroad are done there because companies like Samsung and TSMC have devellopped the manufacturing capacity to serve not just the US, but the entire world (and they got plants doing chips in the US too of course).

    A multinational company, and a country needs to devolve part of its production to maximized efficiency and concentrate on what you do best.
    That's why tariffs are so bad, they just sustain inefficiencies and make you noncompetitive globally.
    Not only that, by having people having to pay money for this inefficiency, they're starving some more worthwhile and more forward looking area of money.
    (often used to milk money from low R&D mature industries, they're low R&D BECAUSE everyone knows there is no point to putting money there locally )

    Trying to compete on everything and reinvent the wheel locally just so you can have your own crappy special version is what we had in the 1960s and product where both much more expensive on average and thus people had a lot less stuff.

    My mother's only had 2 dresses, which cost 10 times the cost in 2018 money, her washer and dryer cost proportionally 5 times more (it was upper average, but not top end) than the a similar model in 2018 money would have.  We had one stereo, 2 speakers, 1 phonograph, a boombox, a 20 inch black & White TV, washer dryer, oven and range, 2 corded phones and that's it. No other electronics or electrical goods of any kind (that was 1970).

    My parents were working class to middle class (just in between). Nowadays, even a lower working class family has their house filled to the brink with consumer goods.

    Housing and food has followed or exceeded inflation (because they mostly CAN'T BE OUTSOURCED), but everything else has gone way way done in price.
    You can buy a damn dress for $40 that would have cost the equivalent of $250 in 2018 money in 1967; there is a reason why people fixed clothes back then.

    You contradict your own point.
    And no, the U.S. is a poor 'also ran' in manufacturing.

    In the 60's the country actually was the powerhouse that you seem to believe it is today.
    People didn't have just one car, one stereo and one coat because prices were high.  It was because wages were low.  (My 1965 Pontiac Tempest cost only $3,200 new -- but I made $1/hr managing a convenience store.)

    That began to change in the 60's as unions gained power and we had fork lift drivers making $100,000/yr in 1960's money with 13 weeks vacation.   Unions were in no way the only factor involved in the demise of U.S. manufacturing:  There were other factors such as environmental and mismanagement that contributed as much or more.   But, you badly mis-charactize what was happening back then.
    That’s ignorance speaking. The USA is certainly not an also ran. In fact, as costs continue to rise in China, more manufacturing is coming back here. Two of China’s largest companies are in the process of opening up very large factories here. That’s both to sell these products here(automobiles and auto glass), but to also ship them back to China, and elsewhere.

    you really don’t know much about unions. It was in the 1960’s that unions began to lose their power, not gain it. Over the decades since, union workers as a percentage of the working public is at a low.

    basically, you’re just making things up.
    Sorry, but from a manufacturing standpoint, we are now just one of many.   Yes it is true that if you compare today's U.S. manufacturing to the the 1990's and 2000's (as you have done) it looks like it is stable or maybe even growing.  But, that's a false comparison.

    As for unions, you are completely off base...

    It was in the 60's (and 70's) at the height of American industrial might that the auto workers began their policy of striking only one of the three car makers -- forcing them to meet their demands or lose business to their competition.   A similar strategy was used in the steel industry except the competition was foreign steel -- when the USW struck it forced more and more companies to source their steel from foreign makers.  And, those foreign producers were smart enough to make them sign longer term contracts -- which robbed domestic steel makers of their long term customers.   Teamsters were also gaining extraordinary power to increase wages and benefits.  And, those wage increases spread throughout other industries as well as into white collar jobs. 

    Those extraordinary and unsustainable increases in union wages and benefits was a main (but not the only) driver of the demise of basic manufacturing in the U.S.   Other factors were:
    -- High corporate taxes
    -- Expensive and restrictive environmental regulations
    -- Poor management (They were making poor decisions and not reinvesting and modernizing their production facilities.)

    And, I say all of that as a solid pro-union democrat.  While it sounds very Republican, it's not.   It's just fact.
    edited March 2018
  • Reply 49 of 66
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    melgross said:
    foggyhill said:
    melgross said:
    Soli said:
    Bring it on home! Design, component manufacuture, assembly - the whole works. The pleasant and secure shape of things to come!
    There are so many reasons why it's just not feasible for something whose minerals can't be completely mined in the states all the way to needing staff in the 6 digits with 10s of thousands of parallel assembly lines.

    For even just microLED to be final manufacturing in the US it would have to be completely automated, but even then you'd still need to send all the displays to China for assembly.

    The only reason the Mac Pro could do this was because it was low volume, and even then it was just final assembly and still delayed (the latter aspect may or may not have been because they assembled in the US).

    During the most recent Xmas quarter, Apple sold slightly fewer than 80 million iPhones, about 900,000 a day. Obligingly, a day has 86,400 seconds, so we round up to 90,000 to get a production yield of ten iPhones per second.

    But producing a phone isn’t instantaneous, it isn’t like the click of the shutter in a high-speed camera. Let’s assume that it takes about 15 minutes (rounded up to 1,000 seconds) to assemble a single iPhone. How many parallel production pipes need to accumulate ten phones a second? 1,000 divided by 1/10 equals…10,000! Ten thousand parallel pipes in order to output ten phones per second.

    We can juggle the numbers, but it’s still difficult to comprehend the scale and complexity of the iPhone production machine, to build a reliable mental representation.
    PS: As an American I hope I'm dead wrong and that Apple can bring "the whole works" to the US for all their products from where they source minerals, who designs and build their machines that make their devices, etc., but I really don't see that ever happening.
    I see no reason why a display can’t be made here. Something like a MicroLED is similar to a chip in enough ways so that it could be done here. Only when massive numbers of people are needed is it impractical.

    and we’re manufacturing more that we ever did. This is also something people don’t understand. We took a big hit in the Bush recession, but manufacturing has made a massive comeback, but it’s not politically correct to admit it, even though the manufacturing index shows it to be true. What we don’t make that much of is small consumer facing products that do need that large number of people, such as clothing. Cheap toys as well.
    How is it not politically correct? Ho, you mean mister turd in chief has promised those jobs would come back when in fact, they're gone because of automation, not "big bad" foreigners (sic)... Well, hey/.   Yeah, the US is a manufacturing powerhouse despite what orange julep guy, aka I don't know anything guy, at the top says.

    Yeah, US companies have kept high value added productions in the US and shipped out those that's would not make it worthwhile to invest in expensive manufacturing.
    Keeping those things here would be counter productive.
    Yes! It’s not politically correct, because no one on the left or the right wants to admit that the biggest cause of job losses are due to home grown automation, not the export of jobs elsewhere. It’s easy to blame China, India, and other places than blame the increasing, and unstoppable automation that’s cutting jobs from every area of the economy.

    look at these robot answering services companies use. Do you know that those have cut almost 200 thousand Jobs alone? Did they go to China? No, they disappeared forever. It used to take hundreds of people to weld car chassis, now robots do it (better), and about 50 people maintain the robots. Same thing with painting these cars. Same thing almost everywhere.

    We read about productivity. That used to mean that efficiencies had each worker produce more goods during a shift. Now it means that these workers are let go, and robots produce more per shift, which is a term that’s beginning to lose meaning, as robots can work almost 24/7.

    what are they going to say in 2040, when it’s expected that 70% of all jobs will be gone?
    By 2040, the biggest increase in jobs could be in the sponsored or affiliate opinion business!
  • Reply 50 of 66
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    I’ve been seeing more price markdowns on Apple Watch and on iPads, so I’m wondering if both will see updates very soon.
  • Reply 51 of 66
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Soli said:
    melgross said:

    Soli said:
    melgross said:
    Yes! It’s not politically correct, because no one on the left or the right wants to admit that the biggest cause of job losses are due to home grown automation, not the export of jobs elsewhere. It’s easy to blame China, India, and other places than blame the increasing, and unstoppable automation that’s cutting jobs from every area of the economy.
    What?! I thought everyone was saying that. It only seems like the fringe nut jobs that want to say…




    edit: If you google automation in us you can find articles from any left or right publication.
    All you need to do is to look back to the 2016 election. Both the Republicans and the Democrats we’re blaming China for the lols of Jobs. From Trump to Sanders. That’s pretty extreme. While automation is understood, and we do see serious discussions and even some outlandish comedy, the big discussion centers around unfair trade organizations taking jobs away, which is mostly rubbish. The truly stupid trade war that Trump is starting, is all about jobs, the less than 1% of the economy in the steel and aluminum industries that he’s bragging about. Of course, the fact that we will lose more jobs in the industries affected by this doesn’t matter, just blame unfair trade, instead of talking about the real problems.
    melgross said:

    Soli said:
    melgross said:
    Yes! It’s not politically correct, because no one on the left or the right wants to admit that the biggest cause of job losses are due to home grown automation, not the export of jobs elsewhere. It’s easy to blame China, India, and other places than blame the increasing, and unstoppable automation that’s cutting jobs from every area of the economy.
    What?! I thought everyone was saying that. It only seems like the fringe nut jobs that want to say…




    edit: If you google automation in us you can find articles from any left or right publication.
    All you need to do is to look back to the 2016 election. Both the Republicans and the Democrats we’re blaming China for the lols of Jobs. From Trump to Sanders. That’s pretty extreme. While automation is understood, and we do see serious discussions and even some outlandish comedy, the big discussion centers around unfair trade organizations taking jobs away, which is mostly rubbish. The truly stupid trade war that Trump is starting, is all about jobs, the less than 1% of the economy in the steel and aluminum industries that he’s bragging about. Of course, the fact that we will lose more jobs in the industries affected by this doesn’t matter, just blame unfair trade, instead of talking about the real problems.
    That still sounds like fringe to me. And let’s keep innkind that these are politicians during an era of Citizens United. So they aren’t actually to point a finger at corporations that are major donors.
    One of the reasons Trump got elected was because of this “fringe”. It’s anything but firing. How you could ever think is is is baffling.
  • Reply 52 of 66
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    George, you’re getting things backwards. Unions comprise about 13% of American workers. You’re goi not back to the times I agree about, but that hasn’t been true for a long time. Even 1970 is about 50 years ago. Most of what we saw in Detroit, with unions, is now in southern states with so called “right to work” laws, which are aimed at union busting. Most automotive workers now have no union, nor do most steelworkers.

    i’d like to see you provide some actual information, instead of just supposition. Most manufacturing Jobs here, including those with unions, other than the steelworkers and auto workers, never made that much money. Factory work, despite the wonderful stories we’re told, was never a source of real middle class income for more than a few.

    the only thing from your “other factors” that’s true is poor corporate management.

    by the way, I don’t understand why some of my posts are coming out above. It’s odd, but sometimes it’s not allowing me to reply below, and I’m forced to reply above.
    melgross said:
    foggyhill said:
    wizard69 said:
    I wonder what happened to all the hype surrounding quantum dot displays? Not practical?
    Still heavily investigated from many different avenues.  Display technology in general is one hot area in the world of optics.  There are all sorts of techniques and processes being investigated.  

    As for Apple watch it is very possible it will be targetted with MicroLED.   However i would be surprised if the real goal is a solution for new products.  

    The other "hope" here is that Apple wises up and does manufacturing in the USA.  R&D is nice but there is a broad spectrum of people that will never navigate the world of R&D.  
    If anybody can do it, it's Apple -- if nothing else, because their ultra high margins over straight manufacturing costs give them more leeway to absorb the high American salaries and (especially) benefits.
    The US is a manufacturing powerhouse it's just not needing as many people to produce those things.
    Most of the money from the sale of its products goes to Apple and will eventually be spent in the US, not the supply chain.

    Many of the things in the supply chain that are done abroad are done there because companies like Samsung and TSMC have devellopped the manufacturing capacity to serve not just the US, but the entire world (and they got plants doing chips in the US too of course).

    A multinational company, and a country needs to devolve part of its production to maximized efficiency and concentrate on what you do best.
    That's why tariffs are so bad, they just sustain inefficiencies and make you noncompetitive globally.
    Not only that, by having people having to pay money for this inefficiency, they're starving some more worthwhile and more forward looking area of money.
    (often used to milk money from low R&D mature industries, they're low R&D BECAUSE everyone knows there is no point to putting money there locally )

    Trying to compete on everything and reinvent the wheel locally just so you can have your own crappy special version is what we had in the 1960s and product where both much more expensive on average and thus people had a lot less stuff.

    My mother's only had 2 dresses, which cost 10 times the cost in 2018 money, her washer and dryer cost proportionally 5 times more (it was upper average, but not top end) than the a similar model in 2018 money would have.  We had one stereo, 2 speakers, 1 phonograph, a boombox, a 20 inch black & White TV, washer dryer, oven and range, 2 corded phones and that's it. No other electronics or electrical goods of any kind (that was 1970).

    My parents were working class to middle class (just in between). Nowadays, even a lower working class family has their house filled to the brink with consumer goods.

    Housing and food has followed or exceeded inflation (because they mostly CAN'T BE OUTSOURCED), but everything else has gone way way done in price.
    You can buy a damn dress for $40 that would have cost the equivalent of $250 in 2018 money in 1967; there is a reason why people fixed clothes back then.

    You contradict your own point.
    And no, the U.S. is a poor 'also ran' in manufacturing.

    In the 60's the country actually was the powerhouse that you seem to believe it is today.
    People didn't have just one car, one stereo and one coat because prices were high.  It was because wages were low.  (My 1965 Pontiac Tempest cost only $3,200 new -- but I made $1/hr managing a convenience store.)

    That began to change in the 60's as unions gained power and we had fork lift drivers making $100,000/yr in 1960's money with 13 weeks vacation.   Unions were in no way the only factor involved in the demise of U.S. manufacturing:  There were other factors such as environmental and mismanagement that contributed as much or more.   But, you badly mis-charactize what was happening back then.
    That’s ignorance speaking. The USA is certainly not an also ran. In fact, as costs continue to rise in China, more manufacturing is coming back here. Two of China’s largest companies are in the process of opening up very large factories here. That’s both to sell these products here(automobiles and auto glass), but to also ship them back to China, and elsewhere.

    you really don’t know much about unions. It was in the 1960’s that unions began to lose their power, not gain it. Over the decades since, union workers as a percentage of the working public is at a low.

    basically, you’re just making things up.
    Sorry, but from a manufacturing standpoint, we are now just one of many.   Yes it is true that if you compare today's U.S. manufacturing to the the 1990's and 2000's (as you have done) it looks like it is stable or maybe even growing.  But, that's a false comparison.

    As for unions, you are completely off base...

    It was in the 60's (and 70's) at the height of American industrial might that the auto workers began their policy of striking only one of the three car makers -- forcing them to meet their demands or lose business to their competition.   A similar strategy was used in the steel industry except the competition was foreign steel -- when the USW struck it forced more and more companies to source their steel from foreign makers.  And, those foreign producers were smart enough to make them sign longer term contracts -- which robbed domestic steel makers of their long term customers.   Teamsters were also gaining extraordinary power to increase wages and benefits.  And, those wage increases spread throughout other industries as well as into white collar jobs. 

    Those extraordinary and unsustainable increases in union wages and benefits was a main (but not the only) driver of the demise of basic manufacturing in the U.S.   Other factors were:
    -- High corporate taxes
    -- Expensive and restrictive environmental regulations
    -- Poor management (They were making poor decisions and not reinvesting and modernizing their production facilities.)

    And, I say all of that as a solid pro-union democrat.  While it sounds very Republican, it's not.   It's just fact.

    edited March 2018
  • Reply 53 of 66
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    melgross said:
    foggyhill said:
    melgross said:
    Soli said:
    Bring it on home! Design, component manufacuture, assembly - the whole works. The pleasant and secure shape of things to come!
    There are so many reasons why it's just not feasible for something whose minerals can't be completely mined in the states all the way to needing staff in the 6 digits with 10s of thousands of parallel assembly lines.

    For even just microLED to be final manufacturing in the US it would have to be completely automated, but even then you'd still need to send all the displays to China for assembly.

    The only reason the Mac Pro could do this was because it was low volume, and even then it was just final assembly and still delayed (the latter aspect may or may not have been because they assembled in the US).

    During the most recent Xmas quarter, Apple sold slightly fewer than 80 million iPhones, about 900,000 a day. Obligingly, a day has 86,400 seconds, so we round up to 90,000 to get a production yield of ten iPhones per second.

    But producing a phone isn’t instantaneous, it isn’t like the click of the shutter in a high-speed camera. Let’s assume that it takes about 15 minutes (rounded up to 1,000 seconds) to assemble a single iPhone. How many parallel production pipes need to accumulate ten phones a second? 1,000 divided by 1/10 equals…10,000! Ten thousand parallel pipes in order to output ten phones per second.

    We can juggle the numbers, but it’s still difficult to comprehend the scale and complexity of the iPhone production machine, to build a reliable mental representation.
    PS: As an American I hope I'm dead wrong and that Apple can bring "the whole works" to the US for all their products from where they source minerals, who designs and build their machines that make their devices, etc., but I really don't see that ever happening.
    I see no reason why a display can’t be made here. Something like a MicroLED is similar to a chip in enough ways so that it could be done here. Only when massive numbers of people are needed is it impractical.

    and we’re manufacturing more that we ever did. This is also something people don’t understand. We took a big hit in the Bush recession, but manufacturing has made a massive comeback, but it’s not politically correct to admit it, even though the manufacturing index shows it to be true. What we don’t make that much of is small consumer facing products that do need that large number of people, such as clothing. Cheap toys as well.
    How is it not politically correct? Ho, you mean mister turd in chief has promised those jobs would come back when in fact, they're gone because of automation, not "big bad" foreigners (sic)... Well, hey/.   Yeah, the US is a manufacturing powerhouse despite what orange julep guy, aka I don't know anything guy, at the top says.

    Yeah, US companies have kept high value added productions in the US and shipped out those that's would not make it worthwhile to invest in expensive manufacturing.
    Keeping those things here would be counter productive.
    Yes! It’s not politically correct, because no one on the left or the right wants to admit that the biggest cause of job losses are due to home grown automation, not the export of jobs elsewhere. It’s easy to blame China, India, and other places than blame the increasing, and unstoppable automation that’s cutting jobs from every area of the economy.

    look at these robot answering services companies use. Do you know that those have cut almost 200 thousand Jobs alone? Did they go to China? No, they disappeared forever. It used to take hundreds of people to weld car chassis, now robots do it (better), and about 50 people maintain the robots. Same thing with painting these cars. Same thing almost everywhere.

    We read about productivity. That used to mean that efficiencies had each worker produce more goods during a shift. Now it means that these workers are let go, and robots produce more per shift, which is a term that’s beginning to lose meaning, as robots can work almost 24/7.

    what are they going to say in 2040, when it’s expected that 70% of all jobs will be gone?
    By 2040, the biggest increase in jobs could be in the sponsored or affiliate opinion business!
    Very true. We can now see many people doing You Tube channels. If you get more than a few subscribers, you can also have Google placed Ads. If you’re somewhat popular within a category, you can get channel sponsors. 

    Google is placing more and more Ads within the videos of those who agree to them. Those get a portion of the Ad. But Google is placing even more Ads, while giving a channel less income per Ad. Typical for Google. But a few people, at least, are making in the low six figures on their You Tube channels. Channel sponsors give equipment to these people for free, and expect them to use them, and only say nice things. That can also amount to thousands of dollars per year. 

    For example. I began to get back into welding after having last done it just before we sold our company in 2004. So I began to watch welding and fabricating channels about 6 months ago. Some manufacturers give, what seems to be, a few hundred machines out to these people, with some of them having 2, 4, 6 or even more of their machines, with a number of them costing a good thousand, or more. These people can sell the older models after some time, as they get new ones in.

    im reading that some of these people have given up their day job to do these videos full time.

    so it’s like the Instagram individuals who make money from talking up companies and their products. Blogs, and the like have also bankrupted some people trying to become “stars”. They spend a lot of money pretending to live some kind of good life, hoping they’ll get a lot of followers, and will be picked up by corporate sponsors, but it doesn’t happen.

     It it seems to me that when 100 million people here are out of work in the future, there’s no way that most of them will be doing this. There will have to be some other way to allow them to live some sort of life.
  • Reply 54 of 66
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    melgross said:
    melgross said:
    foggyhill said:
    melgross said:
    Soli said:
    Bring it on home! Design, component manufacuture, assembly - the whole works. The pleasant and secure shape of things to come!
    There are so many reasons why it's just not feasible for something whose minerals can't be completely mined in the states all the way to needing staff in the 6 digits with 10s of thousands of parallel assembly lines.

    For even just microLED to be final manufacturing in the US it would have to be completely automated, but even then you'd still need to send all the displays to China for assembly.

    The only reason the Mac Pro could do this was because it was low volume, and even then it was just final assembly and still delayed (the latter aspect may or may not have been because they assembled in the US).

    During the most recent Xmas quarter, Apple sold slightly fewer than 80 million iPhones, about 900,000 a day. Obligingly, a day has 86,400 seconds, so we round up to 90,000 to get a production yield of ten iPhones per second.

    But producing a phone isn’t instantaneous, it isn’t like the click of the shutter in a high-speed camera. Let’s assume that it takes about 15 minutes (rounded up to 1,000 seconds) to assemble a single iPhone. How many parallel production pipes need to accumulate ten phones a second? 1,000 divided by 1/10 equals…10,000! Ten thousand parallel pipes in order to output ten phones per second.

    We can juggle the numbers, but it’s still difficult to comprehend the scale and complexity of the iPhone production machine, to build a reliable mental representation.
    PS: As an American I hope I'm dead wrong and that Apple can bring "the whole works" to the US for all their products from where they source minerals, who designs and build their machines that make their devices, etc., but I really don't see that ever happening.
    I see no reason why a display can’t be made here. Something like a MicroLED is similar to a chip in enough ways so that it could be done here. Only when massive numbers of people are needed is it impractical.

    and we’re manufacturing more that we ever did. This is also something people don’t understand. We took a big hit in the Bush recession, but manufacturing has made a massive comeback, but it’s not politically correct to admit it, even though the manufacturing index shows it to be true. What we don’t make that much of is small consumer facing products that do need that large number of people, such as clothing. Cheap toys as well.
    How is it not politically correct? Ho, you mean mister turd in chief has promised those jobs would come back when in fact, they're gone because of automation, not "big bad" foreigners (sic)... Well, hey/.   Yeah, the US is a manufacturing powerhouse despite what orange julep guy, aka I don't know anything guy, at the top says.

    Yeah, US companies have kept high value added productions in the US and shipped out those that's would not make it worthwhile to invest in expensive manufacturing.
    Keeping those things here would be counter productive.
    Yes! It’s not politically correct, because no one on the left or the right wants to admit that the biggest cause of job losses are due to home grown automation, not the export of jobs elsewhere. It’s easy to blame China, India, and other places than blame the increasing, and unstoppable automation that’s cutting jobs from every area of the economy.

    look at these robot answering services companies use. Do you know that those have cut almost 200 thousand Jobs alone? Did they go to China? No, they disappeared forever. It used to take hundreds of people to weld car chassis, now robots do it (better), and about 50 people maintain the robots. Same thing with painting these cars. Same thing almost everywhere.

    We read about productivity. That used to mean that efficiencies had each worker produce more goods during a shift. Now it means that these workers are let go, and robots produce more per shift, which is a term that’s beginning to lose meaning, as robots can work almost 24/7.

    what are they going to say in 2040, when it’s expected that 70% of all jobs will be gone?
    By 2040, the biggest increase in jobs could be in the sponsored or affiliate opinion business!
    Very true. We can now see many people doing You Tube channels. If you get more than a few subscribers, you can also have Google placed Ads. If you’re somewhat popular within a category, you can get channel sponsors. 

    Google is placing more and more Ads within the videos of those who agree to them. Those get a portion of the Ad. But Google is placing even more Ads, while giving a channel less income per Ad. Typical for Google. But a few people, at least, are making in the low six figures on their You Tube channels
    Some are making far more than the low six figures at YouTube. Some in the millions!
    http://people.com/celebrity/highest-paid-youtube-stars/

    But your overall point taken. Just because you wanna be a pro football player, or millionaire music artist, or YouTube star doesn't mean you will be. Most folks will have to look elsewhere for a meal and a roof. 
    edited March 2018
  • Reply 55 of 66
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    melgross said:
    George, you’re getting things backwards. Unions comprise about 13% of American workers. You’re goi not back to the times I agree about, but that hasn’t been true for a long time. Even 1970 is about 50 years ago. Most of what we saw in Detroit, with unions, is now in southern states with so called “right to work” laws, which are aimed at union busting. Most automotive workers now have no union, nor do most steelworkers.

    i’d like to see you provide some actual information, instead of just supposition. Most manufacturing Jobs here, including those with unions, other than the steelworkers and auto workers, never made that much money. Factory work, despite the wonderful stories we’re told, was never a source of real middle class income for more than a few.

    the only thing from your “other factors” that’s true is poor corporate management.

    by the way, I don’t understand why some of my posts are coming out above. It’s odd, but sometimes it’s not allowing me to reply below, and I’m forced to reply above.
    melgross said:
    foggyhill said:
    wizard69 said:
    I wonder what happened to all the hype surrounding quantum dot displays? Not practical?
    Still heavily investigated from many different avenues.  Display technology in general is one hot area in the world of optics.  There are all sorts of techniques and processes being investigated.  

    As for Apple watch it is very possible it will be targetted with MicroLED.   However i would be surprised if the real goal is a solution for new products.  

    The other "hope" here is that Apple wises up and does manufacturing in the USA.  R&D is nice but there is a broad spectrum of people that will never navigate the world of R&D.  
    If anybody can do it, it's Apple -- if nothing else, because their ultra high margins over straight manufacturing costs give them more leeway to absorb the high American salaries and (especially) benefits.
    The US is a manufacturing powerhouse it's just not needing as many people to produce those things.
    Most of the money from the sale of its products goes to Apple and will eventually be spent in the US, not the supply chain.

    Many of the things in the supply chain that are done abroad are done there because companies like Samsung and TSMC have devellopped the manufacturing capacity to serve not just the US, but the entire world (and they got plants doing chips in the US too of course).

    A multinational company, and a country needs to devolve part of its production to maximized efficiency and concentrate on what you do best.
    That's why tariffs are so bad, they just sustain inefficiencies and make you noncompetitive globally.
    Not only that, by having people having to pay money for this inefficiency, they're starving some more worthwhile and more forward looking area of money.
    (often used to milk money from low R&D mature industries, they're low R&D BECAUSE everyone knows there is no point to putting money there locally )

    Trying to compete on everything and reinvent the wheel locally just so you can have your own crappy special version is what we had in the 1960s and product where both much more expensive on average and thus people had a lot less stuff.

    My mother's only had 2 dresses, which cost 10 times the cost in 2018 money, her washer and dryer cost proportionally 5 times more (it was upper average, but not top end) than the a similar model in 2018 money would have.  We had one stereo, 2 speakers, 1 phonograph, a boombox, a 20 inch black & White TV, washer dryer, oven and range, 2 corded phones and that's it. No other electronics or electrical goods of any kind (that was 1970).

    My parents were working class to middle class (just in between). Nowadays, even a lower working class family has their house filled to the brink with consumer goods.

    Housing and food has followed or exceeded inflation (because they mostly CAN'T BE OUTSOURCED), but everything else has gone way way done in price.
    You can buy a damn dress for $40 that would have cost the equivalent of $250 in 2018 money in 1967; there is a reason why people fixed clothes back then.

    You contradict your own point.
    And no, the U.S. is a poor 'also ran' in manufacturing.

    In the 60's the country actually was the powerhouse that you seem to believe it is today.
    People didn't have just one car, one stereo and one coat because prices were high.  It was because wages were low.  (My 1965 Pontiac Tempest cost only $3,200 new -- but I made $1/hr managing a convenience store.)

    That began to change in the 60's as unions gained power and we had fork lift drivers making $100,000/yr in 1960's money with 13 weeks vacation.   Unions were in no way the only factor involved in the demise of U.S. manufacturing:  There were other factors such as environmental and mismanagement that contributed as much or more.   But, you badly mis-charactize what was happening back then.
    That’s ignorance speaking. The USA is certainly not an also ran. In fact, as costs continue to rise in China, more manufacturing is coming back here. Two of China’s largest companies are in the process of opening up very large factories here. That’s both to sell these products here(automobiles and auto glass), but to also ship them back to China, and elsewhere.

    you really don’t know much about unions. It was in the 1960’s that unions began to lose their power, not gain it. Over the decades since, union workers as a percentage of the working public is at a low.

    basically, you’re just making things up.
    Sorry, but from a manufacturing standpoint, we are now just one of many.   Yes it is true that if you compare today's U.S. manufacturing to the the 1990's and 2000's (as you have done) it looks like it is stable or maybe even growing.  But, that's a false comparison.

    As for unions, you are completely off base...

    It was in the 60's (and 70's) at the height of American industrial might that the auto workers began their policy of striking only one of the three car makers -- forcing them to meet their demands or lose business to their competition.   A similar strategy was used in the steel industry except the competition was foreign steel -- when the USW struck it forced more and more companies to source their steel from foreign makers.  And, those foreign producers were smart enough to make them sign longer term contracts -- which robbed domestic steel makers of their long term customers.   Teamsters were also gaining extraordinary power to increase wages and benefits.  And, those wage increases spread throughout other industries as well as into white collar jobs. 

    Those extraordinary and unsustainable increases in union wages and benefits was a main (but not the only) driver of the demise of basic manufacturing in the U.S.   Other factors were:
    -- High corporate taxes
    -- Expensive and restrictive environmental regulations
    -- Poor management (They were making poor decisions and not reinvesting and modernizing their production facilities.)

    And, I say all of that as a solid pro-union democrat.  While it sounds very Republican, it's not.   It's just fact.

    Yes, the conclusions one comes up with regarding U.S. manufacturing all depend on what you compare it to.  I tend to use the height of our industrial might which was in the years following WWII where we dominated in virtually every industry from agriculture to steel to electronics.   But, it has been pretty much all downhill from there...
  • Reply 56 of 66
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    gatorguy said:
    melgross said:
    melgross said:
    foggyhill said:
    melgross said:
    Soli said:
    Bring it on home! Design, component manufacuture, assembly - the whole works. The pleasant and secure shape of things to come!
    There are so many reasons why it's just not feasible for something whose minerals can't be completely mined in the states all the way to needing staff in the 6 digits with 10s of thousands of parallel assembly lines.

    For even just microLED to be final manufacturing in the US it would have to be completely automated, but even then you'd still need to send all the displays to China for assembly.

    The only reason the Mac Pro could do this was because it was low volume, and even then it was just final assembly and still delayed (the latter aspect may or may not have been because they assembled in the US).

    During the most recent Xmas quarter, Apple sold slightly fewer than 80 million iPhones, about 900,000 a day. Obligingly, a day has 86,400 seconds, so we round up to 90,000 to get a production yield of ten iPhones per second.

    But producing a phone isn’t instantaneous, it isn’t like the click of the shutter in a high-speed camera. Let’s assume that it takes about 15 minutes (rounded up to 1,000 seconds) to assemble a single iPhone. How many parallel production pipes need to accumulate ten phones a second? 1,000 divided by 1/10 equals…10,000! Ten thousand parallel pipes in order to output ten phones per second.

    We can juggle the numbers, but it’s still difficult to comprehend the scale and complexity of the iPhone production machine, to build a reliable mental representation.
    PS: As an American I hope I'm dead wrong and that Apple can bring "the whole works" to the US for all their products from where they source minerals, who designs and build their machines that make their devices, etc., but I really don't see that ever happening.
    I see no reason why a display can’t be made here. Something like a MicroLED is similar to a chip in enough ways so that it could be done here. Only when massive numbers of people are needed is it impractical.

    and we’re manufacturing more that we ever did. This is also something people don’t understand. We took a big hit in the Bush recession, but manufacturing has made a massive comeback, but it’s not politically correct to admit it, even though the manufacturing index shows it to be true. What we don’t make that much of is small consumer facing products that do need that large number of people, such as clothing. Cheap toys as well.
    How is it not politically correct? Ho, you mean mister turd in chief has promised those jobs would come back when in fact, they're gone because of automation, not "big bad" foreigners (sic)... Well, hey/.   Yeah, the US is a manufacturing powerhouse despite what orange julep guy, aka I don't know anything guy, at the top says.

    Yeah, US companies have kept high value added productions in the US and shipped out those that's would not make it worthwhile to invest in expensive manufacturing.
    Keeping those things here would be counter productive.
    Yes! It’s not politically correct, because no one on the left or the right wants to admit that the biggest cause of job losses are due to home grown automation, not the export of jobs elsewhere. It’s easy to blame China, India, and other places than blame the increasing, and unstoppable automation that’s cutting jobs from every area of the economy.

    look at these robot answering services companies use. Do you know that those have cut almost 200 thousand Jobs alone? Did they go to China? No, they disappeared forever. It used to take hundreds of people to weld car chassis, now robots do it (better), and about 50 people maintain the robots. Same thing with painting these cars. Same thing almost everywhere.

    We read about productivity. That used to mean that efficiencies had each worker produce more goods during a shift. Now it means that these workers are let go, and robots produce more per shift, which is a term that’s beginning to lose meaning, as robots can work almost 24/7.

    what are they going to say in 2040, when it’s expected that 70% of all jobs will be gone?
    By 2040, the biggest increase in jobs could be in the sponsored or affiliate opinion business!
    Very true. We can now see many people doing You Tube channels. If you get more than a few subscribers, you can also have Google placed Ads. If you’re somewhat popular within a category, you can get channel sponsors. 

    Google is placing more and more Ads within the videos of those who agree to them. Those get a portion of the Ad. But Google is placing even more Ads, while giving a channel less income per Ad. Typical for Google. But a few people, at least, are making in the low six figures on their You Tube channels
    Some are making far more than the low six figures at YouTube. Some in the millions!
    http://people.com/celebrity/highest-paid-youtube-stars/

    But your overall point taken. Just because you wanna be a pro football player, or millionaire music artist, or YouTube star doesn't mean you will be. Most folks will have to look elsewhere for a meal and a roof. 
    It’s amazing how much you can make. Some people have more than a million subscribers. Then there’s Patreon, where you can give some money every month to the channel.
  • Reply 57 of 66
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    melgross said:
    George, you’re getting things backwards. Unions comprise about 13% of American workers. You’re goi not back to the times I agree about, but that hasn’t been true for a long time. Even 1970 is about 50 years ago. Most of what we saw in Detroit, with unions, is now in southern states with so called “right to work” laws, which are aimed at union busting. Most automotive workers now have no union, nor do most steelworkers.

    i’d like to see you provide some actual information, instead of just supposition. Most manufacturing Jobs here, including those with unions, other than the steelworkers and auto workers, never made that much money. Factory work, despite the wonderful stories we’re told, was never a source of real middle class income for more than a few.

    the only thing from your “other factors” that’s true is poor corporate management.

    by the way, I don’t understand why some of my posts are coming out above. It’s odd, but sometimes it’s not allowing me to reply below, and I’m forced to reply above.
    melgross said:
    foggyhill said:
    wizard69 said:
    I wonder what happened to all the hype surrounding quantum dot displays? Not practical?
    Still heavily investigated from many different avenues.  Display technology in general is one hot area in the world of optics.  There are all sorts of techniques and processes being investigated.  

    As for Apple watch it is very possible it will be targetted with MicroLED.   However i would be surprised if the real goal is a solution for new products.  

    The other "hope" here is that Apple wises up and does manufacturing in the USA.  R&D is nice but there is a broad spectrum of people that will never navigate the world of R&D.  
    If anybody can do it, it's Apple -- if nothing else, because their ultra high margins over straight manufacturing costs give them more leeway to absorb the high American salaries and (especially) benefits.
    The US is a manufacturing powerhouse it's just not needing as many people to produce those things.
    Most of the money from the sale of its products goes to Apple and will eventually be spent in the US, not the supply chain.

    Many of the things in the supply chain that are done abroad are done there because companies like Samsung and TSMC have devellopped the manufacturing capacity to serve not just the US, but the entire world (and they got plants doing chips in the US too of course).

    A multinational company, and a country needs to devolve part of its production to maximized efficiency and concentrate on what you do best.
    That's why tariffs are so bad, they just sustain inefficiencies and make you noncompetitive globally.
    Not only that, by having people having to pay money for this inefficiency, they're starving some more worthwhile and more forward looking area of money.
    (often used to milk money from low R&D mature industries, they're low R&D BECAUSE everyone knows there is no point to putting money there locally )

    Trying to compete on everything and reinvent the wheel locally just so you can have your own crappy special version is what we had in the 1960s and product where both much more expensive on average and thus people had a lot less stuff.

    My mother's only had 2 dresses, which cost 10 times the cost in 2018 money, her washer and dryer cost proportionally 5 times more (it was upper average, but not top end) than the a similar model in 2018 money would have.  We had one stereo, 2 speakers, 1 phonograph, a boombox, a 20 inch black & White TV, washer dryer, oven and range, 2 corded phones and that's it. No other electronics or electrical goods of any kind (that was 1970).

    My parents were working class to middle class (just in between). Nowadays, even a lower working class family has their house filled to the brink with consumer goods.

    Housing and food has followed or exceeded inflation (because they mostly CAN'T BE OUTSOURCED), but everything else has gone way way done in price.
    You can buy a damn dress for $40 that would have cost the equivalent of $250 in 2018 money in 1967; there is a reason why people fixed clothes back then.

    You contradict your own point.
    And no, the U.S. is a poor 'also ran' in manufacturing.

    In the 60's the country actually was the powerhouse that you seem to believe it is today.
    People didn't have just one car, one stereo and one coat because prices were high.  It was because wages were low.  (My 1965 Pontiac Tempest cost only $3,200 new -- but I made $1/hr managing a convenience store.)

    That began to change in the 60's as unions gained power and we had fork lift drivers making $100,000/yr in 1960's money with 13 weeks vacation.   Unions were in no way the only factor involved in the demise of U.S. manufacturing:  There were other factors such as environmental and mismanagement that contributed as much or more.   But, you badly mis-charactize what was happening back then.
    That’s ignorance speaking. The USA is certainly not an also ran. In fact, as costs continue to rise in China, more manufacturing is coming back here. Two of China’s largest companies are in the process of opening up very large factories here. That’s both to sell these products here(automobiles and auto glass), but to also ship them back to China, and elsewhere.

    you really don’t know much about unions. It was in the 1960’s that unions began to lose their power, not gain it. Over the decades since, union workers as a percentage of the working public is at a low.

    basically, you’re just making things up.
    Sorry, but from a manufacturing standpoint, we are now just one of many.   Yes it is true that if you compare today's U.S. manufacturing to the the 1990's and 2000's (as you have done) it looks like it is stable or maybe even growing.  But, that's a false comparison.

    As for unions, you are completely off base...

    It was in the 60's (and 70's) at the height of American industrial might that the auto workers began their policy of striking only one of the three car makers -- forcing them to meet their demands or lose business to their competition.   A similar strategy was used in the steel industry except the competition was foreign steel -- when the USW struck it forced more and more companies to source their steel from foreign makers.  And, those foreign producers were smart enough to make them sign longer term contracts -- which robbed domestic steel makers of their long term customers.   Teamsters were also gaining extraordinary power to increase wages and benefits.  And, those wage increases spread throughout other industries as well as into white collar jobs. 

    Those extraordinary and unsustainable increases in union wages and benefits was a main (but not the only) driver of the demise of basic manufacturing in the U.S.   Other factors were:
    -- High corporate taxes
    -- Expensive and restrictive environmental regulations
    -- Poor management (They were making poor decisions and not reinvesting and modernizing their production facilities.)

    And, I say all of that as a solid pro-union democrat.  While it sounds very Republican, it's not.   It's just fact.

    Yes, the conclusions one comes up with regarding U.S. manufacturing all depend on what you compare it to.  I tend to use the height of our industrial might which was in the years following WWII where we dominated in virtually every industry from agriculture to steel to electronics.   But, it has been pretty much all downhill from there...
    I keep pointing out to people that those years, the late forties to the early sixties, will never come back. Why? Because those were very artificial times that aren’t likely to ever happen again.

    that was after WWII. What happened before the war was that American manufacturing, despite the depression, were modernizing their plants. The war caused even more modernization. The war destroyed most plant and infrastructure that both our allies and enemies had. But it didn’t destroy ours. That led to the USA leading the world in manufacturing, job increases, living standards and exports.

    as I said, a very artificial time. But by the mid 1960’s most other countries had gotten back on their feet, and plant and infrastructure was, to a great extent, remade. But, our plants and infrastructure, by that time, was mostly from the mid 1930’s to the late 1940’s. Some new plant was coming on line in the 1950’s too. But none of that could match the renewed economic power of these others who now had new technologies everywhere. Our exports began to fall. That was natural, as these others could now produce their own.

    by early 1970’s, our dominance was diminished. It’s not going to come back again. We will never produce 50% of world output again. That’s just the way it is.

    but the world economy is so much bigger than it was in the 1950’s, that the pie is several times as large. But now, there are more competitors, and that’s just the way that is. We can’t look at China and India and think that they don’t have the right to move to our level, because they do. The difference is that when we, and the Europeans, were doing it, there was no one who had already gotten there, so we were the first. The Chinese and Indians see us as attempting to hold them back with trade deals that keep them out. That’s partly true. For us, leaving the TPP, is a disaster. Those allies are going through with it anyway, without us, and China is courting them in our place, telling them that they are on the way up, and that we are the way down, and they can tell by the way we abandon our allies, and become protectionist. I can’t disagree!

    nevertheless, our manufacturing is in very good shape. It’s just that goods that most consumers see have moved away. I blame the American consumer for that. Instead of buying a product made here, and supporting our fellows, we would rather buy something cheaper, and drive that business out, and then complain that it’s the manufacturer’s fault for moving out of the country. The politicians, who want to get elected, mirror that view, and as it cheaper elsewhere, blame those other countries. The easy thing to say.

    but jobs are going away, and mostly it has nothing to do with trade deals. Just remember that the Great Depression was made much worse by the USA raising trade barriers at the beginning of, and everyone else following. Look at the markets response to these new ones, and you can see a major problem if it isn’t reversed quickly.

    but long term, job loss will be from increasing productivity by increasing automation. That’s the biggest bugaboo, and it will happen everywhere around the world.
    edited March 2018
  • Reply 58 of 66
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    melgross said:
    melgross said:
    George, you’re getting things backwards. Unions comprise about 13% of American workers. You’re goi not back to the times I agree about, but that hasn’t been true for a long time. Even 1970 is about 50 years ago. Most of what we saw in Detroit, with unions, is now in southern states with so called “right to work” laws, which are aimed at union busting. Most automotive workers now have no union, nor do most steelworkers.

    i’d like to see you provide some actual information, instead of just supposition. Most manufacturing Jobs here, including those with unions, other than the steelworkers and auto workers, never made that much money. Factory work, despite the wonderful stories we’re told, was never a source of real middle class income for more than a few.

    the only thing from your “other factors” that’s true is poor corporate management.

    by the way, I don’t understand why some of my posts are coming out above. It’s odd, but sometimes it’s not allowing me to reply below, and I’m forced to reply above.
    melgross said:
    foggyhill said:
    wizard69 said:
    I wonder what happened to all the hype surrounding quantum dot displays? Not practical?
    Still heavily investigated from many different avenues.  Display technology in general is one hot area in the world of optics.  There are all sorts of techniques and processes being investigated.  

    As for Apple watch it is very possible it will be targetted with MicroLED.   However i would be surprised if the real goal is a solution for new products.  

    The other "hope" here is that Apple wises up and does manufacturing in the USA.  R&D is nice but there is a broad spectrum of people that will never navigate the world of R&D.  
    If anybody can do it, it's Apple -- if nothing else, because their ultra high margins over straight manufacturing costs give them more leeway to absorb the high American salaries and (especially) benefits.
    The US is a manufacturing powerhouse it's just not needing as many people to produce those things.
    Most of the money from the sale of its products goes to Apple and will eventually be spent in the US, not the supply chain.

    Many of the things in the supply chain that are done abroad are done there because companies like Samsung and TSMC have devellopped the manufacturing capacity to serve not just the US, but the entire world (and they got plants doing chips in the US too of course).

    A multinational company, and a country needs to devolve part of its production to maximized efficiency and concentrate on what you do best.
    That's why tariffs are so bad, they just sustain inefficiencies and make you noncompetitive globally.
    Not only that, by having people having to pay money for this inefficiency, they're starving some more worthwhile and more forward looking area of money.
    (often used to milk money from low R&D mature industries, they're low R&D BECAUSE everyone knows there is no point to putting money there locally )

    Trying to compete on everything and reinvent the wheel locally just so you can have your own crappy special version is what we had in the 1960s and product where both much more expensive on average and thus people had a lot less stuff.

    My mother's only had 2 dresses, which cost 10 times the cost in 2018 money, her washer and dryer cost proportionally 5 times more (it was upper average, but not top end) than the a similar model in 2018 money would have.  We had one stereo, 2 speakers, 1 phonograph, a boombox, a 20 inch black & White TV, washer dryer, oven and range, 2 corded phones and that's it. No other electronics or electrical goods of any kind (that was 1970).

    My parents were working class to middle class (just in between). Nowadays, even a lower working class family has their house filled to the brink with consumer goods.

    Housing and food has followed or exceeded inflation (because they mostly CAN'T BE OUTSOURCED), but everything else has gone way way done in price.
    You can buy a damn dress for $40 that would have cost the equivalent of $250 in 2018 money in 1967; there is a reason why people fixed clothes back then.

    You contradict your own point.
    And no, the U.S. is a poor 'also ran' in manufacturing.

    In the 60's the country actually was the powerhouse that you seem to believe it is today.
    People didn't have just one car, one stereo and one coat because prices were high.  It was because wages were low.  (My 1965 Pontiac Tempest cost only $3,200 new -- but I made $1/hr managing a convenience store.)

    That began to change in the 60's as unions gained power and we had fork lift drivers making $100,000/yr in 1960's money with 13 weeks vacation.   Unions were in no way the only factor involved in the demise of U.S. manufacturing:  There were other factors such as environmental and mismanagement that contributed as much or more.   But, you badly mis-charactize what was happening back then.
    That’s ignorance speaking. The USA is certainly not an also ran. In fact, as costs continue to rise in China, more manufacturing is coming back here. Two of China’s largest companies are in the process of opening up very large factories here. That’s both to sell these products here(automobiles and auto glass), but to also ship them back to China, and elsewhere.

    you really don’t know much about unions. It was in the 1960’s that unions began to lose their power, not gain it. Over the decades since, union workers as a percentage of the working public is at a low.

    basically, you’re just making things up.
    Sorry, but from a manufacturing standpoint, we are now just one of many.   Yes it is true that if you compare today's U.S. manufacturing to the the 1990's and 2000's (as you have done) it looks like it is stable or maybe even growing.  But, that's a false comparison.

    As for unions, you are completely off base...

    It was in the 60's (and 70's) at the height of American industrial might that the auto workers began their policy of striking only one of the three car makers -- forcing them to meet their demands or lose business to their competition.   A similar strategy was used in the steel industry except the competition was foreign steel -- when the USW struck it forced more and more companies to source their steel from foreign makers.  And, those foreign producers were smart enough to make them sign longer term contracts -- which robbed domestic steel makers of their long term customers.   Teamsters were also gaining extraordinary power to increase wages and benefits.  And, those wage increases spread throughout other industries as well as into white collar jobs. 

    Those extraordinary and unsustainable increases in union wages and benefits was a main (but not the only) driver of the demise of basic manufacturing in the U.S.   Other factors were:
    -- High corporate taxes
    -- Expensive and restrictive environmental regulations
    -- Poor management (They were making poor decisions and not reinvesting and modernizing their production facilities.)

    And, I say all of that as a solid pro-union democrat.  While it sounds very Republican, it's not.   It's just fact.

    Yes, the conclusions one comes up with regarding U.S. manufacturing all depend on what you compare it to.  I tend to use the height of our industrial might which was in the years following WWII where we dominated in virtually every industry from agriculture to steel to electronics.   But, it has been pretty much all downhill from there...
    I keep pointing out to people that those years, the late forties to the early sixties, will never come back. Why? Because those were very artificial times that aren’t likely to ever happen again.

    that was after WWII. What happened before the war was that American manufacturing, despite the depression, were modernizing their plants. The war caused even more modernization. The war destroyed most plant and infrastructure that both our allies and enemies had. But it didn’t destroy ours. That led to the USA leading the world in manufacturing, job increases, living standards and exports.

    as I said, a very artificial time. But by the mid 1960’s most other countries had gotten back on their feet, and plant and infrastructure was, to a great extent, remade. But, our plants and infrastructure, by that time, was mostly from the mid 1930’s to the late 1940’s. Some new plant was coming on line in the 1950’s too. But none of that could match the renewed economic power of these others who now had new technologies everywhere. Our exports began to fall. That was natural, as these others could now produce their own.

    by early 1970’s, our dominance was diminished. It’s not going to come back again. We will never produce 50% of world output again. That’s just the way it is.

    but the world economy is so much bigger than it was in the 1950’s, that the pie is several times as large. But now, there are more competitors, and that’s just the way that is. We can’t look at China and India and think that they don’t have the right to move to our level, because they do. The difference is that when we, and the Europeans, were doing it, there was no one who had already gotten there, so we were the first. The Chinese and Indians see us as attempting to hold them back with trade deals that keep them out. That’s partly true. For us, leaving the TPP, is a disaster. Those allies are going through with it anyway, without us, and China is courting them in our place, telling them that they are on the way up, and that we are the way down, and they can tell by the way we abandon our allies, and become protectionist. I can’t disagree!

    nevertheless, our manufacturing is in very good shape. It’s just that goods that most consumers see have moved away. I blame the American consumer for that. Instead of buying a product made here, and supporting our fellows, we would rather buy something cheaper, and drive that business out, and then complain that it’s the manufacturer’s fault for moving out of the country. The politicians, who want to get elected, mirror that view, and as it cheaper elsewhere, blame those other countries. The easy thing to say.

    but jobs are going away, and mostly it has nothing to do with trade deals. Just remember that the Great Depression was made much worse by the USA raising trade barriers at the beginning of, and everyone else following. Look at the markets response to these new ones, and you can see a major problem if it isn’t reversed quickly.

    but long term, job loss will be from increasing productivity by increasing automation. That’s the biggest bugaboo, and it will happen everywhere around the world.
    U.S. industrial might in the 40's-60's was a bubble that had been growing since the 19th century -- but it wasn't "artificial".
    If you want to see artificial look at the U.S. for the past 15 years, from 2003 to date. 
  • Reply 59 of 66
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    melgross said:
    melgross said:
    George, you’re getting things backwards. Unions comprise about 13% of American workers. You’re goi not back to the times I agree about, but that hasn’t been true for a long time. Even 1970 is about 50 years ago. Most of what we saw in Detroit, with unions, is now in southern states with so called “right to work” laws, which are aimed at union busting. Most automotive workers now have no union, nor do most steelworkers.

    i’d like to see you provide some actual information, instead of just supposition. Most manufacturing Jobs here, including those with unions, other than the steelworkers and auto workers, never made that much money. Factory work, despite the wonderful stories we’re told, was never a source of real middle class income for more than a few.

    the only thing from your “other factors” that’s true is poor corporate management.

    by the way, I don’t understand why some of my posts are coming out above. It’s odd, but sometimes it’s not allowing me to reply below, and I’m forced to reply above.
    melgross said:
    foggyhill said:
    wizard69 said:
    I wonder what happened to all the hype surrounding quantum dot displays? Not practical?
    Still heavily investigated from many different avenues.  Display technology in general is one hot area in the world of optics.  There are all sorts of techniques and processes being investigated.  

    As for Apple watch it is very possible it will be targetted with MicroLED.   However i would be surprised if the real goal is a solution for new products.  

    The other "hope" here is that Apple wises up and does manufacturing in the USA.  R&D is nice but there is a broad spectrum of people that will never navigate the world of R&D.  
    If anybody can do it, it's Apple -- if nothing else, because their ultra high margins over straight manufacturing costs give them more leeway to absorb the high American salaries and (especially) benefits.
    The US is a manufacturing powerhouse it's just not needing as many people to produce those things.
    Most of the money from the sale of its products goes to Apple and will eventually be spent in the US, not the supply chain.

    Many of the things in the supply chain that are done abroad are done there because companies like Samsung and TSMC have devellopped the manufacturing capacity to serve not just the US, but the entire world (and they got plants doing chips in the US too of course).

    A multinational company, and a country needs to devolve part of its production to maximized efficiency and concentrate on what you do best.
    That's why tariffs are so bad, they just sustain inefficiencies and make you noncompetitive globally.
    Not only that, by having people having to pay money for this inefficiency, they're starving some more worthwhile and more forward looking area of money.
    (often used to milk money from low R&D mature industries, they're low R&D BECAUSE everyone knows there is no point to putting money there locally )

    Trying to compete on everything and reinvent the wheel locally just so you can have your own crappy special version is what we had in the 1960s and product where both much more expensive on average and thus people had a lot less stuff.

    My mother's only had 2 dresses, which cost 10 times the cost in 2018 money, her washer and dryer cost proportionally 5 times more (it was upper average, but not top end) than the a similar model in 2018 money would have.  We had one stereo, 2 speakers, 1 phonograph, a boombox, a 20 inch black & White TV, washer dryer, oven and range, 2 corded phones and that's it. No other electronics or electrical goods of any kind (that was 1970).

    My parents were working class to middle class (just in between). Nowadays, even a lower working class family has their house filled to the brink with consumer goods.

    Housing and food has followed or exceeded inflation (because they mostly CAN'T BE OUTSOURCED), but everything else has gone way way done in price.
    You can buy a damn dress for $40 that would have cost the equivalent of $250 in 2018 money in 1967; there is a reason why people fixed clothes back then.

    You contradict your own point.
    And no, the U.S. is a poor 'also ran' in manufacturing.

    In the 60's the country actually was the powerhouse that you seem to believe it is today.
    People didn't have just one car, one stereo and one coat because prices were high.  It was because wages were low.  (My 1965 Pontiac Tempest cost only $3,200 new -- but I made $1/hr managing a convenience store.)

    That began to change in the 60's as unions gained power and we had fork lift drivers making $100,000/yr in 1960's money with 13 weeks vacation.   Unions were in no way the only factor involved in the demise of U.S. manufacturing:  There were other factors such as environmental and mismanagement that contributed as much or more.   But, you badly mis-charactize what was happening back then.
    That’s ignorance speaking. The USA is certainly not an also ran. In fact, as costs continue to rise in China, more manufacturing is coming back here. Two of China’s largest companies are in the process of opening up very large factories here. That’s both to sell these products here(automobiles and auto glass), but to also ship them back to China, and elsewhere.

    you really don’t know much about unions. It was in the 1960’s that unions began to lose their power, not gain it. Over the decades since, union workers as a percentage of the working public is at a low.

    basically, you’re just making things up.
    Sorry, but from a manufacturing standpoint, we are now just one of many.   Yes it is true that if you compare today's U.S. manufacturing to the the 1990's and 2000's (as you have done) it looks like it is stable or maybe even growing.  But, that's a false comparison.

    As for unions, you are completely off base...

    It was in the 60's (and 70's) at the height of American industrial might that the auto workers began their policy of striking only one of the three car makers -- forcing them to meet their demands or lose business to their competition.   A similar strategy was used in the steel industry except the competition was foreign steel -- when the USW struck it forced more and more companies to source their steel from foreign makers.  And, those foreign producers were smart enough to make them sign longer term contracts -- which robbed domestic steel makers of their long term customers.   Teamsters were also gaining extraordinary power to increase wages and benefits.  And, those wage increases spread throughout other industries as well as into white collar jobs. 

    Those extraordinary and unsustainable increases in union wages and benefits was a main (but not the only) driver of the demise of basic manufacturing in the U.S.   Other factors were:
    -- High corporate taxes
    -- Expensive and restrictive environmental regulations
    -- Poor management (They were making poor decisions and not reinvesting and modernizing their production facilities.)

    And, I say all of that as a solid pro-union democrat.  While it sounds very Republican, it's not.   It's just fact.

    Yes, the conclusions one comes up with regarding U.S. manufacturing all depend on what you compare it to.  I tend to use the height of our industrial might which was in the years following WWII where we dominated in virtually every industry from agriculture to steel to electronics.   But, it has been pretty much all downhill from there...
    I keep pointing out to people that those years, the late forties to the early sixties, will never come back. Why? Because those were very artificial times that aren’t likely to ever happen again.

    that was after WWII. What happened before the war was that American manufacturing, despite the depression, were modernizing their plants. The war caused even more modernization. The war destroyed most plant and infrastructure that both our allies and enemies had. But it didn’t destroy ours. That led to the USA leading the world in manufacturing, job increases, living standards and exports.

    as I said, a very artificial time. But by the mid 1960’s most other countries had gotten back on their feet, and plant and infrastructure was, to a great extent, remade. But, our plants and infrastructure, by that time, was mostly from the mid 1930’s to the late 1940’s. Some new plant was coming on line in the 1950’s too. But none of that could match the renewed economic power of these others who now had new technologies everywhere. Our exports began to fall. That was natural, as these others could now produce their own.

    by early 1970’s, our dominance was diminished. It’s not going to come back again. We will never produce 50% of world output again. That’s just the way it is.

    but the world economy is so much bigger than it was in the 1950’s, that the pie is several times as large. But now, there are more competitors, and that’s just the way that is. We can’t look at China and India and think that they don’t have the right to move to our level, because they do. The difference is that when we, and the Europeans, were doing it, there was no one who had already gotten there, so we were the first. The Chinese and Indians see us as attempting to hold them back with trade deals that keep them out. That’s partly true. For us, leaving the TPP, is a disaster. Those allies are going through with it anyway, without us, and China is courting them in our place, telling them that they are on the way up, and that we are the way down, and they can tell by the way we abandon our allies, and become protectionist. I can’t disagree!

    nevertheless, our manufacturing is in very good shape. It’s just that goods that most consumers see have moved away. I blame the American consumer for that. Instead of buying a product made here, and supporting our fellows, we would rather buy something cheaper, and drive that business out, and then complain that it’s the manufacturer’s fault for moving out of the country. The politicians, who want to get elected, mirror that view, and as it cheaper elsewhere, blame those other countries. The easy thing to say.

    but jobs are going away, and mostly it has nothing to do with trade deals. Just remember that the Great Depression was made much worse by the USA raising trade barriers at the beginning of, and everyone else following. Look at the markets response to these new ones, and you can see a major problem if it isn’t reversed quickly.

    but long term, job loss will be from increasing productivity by increasing automation. That’s the biggest bugaboo, and it will happen everywhere around the world.
    U.S. industrial might in the 40's-60's was a bubble that had been growing since the 19th century -- but it wasn't "artificial".
    If you want to see artificial look at the U.S. for the past 15 years, from 2003 to date. 
    Some people never learn the truth, even with all the facts in front of them. Wake up.
  • Reply 60 of 66
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    melgross said:
    melgross said:
    melgross said:
    George, you’re getting things backwards. Unions comprise about 13% of American workers. You’re goi not back to the times I agree about, but that hasn’t been true for a long time. Even 1970 is about 50 years ago. Most of what we saw in Detroit, with unions, is now in southern states with so called “right to work” laws, which are aimed at union busting. Most automotive workers now have no union, nor do most steelworkers.

    i’d like to see you provide some actual information, instead of just supposition. Most manufacturing Jobs here, including those with unions, other than the steelworkers and auto workers, never made that much money. Factory work, despite the wonderful stories we’re told, was never a source of real middle class income for more than a few.

    the only thing from your “other factors” that’s true is poor corporate management.

    by the way, I don’t understand why some of my posts are coming out above. It’s odd, but sometimes it’s not allowing me to reply below, and I’m forced to reply above.
    melgross said:
    foggyhill said:
    wizard69 said:
    I wonder what happened to all the hype surrounding quantum dot displays? Not practical?
    Still heavily investigated from many different avenues.  Display technology in general is one hot area in the world of optics.  There are all sorts of techniques and processes being investigated.  

    As for Apple watch it is very possible it will be targetted with MicroLED.   However i would be surprised if the real goal is a solution for new products.  

    The other "hope" here is that Apple wises up and does manufacturing in the USA.  R&D is nice but there is a broad spectrum of people that will never navigate the world of R&D.  
    If anybody can do it, it's Apple -- if nothing else, because their ultra high margins over straight manufacturing costs give them more leeway to absorb the high American salaries and (especially) benefits.
    The US is a manufacturing powerhouse it's just not needing as many people to produce those things.
    Most of the money from the sale of its products goes to Apple and will eventually be spent in the US, not the supply chain.

    Many of the things in the supply chain that are done abroad are done there because companies like Samsung and TSMC have devellopped the manufacturing capacity to serve not just the US, but the entire world (and they got plants doing chips in the US too of course).

    A multinational company, and a country needs to devolve part of its production to maximized efficiency and concentrate on what you do best.
    That's why tariffs are so bad, they just sustain inefficiencies and make you noncompetitive globally.
    Not only that, by having people having to pay money for this inefficiency, they're starving some more worthwhile and more forward looking area of money.
    (often used to milk money from low R&D mature industries, they're low R&D BECAUSE everyone knows there is no point to putting money there locally )

    Trying to compete on everything and reinvent the wheel locally just so you can have your own crappy special version is what we had in the 1960s and product where both much more expensive on average and thus people had a lot less stuff.

    My mother's only had 2 dresses, which cost 10 times the cost in 2018 money, her washer and dryer cost proportionally 5 times more (it was upper average, but not top end) than the a similar model in 2018 money would have.  We had one stereo, 2 speakers, 1 phonograph, a boombox, a 20 inch black & White TV, washer dryer, oven and range, 2 corded phones and that's it. No other electronics or electrical goods of any kind (that was 1970).

    My parents were working class to middle class (just in between). Nowadays, even a lower working class family has their house filled to the brink with consumer goods.

    Housing and food has followed or exceeded inflation (because they mostly CAN'T BE OUTSOURCED), but everything else has gone way way done in price.
    You can buy a damn dress for $40 that would have cost the equivalent of $250 in 2018 money in 1967; there is a reason why people fixed clothes back then.

    You contradict your own point.
    And no, the U.S. is a poor 'also ran' in manufacturing.

    In the 60's the country actually was the powerhouse that you seem to believe it is today.
    People didn't have just one car, one stereo and one coat because prices were high.  It was because wages were low.  (My 1965 Pontiac Tempest cost only $3,200 new -- but I made $1/hr managing a convenience store.)

    That began to change in the 60's as unions gained power and we had fork lift drivers making $100,000/yr in 1960's money with 13 weeks vacation.   Unions were in no way the only factor involved in the demise of U.S. manufacturing:  There were other factors such as environmental and mismanagement that contributed as much or more.   But, you badly mis-charactize what was happening back then.
    That’s ignorance speaking. The USA is certainly not an also ran. In fact, as costs continue to rise in China, more manufacturing is coming back here. Two of China’s largest companies are in the process of opening up very large factories here. That’s both to sell these products here(automobiles and auto glass), but to also ship them back to China, and elsewhere.

    you really don’t know much about unions. It was in the 1960’s that unions began to lose their power, not gain it. Over the decades since, union workers as a percentage of the working public is at a low.

    basically, you’re just making things up.
    Sorry, but from a manufacturing standpoint, we are now just one of many.   Yes it is true that if you compare today's U.S. manufacturing to the the 1990's and 2000's (as you have done) it looks like it is stable or maybe even growing.  But, that's a false comparison.

    As for unions, you are completely off base...

    It was in the 60's (and 70's) at the height of American industrial might that the auto workers began their policy of striking only one of the three car makers -- forcing them to meet their demands or lose business to their competition.   A similar strategy was used in the steel industry except the competition was foreign steel -- when the USW struck it forced more and more companies to source their steel from foreign makers.  And, those foreign producers were smart enough to make them sign longer term contracts -- which robbed domestic steel makers of their long term customers.   Teamsters were also gaining extraordinary power to increase wages and benefits.  And, those wage increases spread throughout other industries as well as into white collar jobs. 

    Those extraordinary and unsustainable increases in union wages and benefits was a main (but not the only) driver of the demise of basic manufacturing in the U.S.   Other factors were:
    -- High corporate taxes
    -- Expensive and restrictive environmental regulations
    -- Poor management (They were making poor decisions and not reinvesting and modernizing their production facilities.)

    And, I say all of that as a solid pro-union democrat.  While it sounds very Republican, it's not.   It's just fact.

    Yes, the conclusions one comes up with regarding U.S. manufacturing all depend on what you compare it to.  I tend to use the height of our industrial might which was in the years following WWII where we dominated in virtually every industry from agriculture to steel to electronics.   But, it has been pretty much all downhill from there...
    I keep pointing out to people that those years, the late forties to the early sixties, will never come back. Why? Because those were very artificial times that aren’t likely to ever happen again.

    that was after WWII. What happened before the war was that American manufacturing, despite the depression, were modernizing their plants. The war caused even more modernization. The war destroyed most plant and infrastructure that both our allies and enemies had. But it didn’t destroy ours. That led to the USA leading the world in manufacturing, job increases, living standards and exports.

    as I said, a very artificial time. But by the mid 1960’s most other countries had gotten back on their feet, and plant and infrastructure was, to a great extent, remade. But, our plants and infrastructure, by that time, was mostly from the mid 1930’s to the late 1940’s. Some new plant was coming on line in the 1950’s too. But none of that could match the renewed economic power of these others who now had new technologies everywhere. Our exports began to fall. That was natural, as these others could now produce their own.

    by early 1970’s, our dominance was diminished. It’s not going to come back again. We will never produce 50% of world output again. That’s just the way it is.

    but the world economy is so much bigger than it was in the 1950’s, that the pie is several times as large. But now, there are more competitors, and that’s just the way that is. We can’t look at China and India and think that they don’t have the right to move to our level, because they do. The difference is that when we, and the Europeans, were doing it, there was no one who had already gotten there, so we were the first. The Chinese and Indians see us as attempting to hold them back with trade deals that keep them out. That’s partly true. For us, leaving the TPP, is a disaster. Those allies are going through with it anyway, without us, and China is courting them in our place, telling them that they are on the way up, and that we are the way down, and they can tell by the way we abandon our allies, and become protectionist. I can’t disagree!

    nevertheless, our manufacturing is in very good shape. It’s just that goods that most consumers see have moved away. I blame the American consumer for that. Instead of buying a product made here, and supporting our fellows, we would rather buy something cheaper, and drive that business out, and then complain that it’s the manufacturer’s fault for moving out of the country. The politicians, who want to get elected, mirror that view, and as it cheaper elsewhere, blame those other countries. The easy thing to say.

    but jobs are going away, and mostly it has nothing to do with trade deals. Just remember that the Great Depression was made much worse by the USA raising trade barriers at the beginning of, and everyone else following. Look at the markets response to these new ones, and you can see a major problem if it isn’t reversed quickly.

    but long term, job loss will be from increasing productivity by increasing automation. That’s the biggest bugaboo, and it will happen everywhere around the world.
    U.S. industrial might in the 40's-60's was a bubble that had been growing since the 19th century -- but it wasn't "artificial".
    If you want to see artificial look at the U.S. for the past 15 years, from 2003 to date. 
    Some people never learn the truth, even with all the facts in front of them. Wake up.
    Your so called "facts"?  The Alternative ones?   Yeh, sure....  OK... 
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