OT: Would you do it?

[norcalbiker]

Pay 5% more or so.

Not sure if this video been posted here before.

https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/4FrGxO2Fn_M#action=share

[MattTuck]

I bought a bike that was welded in Montana, shipped to San Diego to be painted, shipped back to Montana and then to me in New Hampshire. My bike may have created a job along the way.


As an aside, since I work with a foremost scholar in this area, I feel the need to clarify a few points in the video. Yes, jobs moved overseas. But jobs also disappeared because computers, robots and/or other technology improvements made a task possible with a smaller number of individuals. This increased productivity and allows a greater level of output per unit of labor.

So yes, it would be great to bring jobs back to the US, but it is very possible that some of those jobs would then disappear again because a technological solution becomes adopted. As an example, look at Kiva Systems (now owned by Amazon). It used to be in warehouses that people would run around and pick the items you ordered online and put them in a box. Now, they stand still, the shelves literally come to them. How much longer before a little grasper hand replaces the human? (video of Kiva (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KRjuuEVEZs))



So, while the sentiment is good; it over simplifies the situation quite a bit.

[norcalbiker]

I totally understand, but it still might help to buy US made products.

I know I did just recently. I used to buy Japanese and Italian motorcycle.

Now I owned a Harley. :banana:

[eddief]

for those of us "home-based knowledge workers" that vid was a mind blower. Who knew?

I bought a bike that was welded in Montana, shipped to San Diego to be painted, shipped back to Montana and then to me in New Hampshire. My bike may have created a job along the way.


As an aside, since I work with a foremost scholar in this area, I feel the need to clarify a few points in the video. Yes, jobs moved overseas. But jobs also disappeared because computers, robots and/or other technology improvements made a task possible with a smaller number of individuals. This increased productivity and allows a greater level of output per unit of labor.

So yes, it would be great to bring jobs back to the US, but it is very possible that some of those jobs would then disappear again because a technological solution becomes adopted. As an example, look at Kiva Systems (now owned by Amazon). It used to be in warehouses that people would run around and pick the items you ordered online and put them in a box. Now, they stand still, the shelves literally come to them. How much longer before a little grasper hand replaces the human? (video of Kiva (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KRjuuEVEZs))



So, while the sentiment is good; it over simplifies the situation quite a bit.

[dd74]

The problem is, who in America has 5% more to spend? At any rate, American made products might cost much more than 5% over their foreign counterparts when factoring in labor costs, insurance, materials, labor unions and a business unfriendly government factored in.

Honestly, an anthology could be written as to why that video is a good idea while at the same time completely unrealistic.

[William]

:cool:

http://www.craftcouncil.org/timeline/2000s/shopclassassoulcraft.jpg

[dd74]

Looks like a good book.

[norcalbiker]

:cool:

http://www.craftcouncil.org/timeline/2000s/shopclassassoulcraft.jpg

I'm going to buy one.

Thanks!

[MattTuck]

oh, one more interesting story. I was listening to the CEO of a big toy company that came to visit. They have a lot of production in China. He said that for many of their products, they could actually bring production back to the US and produce it (thanks to technology and productivity gains) cheaper here than in China. The big reason to keep operations in China had more to do with access to the Chinese market, in other words, so that they could sell their stuff in China.

That book looks good.

[cachagua]

Crawford's book is great. It's absolutely revelatory, and a lengthy essay test to determine how well one understands it should be part of eligibility for political office.

It's also ABOUT me. I am exactly the guy he describes. And I'm starving, and going insane. Crawford himself is employed by a think tank, in addition to doing the repair work he waxes poetic about, although he doesn't specify the ratio of what he makes fixing motorcycles vs. what he makes reading and writing. So he's in rather a gentlemanly position to say the things he says.

Yet the things he says are nonetheless true for that. The current business and governmental environment is actively hostile toward the style of work he describes, and as consumers, we are substantially worse, and not better off, as a result. If we pay 5% less, due to automation and "information technology" and the efficiencies they result in, we have orders of magnitude worse experience with what we buy so cheaply. (Wendell Berry makes some related points in "Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community", ISBN 0679756515.)

(Pant, pant, pant) Mix me a drink of grain alcohol and rainwater, Mandrake, and pour whatever you want for yourself.

[grawk]

I totally understand, but it still might help to buy US made products.

I know I did just recently. I used to buy Japanese and Italian motorcycle.

Now I owned a Harley. :banana:

Honda's got more american parts than harley, these days.

[William]

Crawford's book is great. It's absolutely revelatory, and a lengthy essay test to determine how well one understands it should be part of eligibility for political office.

It's also ABOUT me. I am exactly the guy he describes. And I'm starving, and going insane. Crawford himself is employed by a think tank, in addition to doing the repair work he waxes poetic about, although he doesn't specify the ratio of what he makes fixing motorcycles vs. what he makes reading and writing. So he's in rather a gentlemanly position to say the things he says.

Yet the things he says are nonetheless true for that. The current business and governmental environment is actively hostile toward the style of work he describes, and as consumers, we are substantially worse, and not better off, as a result. If we pay 5% less, due to automation and "information technology" and the efficiencies they result in, we have orders of magnitude worse experience with what we buy so cheaply. (Wendell Berry makes some related points in "Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community", ISBN 0679756515.)

(Pant, pant, pant) Mix me a drink of grain alcohol and rainwater, Mandrake, and pour whatever you want for yourself.

I agree with your assessment of his book, though I'm pretty sure he had left the position of managing a "Think tank" before writing the book. Nonetheless, a very insightful book written from someone with the unique perspective of wrenching for fun and work when a teen, learning a trade while in College, and working in mid-level to high-level positions in the corporate world.








William

[Richard]

"Yes, jobs moved overseas. But jobs also disappeared because computers, robots and/or other technology improvements made a task possible with a smaller number of individuals. This increased productivity and allows a greater level of output per unit of labor."

THIS!!! What will the US economy look like when all the truck drivers are made obsolete by self driving trucks??? Or when we order a bike part, sink faucet, wrench, etc. on the web and it is 3D printed and shipped with no human worker touching it???

[norcalbiker]

Honda's got more american parts than harley, these days.

I doubt it.