USAF warms to the idea of an upgraded F-22 line.

a reply to: nwtrucker

I'm glad you responded well to the reply. I never intended to get you going. I suspect part of the issue is we have a generational issue (Boomer vs Gen X) as well as the already IDed tech sector. The problem is you are, again, making assumptions about me and my motivations. We can work through that though.

I'm afraid you are still offering anecdotal rather than other data. You are relating back what you remember rather than providing sources.

Self driving is a good thing over all. The cars are safer than people and the tech is hardly new: it all began with the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2004, so there has been 12 years of development since. The sensors have just dropped radically in price. My BIL is also a truck driver and one of my sisters is a mechanic, so don't think I am simply steeped in Silicon Valley. I am rather worried about the 6 million Americans who make their livelihoods through driving. However, for owner-operators like I suspect Zaph is, Otto is a company to check out: they have a conversion kit for existing semis and have been testing it in california rather well. In fact, Zaph might be able to increase the number of loads he carries since he won't have to stop for sleep.

Those manufacturing jobs were gone 20 years ago in the 90s! Grumping about them NOW is...a little late. The funny part is they are coming back with the robopocalypse. Sorta. The manufacturing is returning to the countries of national origin, but the jobs will not: Adidas and the shoe factories in Germany. Similar things are happening for car manufacture here in the US (re: Tesla and others).

Many jobs will go away. That's been the case since the industrial revolution began. We are going through the latest version of it. Don't confuse economy with jobs. We have a Henry Ford/Union situation to some extent (but who will buy them Mr Ford?), but the economy will actually grow faster. Its up to you and I to steer the politics of it the right way. Otherwise...well, we could end up back in the 1890s to 1910s for the US. A Fiber Age instead of a Gilded Age: some rich and a vast swathe of poor with little to no middle class. How we end that, that's up to us. And entirely off topic for the forum.

The economy will be larger and growing faster with introduction of automata on a grand scale. The gov will always be able to tax that. And I suspect you are assuming the economy you knew will be what makes a good economy. Change is the only constant.

And as you said, we're at 3.5% of GDP for military spending. 10% would allow us to do crazy things. And, even with the current budgets, we could afford more with better efficiencies. We can easily afford two sixth gens.

a reply to: anzha


Your not getting straight numbers to back up my views for two reasons. First, is I'm very weak on computer searches other than favored sites. Second, the collated data isn't in the vested interests of the current administration nor the direction intended for the U.S..

I cannot see your differentiation between jobs and economy.I suspect that it is industry spin that you've bought into or accepted. I don't know where you get the idea that the job losses go back to the '90s. It likely started then, but at a trickle pace. It has been growing ever since.

As your high tech arena is profitable for silicon valley, I'm sure your aware that virtually all that manufacturing of PCs , cell phones and the like is completely lost to the U.S.. Apparently, we couldn't even manufacture cell phones at the technical level they stand at now in the U.S.. We have completely lost that ability at this point in time. At least infrastructure-wise, supply companies and the like.

As the current military has fully CPU'd aircraft, F-22 and F-35, even they require a 'pilot'. Be it remote via joy-stick or in the aircraft, itself. We are years away from that capability, per Zaphod, which makes complete sense to me. The transition, when it comes, will be a cacophony of bugs, accidents and 'reboots'/shutdowns of the system....I'm glad I will be long dead or retired....LMAO.

Lastly, that 10 plus % of GDP was due to the cold war. There was a motivation for that expenditure. It was also the high-water mark during the Eisenhower administration-which he warned the U.S. of- and dropped from that point on even though the cold war persisted right into the Bush 41 administration 60 or so years later.

There is no current 'motivation' to increase the level of expenditure at this time.

If there is to be a technologically based revitalization of the U.S. economy, it will be based on 3D printing technology improvements, partially due to silicon valley and partially to the expansion of it's application. primarily due to the fact that 'part' can be manufactured 'across the street' from assembly plants rather than shipped across the world from cheap manufacturing nations.

If my views are anecdotal, then I see yours as equally anecdotal. I do not question your motivations whatsoever, You are, however, a part of the world economy crowd, via silicon valley, and per force looking through those lenses.

I have zero vested interests save the U.S.A.. Both militarily and economically. It is obvious to me the 'world economy movement' has past the point of balance, as far as the U.S.'s overall interest goes, and that mechanism will come around to bite the military in the rear. It already has, based on the cuts in military expenditures and the ability of Zaphod's air force to meet the demands of their fleet.

This will grow worse, not better, as time passes. Unless there's a war. A real one, that is....

a reply to: nwtrucker

The fact is that manufacturing tends to be extremely automated and any tasks undertaken by people tend to be augmented by machines and very simple. This is largely done to lower costs (especially at higher volumes) and ensure product quality. Also look at lean manufacturing. For example, if a human operator doesn't use consistent force to assemble a part every time, then all the verification and validation is thrown out the window because the assembler isn't matching what was verified and validated, every single time. Then you might have a quality issue. So you have a machine do it.

With the fact that manufacturing tasks tend to be made as simple as possible or highly automated, it doesn't matter too much where you put the production line which might involve machines like this (that machine is a slow baby compared to others). I can still design "things" and send the data overseas for manufacture. If there's any issues then I can be flown overseas to fix it. Of course, my job is a bit easier if the production site is co-located, because you can just walk to the machines and people who actually build things. Depending on the specifics, I find that engineers can become somewhat detached unless they are co-located. Not stating which industries I work in, but they're relevant to this conversation.

Here's manufacturing jobs in the US:

www.brookings.edu...

Most jobs were lost during the 2000s. Since 2010 there has been somewhat of a resurgence.

As your high tech arena is profitable for silicon valley, I'm sure your aware that virtually all that manufacturing of PCs , cell phones and the like is completely lost to the U.S.. Apparently, we couldn't even manufacture cell phones at the technical level they stand at now in the U.S.. We have completely lost that ability at this point in time. At least infrastructure-wise, supply companies and the like.

Many of the companies which design computer parts are American. Intel, Nvidia, AMD, IBM, Qualcomm, Apple, Xilinx, Altera, Cadence, Texas Instruments. Non-American companies that come to my mind are limited to LG, Samsung, TSMC, ARM. Majority of high end electronics and computer engineering is done in the US.

But in general, if you can automate the job enough then the wage advantage of other countries matters much less. And then it becomes much more economic to manufacture the product where it is designed and where the demand is. That's why some manufacturing has returned to the US although the jobs mostly haven't. Hence, there isn't necessarily much reason why the loss of jobs will hurt the US - things are still designed and run from there, including the production lines, even if the production lines aren't actually in the US. Point is, who cares where the production site is located? This is especially true with electronics (I design them).

The real risk is losing jobs and expertise that is innately always required to an industry - jobs that cannot be automated. For example, if you lose the engineers. Of if you lose the production workers in certain industries like shipbuilding, which is extremely labour intensive and cannot be automated easily. Or if you lose the facilities to build defence products. The unique part of Defence, is that quantities tend to be lower, so automation isn't necessarily as economic, and that it's in the best interests of the USA to have its weapons designed and built within the USA. So in my mind the only action required is for the US is to sustain its defense industries in terms of production, research, and engineering then it can continue to leverage the civilian sectors knowledge, which is huge and will always be huge, even if civilian products are built by machines or overseas by cheap labor. It should also support the education sector and perhaps create partnerships with universities.

This won't be much of a problem, given how much the US spends on defense and will continue to spend on defense. And also because how neglected the US military was during the 1990s - now the US Military needs recapitalization. And high-end systems are now a priority again, unlike the 2000's where although much was spent, it was mainly for fighting insurgents. Can the US afford two 6th gen at the same time? Maybe not - but that's a money problem largely created because the US is going to essentially be attempting to replace everything all at once in the next several decades - not because the US economy is shrinking, not because of lack of industry capability. The US Military has also been burned several times when budget priorities change (i.e. after the Cold War ended) and technical difficulties, so having programs that can live through hard times without a death spiral is also something that's very important.

A new post for different topic.

a reply to: nwtrucker

As the current military has fully CPU'd aircraft, F-22 and F-35, even they require a 'pilot'. Be it remote via joy-stick or in the aircraft, itself. We are years away from that capability, per Zaphod, which makes complete sense to me. The transition, when it comes, will be a cacophony of bugs, accidents and 'reboots'/shutdowns of the system....I'm glad I will be long dead or retired....LMAO.

All new military technologies have tended to be initially a "cacophony of bugs, accidents and 'reboots'/shutdowns of the system".

The prototype F-14 flew into its own bullets for example.

originally posted by: C0bzz
Point is, who cares where the production site is located? This is especially true with electronics (I design them).

I do. Foreign manufacturing can be compromised far more easily by adversarial national intelligence/sabotage to insert hardware backdoors.

a reply to: C0bzz

Interesting take. It shifts my viewpoint...somewhat.

In summary, with automation, jobs are going away no matter where the manufacturing base is.......

Doesn't that make the situation worse? Ford is aware of and uses 'automation' as does GM/Cadillac. Yet they're still moving plants 'off-shore'. Also, One would assume Boeing is similar to the military point you raised re relatively low quantities and therefore more labor intensive
, requiring a pretty high-skill labor force...they're opening a plant in China while cutting their U.S. workforce.

I would like a couple eg.s of the manufacturing operations that have 'returned' to the U.S.. One would think these would be broadly published in the various media, if for no other reason than P.R./political boosts.

New summary, we will and are suffering job loss due to automation AND relocation of manufacturing.

OK. With the advances in automation, the 'opportunity' to build and start new manufacturing exist both in the U.S., and the rest of the world. If you were one of these big guys with the coin to invest, would you build in the U.S. in it's current political and social climate or elsewhere where the gov't was more 'friendly' to business?

Right. Anywhere other than here....LOL.

Last summary, without major changes in how we do business, at all levels, it looks even worse than I realized.....LMAO.

We tax our corporation if they return their profits from off-shore to the U.S.. I believe at a rate of 30%. Yet no tax if they leave those same moneys off-shore....therefore investing same elsewhere....A diatribe by the CEO of Coke-a-cola a year or so ago...

What you and anza say sounds good. Yet what I see is anything but good for this country??

Am I the only one?

a reply to: mbkennel


Not to mention...AGAIN, the jobs.

a reply to: anzha

Just saw this now ALL 460 Sports authority stores are closing...

Tell me again how bright our economic future looks?....

originally posted by: nwtrucker
a reply to: anzha

Just saw this now ALL 460 Sports authority stores are closing...

Tell me again how bright our economic future looks?....

Survival of the fittest.
A trout dies, and the sharks get fatter.

Blockbuster closed as well.
Yet the growth of Hulu, OnDemand, and Netflix more than compensated.

originally posted by: C0bzz
A new post for different topic.

a reply to: nwtrucker

As the current military has fully CPU'd aircraft, F-22 and F-35, even they require a 'pilot'. Be it remote via joy-stick or in the aircraft, itself. We are years away from that capability, per Zaphod, which makes complete sense to me. The transition, when it comes, will be a cacophony of bugs, accidents and 'reboots'/shutdowns of the system....I'm glad I will be long dead or retired....LMAO.

All new military technologies have tended to be initially a "cacophony of bugs, accidents and 'reboots'/shutdowns of the system".

The prototype F-14 flew into its own bullets for example.

Excellent points.

If I may point out for the sake of historical accuracy, it was an F11 Tiger that shot itself down with its own 20mm while supersonic in a dive.
An Unlucky First... The Shootdown of Tiger #620

The F-14 self-shootdown was an AIM-7 at Point Magu.

The day I shot myself down (small PDF)

a reply to: nwtrucker


hi nwtrucker from user. i think your thread is good but one or two thing's i would like to say about the F 22 i have seen in the film's i have watched the f 22 has a impression fuel capacity and weapon load-out plus it can be modified four search and destroy mission's and cap and recon patrol's also i am a big fan of most airplane's because i have banked a lot of hour's in flight simulation's i have Acquired over time. anyway i also think the upgrade would help make hour military stronger in case we need something with a little more teeth in the arsenal also f 22 two piolet train hard and they do a lot of academic's classroom work to better them-self between mission's or on stand by at each of there stay-shine's across America and any other country that has f 22's in there ares-anal two.

sincerely me from this user.

a reply to: NRoar

So you see the current situation as 'normal'? Everything is hunky-dory?

a reply to: Liam5001

Pretty much this...


I do think we're all over thinking this though. The F-22 is a good answer for current problems. We can't have every cookie though so in that regard nwtrucker is correct. We also need to really establish what is the more pressing need. If we want more F-22 than likely we will need to detract from somewhere else. The obvious choice is A-10 and older F-15/F-16 squadrons. A lot of this hinges on the success of the T-X program as well. With less 4th gen fighters around there will still need to be a place for pilots to amass hours. I do think that the Pentagon will get all of it's ponies. The F-22 is an obvious solution to a present problem. We need more. They should have never been cancelled and we drastically need more. We will also need the next evolution as well. There is no reason to think that the F-22 will make the next fighter more expensive. It would probably do the opposite because the next fighter will probably require much of the same industrial base and chain of supply. The F-22 could even evolve into a 6th gen. People will have to get comfortable with seeing less of the jets from their childhood zipping around, that much is certain.

a reply to: Caughtlurking


It seems a close call either way. The Air Force, then would be correct in at least fully exploring that option as the thread intended.

On a personal wish list, I would have it, perhaps the F-22 line and the 6th gens. That's just a wish list. Reality is a huge federal debt, a massively growing social program expenditure level also federal. A political clime as well as social that increasingly sees military expenditures as corporate welfare.

Despite rosy claims for the future by some posters, a continued decrease in job base/tax base for the federal gov't with one political party actively working to decrease the military capability/readiness of the U.S..

The current expenditure rate of the U.S. gov't is unsustainable, period.

This adds up to a political non-starter for two 6th gens, IMO....even with a more centrist President.

Not without a good old fashioned donniebrook.

So tell me I'm wrong on this assessment....

a reply to: nwtrucker

In summary, with automation, jobs are going away no matter where the manufacturing base is.......

I would argue that the total number of people employed per unit of manufacturing output will decline. However, remember a large portion of why manufacturing was moved overseas is cheap wages. What if automation progresses to the point where even China has little or no advantage? Then it might start to be cheaper to move manufacturing back where some of the demand is, and that includes the US. Companies can avoid shipping expenses that way, and countries usually subsidize local manufacture.

I would like a couple eg.s of the manufacturing operations that have 'returned' to the U.S.. One would think these would be broadly published in the various media, if for no other reason than P.R./political boosts.

www.citylab.com...

www.marketwatch.com...

Also, One would assume Boeing is similar to the military point you raised re relatively low quantities and therefore more labor intensive

Yes.

Also the F-15 and F/A-18 production line are getting close to closure. If those go then expect the workforce to be made redundant. I'm sure Boeing will probably mothball the place so it can be reopened. But if that happens then it's harder to reopen, and Boeing would have to rely on other parts of its business for expertise. If that expertise is gone too, then well, Boeing won't be manufacturing fighters again. I hope that doesn't happen. Perhaps any 6th generation fighter will, to an even greater extent, a team effort between multiple companies, because Boeing could no longer do it alone?

If this sort of stuff happened continually, perhaps then you would have an industry capability problem.

OK. With the advances in automation, the 'opportunity' to build and start new manufacturing exist both in the U.S., and the rest of the world. If you were one of these big guys with the coin to invest, would you build in the U.S. in it's current political and social climate or elsewhere where the gov't was more 'friendly' to business?

US really isn't that bad.

In Australia we just lost one of our three major shipyards - the one that build 2/3rd of our surface fleet. The majority of the automotive industry (manufacturing) is leaving our shores too - completely. GM, Holden, and Toyota. One of the other shipyards was likely to go too, with the last government sole sourcing the next submarines from Japan (which has now been reversed, they will now be built in Australia after a competitive evaluation considering all factors). At the start of the election we were told - "'Australia: Open for Business'" by the conservative party, who won before all that happened. They also cut parts one of the worlds premiere research institutions, the CSIRO, in particular the part that made climate forecasts. So now we don't know how climate change will effect us. And then when a UN report noted that the Great Barrier Reef (1/3rd is dead), which employs something like 100,000 people due to tourism, at risk due to environmental issues, the government had all references to Australia deleted from the report. It's also well known that Australia is extremely poor at commercializing things that it invents, like Wifi.

At both my current job and previous job, production workers are being laid off.

Probably about one half of my engineering friends in Australia want to leave, including myself. I love my current job though, hopefully it will last. Eventually I want to go to Silicon Valley. Actually I have the plan to do it, so it's looking like I'll succeed. So your country isn't so bad. (I'll then enjoy the schadenfreude of selling things back to Australia at high cost).

The one thing I thing my country does right? Defense procurement. Mostly.

We also have our own pretty cool military devices, like Nulka and AESA radars.

originally posted by: nwtrucker
a reply to: C0bzz

Interesting take. It shifts my viewpoint...somewhat.

In summary, with automation, jobs are going away no matter where the manufacturing base is.......

No, it really deeply matters where the manufacturing base is.

There is tremendous value with engineers being close to the production because efficiencies and making highly manufacturable and economical new designs are much more possible. A Western company sends what it thinks is low-level manufacturing offshore and makes more profit now. What happens in long run? Foreign-based engineers learn more and more of the process and the Western engineers understand less. Then they fire western high-level engineers and re-hire overseas. But still there is an impedance mismatch, and innovation and competitiveness starts to decline. And the abilities of the local firms and personnel (i.e. in China mostly) starts to increase because they are no fools and are very hungry for the business. And then with the eager support of local governments, new competitors are formed, and hire, as top VP's and managers, the mid-level supervisors & engineers of the Western company (in the China plant). And of course, all the intellectual property decisions overseas come out to the benefit of the foreign, not Western company.

And in a few years, the foreign competitor is now very strong, and much of the ability was straight up extracted from the expertise of the Western company, and the Western company gives up on the business because they don't know how to compete any more.

There is a reason that the best German companies still manufacture locally in the Ruhr Valley with high-wage, long-term, motivated and high-skill workers.

Ideology really matters: if you push the ideology in USA that manufacturing is impossible, then owners of capital and managers will not make the effort. Germans (and Japanese) are highly nationalistic about their manufacturing industry as a collective driver of overall prosperity, and this is more important than individual profits. When they go foreign, they will go to Poland and Hungary. The Germans workers complain, but there is far less strategic risk there, with countries in EU/NATO which still have compatible values and relatively fair legal systems, and far more chance of mutual benefit as Poles and Hungarians get more prosperous and buy German.

originally posted by: C0bzz

Also the F-15 and F/A-18 production line are getting close to closure. If those go then expect the workforce to be made redundant. I'm sure Boeing will probably mothball the place so it can be reopened. But if that happens then it's harder to reopen, and Boeing would have to rely on other parts of its business for expertise. If that expertise is gone too, then well, Boeing won't be manufacturing fighters again. I hope that doesn't happen. Perhaps any 6th generation fighter will, to an even greater extent, a team effort between multiple companies, because Boeing could no longer do it alone?

If this sort of stuff happened continually, perhaps then you would have an industry capability problem.

You recognize this in military procurement & manufacturing. It's just as much true in everything else, and much of that everything else has gone overseas with the willing cooperation and encouragement of American elites.

a reply to: mbkennel


OK. I get....I think...what your saying. I am having a problem where to fit this into the overall picture. I seems to approach an academic point when considering most of our manufacturing is already long gone.


There isn't even any hue and cry about GM building an assembly plant in China....after we the people bailed them out!! (except Trump). That nationalism seems ancient history, at least outside the MIC.


The other point that strikes is it's mostly the well trained specialist that see things in this light. IT types, engineers, so on.

It's the plant workers and their wages/taxes I'm thinking of. Automation, by definition will erode those jobs. Yes, that's been going on for a while already yet that pace is likely to quicken and without serious intervention. The support industries that won't even exist to back up high-tech manufacturing is looming, if not already here.


(Another reason to go with the F-22. It will occur sooner than any sixth gen.. Thereby preserving support industries.

originally posted by: mbkennel
No, it really deeply matters where the manufacturing base is.

There is tremendous value with engineers being close to the production because efficiencies and making highly manufacturable and economical new designs are much more possible. A Western company sends what it thinks is low-level manufacturing offshore and makes more profit now. What happens in long run? Foreign-based engineers learn more and more of the process and the Western engineers understand less. Then they fire western high-level engineers and re-hire overseas. But still there is an impedance mismatch, and innovation and competitiveness starts to decline. And the abilities of the local firms and personnel (i.e. in China mostly) starts to increase because they are no fools and are very hungry for the business. And then with the eager support of local governments, new competitors are formed, and hire, as top VP's and managers, the mid-level supervisors & engineers of the Western company (in the China plant). And of course, all the intellectual property decisions overseas come out to the benefit of the foreign, not Western company.

And in a few years, the foreign competitor is now very strong, and much of the ability was straight up extracted from the expertise of the Western company, and the Western company gives up on the business because they don't know how to compete any more.

There is a reason that the best German companies still manufacture locally in the Ruhr Valley with high-wage, long-term, motivated and high-skill workers.

Ideology really matters: if you push the ideology in USA that manufacturing is impossible, then owners of capital and managers will not make the effort. Germans (and Japanese) are highly nationalistic about their manufacturing industry as a collective driver of overall prosperity, and this is more important than individual profits. When they go foreign, they will go to Poland and Hungary. The Germans workers complain, but there is far less strategic risk there, with countries in EU/NATO which still have compatible values and relatively fair legal systems, and far more chance of mutual benefit as Poles and Hungarians get more prosperous and buy German.

It is even more so than that mbkennel. While it is advantageous for engineering to be local to production facilities, it is honestly only a secondary reason for outsourced production. Efficiencies gain in the production process are really gained by economies of scale and reducing logistical moves. There is a lot of focus on company specific plant location in the Pacific Rim, but what is often missed is the other local suppliers that are collocated with the main production. Sub-suppliers who focus on specific commodity classes are frequently the deciding factor in plant re-location.

For example my company opened a new heavy manufacturing location in China a couple years ago. One of the critical factors in this decision was the new location relative to heavy carbon steel plate manufacturers. By locating the plant close to the steel mills, we were able to reduce our supply chain costs greatly. From the steel mill to our plant is less than 10km and is connected by a direct rail spur. This is an arrangement that is almost impossible to create in the NA or the EU. Previously our locations in Canada or Germany would need to either pay the higher costs for C-plate locally or pay for the logistic moves of Chinese made plate to NA or EU plants.

But even in this arrangement we are seeing the creeping effect of automation. Twenty years ago the buzz was all about moving production capacity entirely to low wage areas with high concentration of co-located sub-suppliers. Now this is considered to be a very bad idea. To put it bluntly Chinese QA has repeatedly been found to be lacking in almost every metric. Automation has decreased the imbedded process costs to the point that, excluding dirty heavy production, all advantages are in local production. And the sub-supplier issue will be almost non-existent once we realize full 3D printing capability commercially.

The future is decentralized production. As you stated, it allows you to have technical resources on-site, your logistics costs (both in terms of incoming material and outbound product to customers) is reduced, and you have better quality controls. This helps protect the legacy information on the technical side as well. It allows you to keep your top engineering minds local and not poached to Chinese companies or lost through attrition.

Unfortunately, we will not see the full employment returning. Even the “white collar” positions in manufacturing are feeling the effect. My department would have required twenty people a generation or two ago. Now we only have five people, due to our ERP systems.

originally posted by: C0bzz
What if automation progresses to the point where even China has little or no advantage? Then it might start to be cheaper to move manufacturing back where some of the demand is, and that includes the US. Companies can avoid shipping expenses that way, and countries usually subsidize local manufacture.

By then, there will be no USA suppliers of key technnology left. So one factory can move, but won't, because it won't have any more parts. And people who know how to make and integrate them.

There is a reason that common infrastructure, intellectual property, and qualitative societal advantage is very sticky, even when individual companies come and go. China will have a sticky advantage for a hundred years, the way that UK did, and the USA did. Except that we handed it to them.