On Tue, 31 Jul 2007 08:30:35 -0500, Louis Ohland
wrote:

On a related note, I cannot see why it is impossible for continental
american machinery manufacturers to compete with the pac rim
manufacturers, except for the unfortunate existence of punitive government.
==========
While bungling and kleptocratic government may play a part, in
the main the problem is incompetent executives who know
everything about management theory and nothing at all about
machine tools or manufacturing. Germany and Austria appear to be
able to maintain a viable machine tool industry, with
considerable exports.

In machine tools, as in much of manufacturing, your reputation,
and your accumulated expertise (which in many cases is in the
heads and hands of your hourly employees) is all you have.

When you lose (or scrap) these for the quick dollar, you then
have nothing. The American machine tool industry took
generations to create and only a decade to destroy, when the
leaders and innovators were replaced by "suits" with the goal of
maximizing short term paper profits (and their bonuses).
Apparently they never heard (or at least understood) the story
about the goose that laid the golden eggs, and what happened when
she was cut open to get all the eggs at one time…

A good read on what it took to create the machine tool industry
in the US is a reprint by Lindsay Books "English and American
Tool Builders: The men who created machine tools" by Joseph
Wickham Roe ISBN0-917914-73-2 (apparently no longer available at
Lindsay's)
Click on
http://www.amazon.com/English-Americ...897945&sr=11-1

http://finderscheapers.com/books/1/4...s/Compare.aspx

You can also check any of the sites that locate books by ISBN
numbers.

Unka' George [George McDuffee]
============
Merchants have no country.
The mere spot they stand on
does not constitute so strong an attachment
as that from which they draw their gains.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826),
U.S. president. Letter, 17 March 1814.