wrote:
On Apr 1, 2:04 pm, Tim Wescott wrote:
Steve Lusardi wrote:

(top posting fixed) "Ignoramus23298" wrote in message
...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...57515770173980...
(referenced article snipped)



Iggy,
I'm amazed by your statement. When was the last time any product in the
stores said "Made in the USA"? There is virtually no serious
manufacturing left in the States. You don't need statistics to witness
this and in point of fact, without seeing US products on the shelves,
you have absolutely no justification for believing them. The same thing
is happening in Europe and Japan. We have already exported almost all of
our manufacturing to the third world to remain competitive in the world
market. Don't believe the **** you read....look on the shelves.
Steve

For an alternate set of data, consider my customer list -- with a few
exceptions, I do all of my work for US manufacturing companies, and they
support me very well indeed. No one hires a design consultant if they
don't intend to be manufacturing what the guy designs, and relatively
soon. While my business isn't booming it's certainly picking up
steadily but slowly.

--
Tim Wescott
Control system and signal processing consultingwww.wescottdesign.com

I see the same thing on the manufacturing end, Tim. Our orders keep
increasing every month. New circuit board designs as well as old
production. My GM made a delivery this morning of GPS boards. The
customer had two pallets of finished electronic assemblies ready to
ship TO China!!!

Our big problem is component availability. Many distributors list a
component with stock on hand and then call and say oops, bin is empty
and factory says they will deliver in 6-8 weeks. Meantime, we have to
pay for all the rest of the components now and wait till the stray
arrives. Then one pops up that gives us a December 15 delivery date.
The Chinese way of saying they will NEVER make that transformer again.

Overall, things in manufacturing are getting much better than 2009.

I deeply admire folks that can keep a manufacturing operation running
smoothly, and I'm deeply grateful that they're out there and enjoy doing it.

Because I've been there, I've done that, and if you asked me to do it
again I'd have to run away screaming.

--
Tim Wescott
Control system and signal processing consulting
www.wescottdesign.com