You may remember a discussion we had a month ago, about the collapse
of the American machine tool builders, and a book I mentioned that
talked about it. The book is _The American Machine Tool Industry: Its
History, Growth, and Decline_. Here's what you said about getting it:

Maybe I'll get lucky with the
public library. When I was in AZ the librarian at a very small branch of the
Tucson library had really long arms. It might take a couple of weeks but I
can't remember anything she couldn't come up with eventually.

Anyway, much to my surprise, my local library came up with it. I never
really asked them to -- I just asked if they could.

So I got it, and read it. It's pretty good but it's heavy on numbers
and names, with less about the technology. It was written by a former
VP of Textron's machine tool division (Bridgeport, Ex-Cell-O,
Greenlee, etc.) and he knows his stuff, but his focus is largely on
the players rather than how they played.

There is one chapter devoted to the decline. It's short and it stands
on its own fairly well, but it would help if you read the surrounding
chapters.

I scanned it but I had only enough patience for that one chapter. It
says pretty much what I said at the time we discussed it, but also
some more. If you'd like to see it, send me your email address and
I'll forward the PDF of those eight or nine pages. I don't want to
post it because I respect copyrights.

If two or three others want to see it, I'll send that many copies out.
My email address is as it says above and below, but delete the "3".

--
Ed Huntress

On Sat, 06 Dec 2014 00:09:36 -0500, Ed Huntress
wrote:

You may remember a discussion we had a month ago, about the collapse
of the American machine tool builders, and a book I mentioned that
talked about it. The book is _The American Machine Tool Industry: Its
History, Growth, and Decline_. Here's what you said about getting it:

Maybe I'll get lucky with the
public library. When I was in AZ the librarian at a very small branch of the
Tucson library had really long arms. It might take a couple of weeks but I
can't remember anything she couldn't come up with eventually.

Anyway, much to my surprise, my local library came up with it. I never
really asked them to -- I just asked if they could.

So I got it, and read it. It's pretty good but it's heavy on numbers
and names, with less about the technology. It was written by a former
VP of Textron's machine tool division (Bridgeport, Ex-Cell-O,
Greenlee, etc.) and he knows his stuff, but his focus is largely on
the players rather than how they played.

There is one chapter devoted to the decline. It's short and it stands
on its own fairly well, but it would help if you read the surrounding
chapters.

I scanned it but I had only enough patience for that one chapter. It
says pretty much what I said at the time we discussed it, but also
some more. If you'd like to see it, send me your email address and
I'll forward the PDF of those eight or nine pages. I don't want to
post it because I respect copyrights.

If two or three others want to see it, I'll send that many copies out.
My email address is as it says above and below, but delete the "3".
=================
Thanks for the follow-up, and making the information
available.

After reviewing, was there anything the domestic industry
could have done differently to avoid going extinct, short of
a MITI http://tinyurl.com/3zylkh type intervention?


--
Unka' George

"Gold is the money of kings,
silver is the money of gentlemen,
barter is the money of peasants,
but debt is the money of slaves"

-Norm Franz, "Money and Wealth in the New Millenium"

On Sat, 06 Dec 2014 09:34:55 -0600, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

On Sat, 06 Dec 2014 00:09:36 -0500, Ed Huntress
wrote:

You may remember a discussion we had a month ago, about the collapse
of the American machine tool builders, and a book I mentioned that
talked about it. The book is _The American Machine Tool Industry: Its
History, Growth, and Decline_. Here's what you said about getting it:

Maybe I'll get lucky with the
public library. When I was in AZ the librarian at a very small branch of the
Tucson library had really long arms. It might take a couple of weeks but I
can't remember anything she couldn't come up with eventually.

Anyway, much to my surprise, my local library came up with it. I never
really asked them to -- I just asked if they could.

So I got it, and read it. It's pretty good but it's heavy on numbers
and names, with less about the technology. It was written by a former
VP of Textron's machine tool division (Bridgeport, Ex-Cell-O,
Greenlee, etc.) and he knows his stuff, but his focus is largely on
the players rather than how they played.

There is one chapter devoted to the decline. It's short and it stands
on its own fairly well, but it would help if you read the surrounding
chapters.

I scanned it but I had only enough patience for that one chapter. It
says pretty much what I said at the time we discussed it, but also
some more. If you'd like to see it, send me your email address and
I'll forward the PDF of those eight or nine pages. I don't want to
post it because I respect copyrights.

If two or three others want to see it, I'll send that many copies out.
My email address is as it says above and below, but delete the "3".
=================
Thanks for the follow-up, and making the information
available.

After reviewing, was there anything the domestic industry
could have done differently to avoid going extinct, short of
a MITI http://tinyurl.com/3zylkh type intervention?

That's a tough question. We had the technology and we had the capital
markets. What we didn't have was 1) better insight into the nature of
the Japanese onslaught, especially the operations of the keiretsu --
the big five Japanese banks and their business groups, and 2) the
ability to move and change fast enough to do anything about it. In a
different way, our car manufacturers got caught in that same, 1-2
trap.

I still doubt that an economy that works like ours can fend off an
assault like that, in the short term. In the long term, the
inefficiencies and dysfunctionality of the Japanese system caught up
with them. But by then, our machine tool industry was gasping for
breath.

But their mindset and the unwillingness to believe they were
threatened are what made our builders constitutionally incapable to
doing anything about it, IMO. They were too fat and happy.

--
Ed Huntress

On Saturday, December 6, 2014 12:09:40 AM UTC-5, Ed Huntress wrote:
You may remember a discussion we had a month ago, about the collapse
of the American machine tool builders, and a book I mentioned that
talked about it. The book is _The American Machine Tool Industry: Its
History, Growth, and Decline_. Here's what you said about getting it:

Maybe I'll get lucky with the
public library. When I was in AZ the librarian at a very small branch of the
Tucson library had really long arms. It might take a couple of weeks but I
can't remember anything she couldn't come up with eventually.

Anyway, much to my surprise, my local library came up with it. I never
really asked them to -- I just asked if they could.

So I got it, and read it. It's pretty good but it's heavy on numbers
and names, with less about the technology. It was written by a former

VP of Textron's machine tool division (Bridgeport, Ex-Cell-O,
Greenlee, etc.) and he knows his stuff,

Yeah, Greenlee makes conduit benders, hole punches for cans (rough-in panels)and a lot of construction fashioning equipment. A familiar name is good.

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sat, 06 Dec 2014 09:34:55 -0600, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

On Sat, 06 Dec 2014 00:09:36 -0500, Ed Huntress
wrote:

You may remember a discussion we had a month ago, about the collapse
of the American machine tool builders, and a book I mentioned that
talked about it. The book is _The American Machine Tool Industry: Its
History, Growth, and Decline_. Here's what you said about getting it:

Maybe I'll get lucky with the
public library. When I was in AZ the librarian at a very small branch of
the
Tucson library had really long arms. It might take a couple of weeks but I
can't remember anything she couldn't come up with eventually.

Anyway, much to my surprise, my local library came up with it. I never
really asked them to -- I just asked if they could.

So I got it, and read it. It's pretty good but it's heavy on numbers
and names, with less about the technology. It was written by a former
VP of Textron's machine tool division (Bridgeport, Ex-Cell-O,
Greenlee, etc.) and he knows his stuff, but his focus is largely on
the players rather than how they played.

There is one chapter devoted to the decline. It's short and it stands
on its own fairly well, but it would help if you read the surrounding
chapters.

I scanned it but I had only enough patience for that one chapter. It
says pretty much what I said at the time we discussed it, but also
some more. If you'd like to see it, send me your email address and
I'll forward the PDF of those eight or nine pages. I don't want to
post it because I respect copyrights.

If two or three others want to see it, I'll send that many copies out.
My email address is as it says above and below, but delete the "3".
=================
Thanks for the follow-up, and making the information
available.

After reviewing, was there anything the domestic industry
could have done differently to avoid going extinct, short of
a MITI http://tinyurl.com/3zylkh type intervention?

That's a tough question. We had the technology and we had the capital
markets. What we didn't have was 1) better insight into the nature of
the Japanese onslaught, especially the operations of the keiretsu --
the big five Japanese banks and their business groups, and 2) the
ability to move and change fast enough to do anything about it. In a
different way, our car manufacturers got caught in that same, 1-2
trap.

I still doubt that an economy that works like ours can fend off an
assault like that, in the short term. In the long term, the
inefficiencies and dysfunctionality of the Japanese system caught up
with them. But by then, our machine tool industry was gasping for
breath.

But their mindset and the unwillingness to believe they were
threatened are what made our builders constitutionally incapable to
doing anything about it, IMO. They were too fat and happy.

I don't know the story with the machine-tool industry (other than the
fact that lots of things are no longer made in developed countries for
cost reasons), but as for the auto industry, they had very much become
fat and slow for lack of any meaningful competition - US cars became
more expensive and less reliable, year after year. Then competition
arrived. My Mother bought our first Volvo in the late 1960s, a model
120 station wagon.

But Volvo wasn't large enough or cheap enough to do much more than
annoy Detroit.

Then the Japanese arrived, and they *did* have the price and scale to
matter.

The rest of this email has been censored, as it's too ugly for young
eyes.

Joe Gwinn

"Joe Gwinn" wrote in message
...
In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sat, 06 Dec 2014 09:34:55 -0600, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

On Sat, 06 Dec 2014 00:09:36 -0500, Ed Huntress
wrote:

You may remember a discussion we had a month ago, about the
collapse
of the American machine tool builders, and a book I mentioned
that
talked about it. The book is _The American Machine Tool Industry:
Its
History, Growth, and Decline_. Here's what you said about getting
it:

Maybe I'll get lucky with the
public library. When I was in AZ the librarian at a very small
branch of
the
Tucson library had really long arms. It might take a couple of
weeks but I
can't remember anything she couldn't come up with eventually.

Anyway, much to my surprise, my local library came up with it. I
never
really asked them to -- I just asked if they could.

So I got it, and read it. It's pretty good but it's heavy on
numbers
and names, with less about the technology. It was written by a
former
VP of Textron's machine tool division (Bridgeport, Ex-Cell-O,
Greenlee, etc.) and he knows his stuff, but his focus is largely
on
the players rather than how they played.

There is one chapter devoted to the decline. It's short and it
stands
on its own fairly well, but it would help if you read the
surrounding
chapters.

I scanned it but I had only enough patience for that one chapter.
It
says pretty much what I said at the time we discussed it, but
also
some more. If you'd like to see it, send me your email address
and
I'll forward the PDF of those eight or nine pages. I don't want
to
post it because I respect copyrights.

If two or three others want to see it, I'll send that many copies
out.
My email address is as it says above and below, but delete the
"3".
=================
Thanks for the follow-up, and making the information
available.

After reviewing, was there anything the domestic industry
could have done differently to avoid going extinct, short of
a MITI http://tinyurl.com/3zylkh type intervention?

That's a tough question. We had the technology and we had the
capital
markets. What we didn't have was 1) better insight into the nature
of
the Japanese onslaught, especially the operations of the
keiretsu --
the big five Japanese banks and their business groups, and 2) the
ability to move and change fast enough to do anything about it. In
a
different way, our car manufacturers got caught in that same, 1-2
trap.

I still doubt that an economy that works like ours can fend off an
assault like that, in the short term. In the long term, the
inefficiencies and dysfunctionality of the Japanese system caught
up
with them. But by then, our machine tool industry was gasping for
breath.

But their mindset and the unwillingness to believe they were
threatened are what made our builders constitutionally incapable to
doing anything about it, IMO. They were too fat and happy.

I don't know the story with the machine-tool industry (other than
the
fact that lots of things are no longer made in developed countries
for
cost reasons), but as for the auto industry, they had very much
become
fat and slow for lack of any meaningful competition - US cars became
more expensive and less reliable, year after year. Then competition
arrived. My Mother bought our first Volvo in the late 1960s, a
model
120 station wagon.

But Volvo wasn't large enough or cheap enough to do much more than
annoy Detroit.

Then the Japanese arrived, and they *did* have the price and scale
to
matter.

The rest of this email has been censored, as it's too ugly for young
eyes.

Joe Gwinn

When Japan had 18% of the market the Big 3 called small cars a niche
market not worth competing in. Once Japan reached 22% they became a
critical threat to Detroit's survival and Congress must Do Something
to protect us!

On Sat, 06 Dec 2014 12:42:21 -0500, Joe Gwinn
wrote:

In article , Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sat, 06 Dec 2014 09:34:55 -0600, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

On Sat, 06 Dec 2014 00:09:36 -0500, Ed Huntress
wrote:

You may remember a discussion we had a month ago, about the collapse
of the American machine tool builders, and a book I mentioned that
talked about it. The book is _The American Machine Tool Industry: Its
History, Growth, and Decline_. Here's what you said about getting it:

Maybe I'll get lucky with the
public library. When I was in AZ the librarian at a very small branch of
the
Tucson library had really long arms. It might take a couple of weeks but I
can't remember anything she couldn't come up with eventually.

Anyway, much to my surprise, my local library came up with it. I never
really asked them to -- I just asked if they could.

So I got it, and read it. It's pretty good but it's heavy on numbers
and names, with less about the technology. It was written by a former
VP of Textron's machine tool division (Bridgeport, Ex-Cell-O,
Greenlee, etc.) and he knows his stuff, but his focus is largely on
the players rather than how they played.

There is one chapter devoted to the decline. It's short and it stands
on its own fairly well, but it would help if you read the surrounding
chapters.

I scanned it but I had only enough patience for that one chapter. It
says pretty much what I said at the time we discussed it, but also
some more. If you'd like to see it, send me your email address and
I'll forward the PDF of those eight or nine pages. I don't want to
post it because I respect copyrights.

If two or three others want to see it, I'll send that many copies out.
My email address is as it says above and below, but delete the "3".
=================
Thanks for the follow-up, and making the information
available.

After reviewing, was there anything the domestic industry
could have done differently to avoid going extinct, short of
a MITI http://tinyurl.com/3zylkh type intervention?

That's a tough question. We had the technology and we had the capital
markets. What we didn't have was 1) better insight into the nature of
the Japanese onslaught, especially the operations of the keiretsu --
the big five Japanese banks and their business groups, and 2) the
ability to move and change fast enough to do anything about it. In a
different way, our car manufacturers got caught in that same, 1-2
trap.

I still doubt that an economy that works like ours can fend off an
assault like that, in the short term. In the long term, the
inefficiencies and dysfunctionality of the Japanese system caught up
with them. But by then, our machine tool industry was gasping for
breath.

But their mindset and the unwillingness to believe they were
threatened are what made our builders constitutionally incapable to
doing anything about it, IMO. They were too fat and happy.

I don't know the story with the machine-tool industry (other than the
fact that lots of things are no longer made in developed countries for
cost reasons), but as for the auto industry, they had very much become
fat and slow for lack of any meaningful competition - US cars became
more expensive and less reliable, year after year. Then competition
arrived. My Mother bought our first Volvo in the late 1960s, a model
120 station wagon.

It was a lack of foreign competition that allowed the US machine tool
industry to inbreed and to drop the ball. They got a real dose of the
globalization that was coming when the Japanese made their assault for
market share.


But Volvo wasn't large enough or cheap enough to do much more than
annoy Detroit.

Then the Japanese arrived, and they *did* have the price and scale to
matter.

The rest of this email has been censored, as it's too ugly for young
eyes.

Joe Gwinn

--
Ed Huntress

On Sat, 6 Dec 2014 12:54:33 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

When Japan had 18% of the market the Big 3 called small cars a niche
market not worth competing in. Once Japan reached 22% they became a
critical threat to Detroit's survival and Congress must Do Something
to protect us!

The Big 3 are/were short-sighted, HUYA morons, wot?


--
Believe nothing.
No matter where you read it,
Or who said it,
Even if I have said it,
Unless it agrees with your own reason
And your own common sense.
-- Buddha

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 6 Dec 2014 12:54:33 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

When Japan had 18% of the market the Big 3 called small cars a niche
market not worth competing in. Once Japan reached 22% they became a
critical threat to Detroit's survival and Congress must Do Something
to protect us!

The Big 3 are/were short-sighted, HUYA morons, wot?

I can partly understand their smug belief that most Americans would
continue to buy traditional large domestic vehicles. Midwestern
cultural attitudes are noticeably different from the East Coast, and
they are as bad as New Yorkers at seeing themselves as the standard of
normality.

Harleys and full-size pickups still sell very well.

On Sunday, December 7, 2014 7:54:55 AM UTC-5, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 6 Dec 2014 12:54:33 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

When Japan had 18% of the market the Big 3 called small cars a niche
market not worth competing in. Once Japan reached 22% they became a
critical threat to Detroit's survival and Congress must Do Something
to protect us!

The Big 3 are/were short-sighted, HUYA morons, wot?

I can partly understand their smug belief that most Americans would
continue to buy traditional large domestic vehicles. Midwestern

cultural attitudes are noticeably different from the East Coast, and
they are as bad as New Yorkers at seeing themselves as the standard of
normality.

New Yorkers seem to look to London and Paris for standards AFAIC, almost right on down to the labor markets. Like including themselves in picket lines marching with women and minorities side-by-side.

Most everwhere else in America, people hate to march side-by-side with women and minorities when picketing in front of an employers gates.

(its too tough on primitive superiority complexes)

Gunner Asch on Sun, 07 Dec 2014 20:24:07 -0800
typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
The Old CB series Hondas can be found for pocket change and will run
forever if taken care of.

I wish. Everything I've seen has been a couple grand, for as old as
the '70s and small as 50cc. thud

Huh? CB450s abound at $500 each I can find 750s for the same
price...though I dont like working on 4 cylinder bikes.

I hada CB350 "back in the day" as cheap transportation, it worked
real well.

I'd like another bike, but it isn't the riding in the rain which
is the problem, it is the driving in the rain, with all the idiots on
the road. And I've already dumped the bike, so I don't need to do
that again. And SWILALT (She Who I Love and Listen To) is afraid for
me, and I don't want that. Guess I'm just an old softy. But I want to
be a really ld softy, one of these days ...
--
pyotr filipivich
"With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

Larry Jaques wrote:
On Sun, 7 Dec 2014 09:47:04 -0600, "Terry Coombs"
wrote:


Both the bike and my full-size truck are old enough to tag as
antiques ... and repairs are way cheaper than a payment on a newer
vehicle .


I wouldn't want a Harley. Even idling, they put out enough vibration
to put the old lady's high-performance vibrator to shame, and enough
noise to keep the wolves awake at night. The carbs are finicky and
they leak oil. They outweigh a smart car, too. I'll pass. Enjoy!

I don't know where you get your info about Harleys , but none of the above
are any longer true - at least not for the newer ones . The '39 flathead
might be a different storyt if I ever get it back on the road .

--
Snag

On Mon, 8 Dec 2014 07:25:14 -0600, "Terry Coombs"
wrote:

Larry Jaques wrote:
On Sun, 7 Dec 2014 09:47:04 -0600, "Terry Coombs"
wrote:


Both the bike and my full-size truck are old enough to tag as
antiques ... and repairs are way cheaper than a payment on a newer
vehicle .


I wouldn't want a Harley. Even idling, they put out enough vibration
to put the old lady's high-performance vibrator to shame, and enough
noise to keep the wolves awake at night. The carbs are finicky and
they leak oil. They outweigh a smart car, too. I'll pass. Enjoy!

I don't know where you get your info about Harleys , but none of the above
are any longer true - at least not for the newer ones . The '39 flathead
might be a different storyt if I ever get it back on the road .

All of the "old Harleys" vibrated. Enough that "Flanders Bars" -
rubber mounted handle bars - were a big seller.

I owned a 80 cu. in. Harley flathead while I was living in Florida.
Mine had been "enlarged" to 90 cu. in. by a previous owner and was
a real stop light drag racer :-)
--
Cheers,

John B.