'Amazon couldn’t make a Kindle [in the U.S.] if it wanted to'

[RockdaMan]

Interesting. And it looks like the exceptions are few and far between. Maybe paying slightly higher prices for the gear from companies that kept their expertise on US soil is good thing. Maybe not. >shrug<

Decades of outsourcing manufacturing has left US industry without the means to invent the next generation of high-tech products that are key to rebuilding its economy, as noted by Garry Pisano and Willy Shih in a classic article Thus in “Restoring American Competitiveness” (Harvard Business Review, July-August 2009)

The US has lost or is on the verge of losing its ability to develop and manufacture a slew of high-tech products. Amazon’s Kindle 2 couldn’t be made in the US, even if Amazon wanted to:

The flex circuit connectors are made in China because the US supplier base migrated to Asia
.
The electrophoretic display is made in Taiwan because the expertise developed from producting flat-panel LCDs migrated to Asia with semiconductor manufacturing.

The highly polished injection-molded case is made in China because the US supplier base eroded as the manufacture of toys, consumer electronics and computers migrated to China.

The wireless card is made in South Korea because that country became a center for making mobile phone components and handsets.

The controller board is made in China because US companies long ago transferred manufacture of printed circuit boards to Asia.

The Lithium polymer battery is made in China because battery development and manufacturing migrated to China along with the development and manufacture of consumer electronics and notebook computers.

http://forbes.com/sites/stevedenning...le-in-the-usa/

[DiapDealer]

'Nobody could make a small wireless eInk device [in the U.S.] if they wanted to'

I fixed that title up for you.

[tubemonkey]

I wonder why the author chose Amazon, instead of the US tech industry as a whole?

[HomeInMyShoes]

I would guess it was done based on some other news story about Amazon being an American company that is mainly not in the United States.

But that's a guess. And yes, it could be applied to many things in the US tech industry.

[Sweetpea]

I wonder how much of that would also be true for most European counties (especially the more wealthy ones...)

[pidgeon92]

The thing is that Americans want to be paid top-dollar for the work they do, but they don't want to pay a fair wage value for the things they purchase.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

The thing is that Americans want to be paid top-dollar for the work they do, but they don't want to pay a fair wage value for the things they purchase.

That's a generalization and possibly unpatriotic

How about we just do away with dollars and start thinking about corn and potatoes?

[K-Thom]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I wonder how much of that would also be true for most European counties (especially the more wealthy ones...)

The same. And not only for electronic devices but for about anything you use day in, day out.

The First World should start learning Chinese to be prepared for the future ...

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

The thing is that Americans want to be paid top-dollar for the work they do, but they don't want to pay a fair wage value for the things they purchase.

No, they want a fair wage so that they don't have to rely on food banks and homeless shelter kitchens to feed themselves or their kids. Not to mention enough to have and maintain a decent home of some sort instead of being stuck in crime-ridden slums or on the street.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by K-Thom

The First World should start learning Chinese to be prepared for the future ...

There's an app for that. Several of them, really.

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

No, they want a fair wage so that they don't have to rely on food banks and homeless shelter kitchens to feed themselves or their kids. Not to mention enough to have and maintain a decent home of some sort instead of being stuck in crime-ridden slums or on the street.

My point is that everyone should get a fair wage for the work they do. And the prices of goods/services should go up to cover that wage.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

The thing is that Americans want to be paid top-dollar for the work they do, but they don't want to pay a fair wage value for the things they purchase.

"Buy low, sell high" has been a staple of the economy since ancient times.

Although it's hard to argue, really, that workers in China are not being paid a "fair" wage when compared to other wages in their economy and how far their wages go. And if you go outside of China, manufacturing wages in other Asian countries - such as Taiwan - are basically the same as first world wages.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

The thing is that Americans want to be paid top-dollar for the work they do, but they don't want to pay a fair wage value for the things they purchase.

Wages are a relatively small piece of the pie when you look at cost savings through moving off shore.

In the 1960's, wages were the big savings. Wages have not been the biggest savings since that time, and in each and every year that has passed since then the cost savings from being outside ever more obtrusive and costly regulations has grown.

Plants are more ane more automated. Wages are a smaller and smaller part of the cost of a product.

If a plant was entirely automated, and didn't have one single employee to pay wages to...it still would not be able to compete with a plant in South Korea or Taiwan.

Unless there is no competition from abroad, or the process requires no hydraulics or forges.

MEMC will be leving Texas in the next couple of years - mostly for Malaysia.
Expect TI to follow.

This is how California got to be in the position it is in - decades of driving its taxbase overseas or to other states. Eventually that reaches a breaking point.

[Kali Yuga]

Oh, a protectionist article in the US media? It must be Wednesday.

I can't go too much into the objections without this turning into an economic and political rant.

Suffice it to say that Amazon went from zero manufacturing to making a reasonably successful electronic device in the span of a few years -- faster and better than many companies with years of experience in the field *cough* Sony *cough* MOTOROLA *cough*

I'd say his concerns that we are sabotaging our own ability to innovate because we're outsourcing manufacturing of certain electronics doesn't seem to be well-supported by the facts.

[Torwan]

Well, now the US knows what it has to do and fix. Invent stuff, develop stuff, manufacture stuff. China is "producing" more engineers than anybody else. How many Americans become engineers and how many of them end up in financial markets?