dagblog - Comments for "Interesting times"

Yes, jobs. Not a debate about

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 15:05:40 +0000

Yes, jobs.

Not a debate about how I can't tune my own car anymore or why Omar is able to fix his Middle Ages cart-and-horse or Nguyen has a great 1960's model tractor spewing fumes all over his rice paddy.

Not a debate over manufacturing coming back or whatever. Service jobs, finance jobs, development jobs, medical jobs, new energy jobs, jobs that won't be lost next year to India or Malaysia. Jobs that make money off the growing Asian economy.

The US is still #1 in manufacturing - we just manufacture planes, farm equipment, cars, very efficient big steel. We don't do soldering or TV sets anymore, nor much people-operated blast furnace. Who knew assembly lines would be missed so badly.

What do we want? Sex with

Qnonymous — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 13:59:32 +0000

In reply to A lot of Apple is assembled

What do we want?

~~Sex with animals. What? What's that? Wrong web-site? This is the political one? Oh. Ok. Gimme that question again.~~

Sigh. What do we want?

Ten million jobs, motherfucker. This is serious.

A lot of Apple is assembled

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 13:08:48 +0000

In reply to I'd say we're beating the

A lot of Apple is assembled in Shenzhen. It's mostly designed in the US. The higher margin work is done here.

Whether our companies "make the best cars" is a theoretical issue to me - they're selling the most, and issues of quantity, margins/profitability, long-term market success, short-term survival, etc. are more quantifiable, rather than "Mac vs. PC" rants.

As they sell worldwide, and are penetrating China, it also doesn't make sense to just make cars in the US. How do we assess global success and a fair share of the production? Majority of stock is owned in US, if companies paid taxes it might be a measure, number of "good jobs" vs. "lackey jobs" (though many people will take the latter right now)

Back in 2008 there was a lot of upset over Toyota being #1, and how bad Chrysler had done, but these issues ignored the temporary non-auto causes of the dip (both the economy and Mideast wars), and now post-reorg we find the high prices of oil have reset the horizon. GM seems to be fine (ignoring loans and all the other support/trimmed labor costs). Chrysler had done well up through 2005 I believe (even given complaints of quality/market fit), and I think the Fiat partnership is working.

What exactly do we want? I figure there are going to be other Googles that rise up to pull the brunt of our economy, not just focus on 100-year-old car companies and other behemoths.

I'd say we're beating the

Donal — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 12:39:15 +0000

In reply to Who is beating the pants off

I'd say we're beating the pants off ourselves, as "our" corporations ship jobs overseas. US nameplates sell well because Americans still buy a lot of cars, but Ford, Chevy and Dodge clearly don't make the best cars, and many of the cars and parts they sell are largely made in other countries. Apple? Isn't a lot of that made in Shenzen?

Who is beating the pants off

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 06:05:43 +0000

In reply to We have become a

Who is beating the pants off of us?

The US is #1 in chips, with 9 of the 20 top manufacturers.

2 1/2 of the top 4 auto makers

Dominating computers & mobile phones with Microsoft, Apple, Google.

Dominating social media, e-commerce, cloud computing, networking...

Walmart is still like #5 company in the world for what it's worth, while the US has grown its health/organic foods industry pretty well (the fight being to keep it from being dominated by large corporates who weaken the standards)

I think we have the top few agriculture equipment companies, probably do well in chemical industry, think we had some good solar startups last I checked.

The "repair it yourself" model for most things has gone out the window in the age of miniaturization and complexity. Amazon has a data center 3 football fields long - servers are plug-and-play, pull-and-dispose. If a car has a microprocessor controlling brake pressure, anti-skid, fuel-efficiency, temperature, etc. across 100 gauges, what's a DIY home repair guy going to do?

You can still get your auto kits and computer kits and hack on things - but for scalability, that's not what the consumer's going to see.

And in terms of hacking, the US is still doing alright. Whether we dominate or place in every new field, well, that answers to a bunch of questions. Whether we're cultivating the type of education for managing projects & people, service industries and dispersed workforce, moving through new technology flexibly & efficiently - whether we're maintaining our research capabilities - all probably answered somewhere, and probably not as gloomy as expected.

Peak Oil Oppositional

Donal — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:41:59 +0000

In reply to Interesting times

Peak Oil Oppositional Disorder: Neurosis or Psychosis?

The latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has grown to include 297 disorders, but it seems that there is always room for one more.

Richard Heinberg recently published an article that addresses various recent claims that Peak Oil is no longer a concern. His term for the phenomenon is “peak denial.” It sounds good, and dovetails nicely with Richard's overall theme of “peak everything.” It's a thoughtful piece that does a thorough job of exposing the surreal nature of the optimists' projections, and I have no issues with his argument. I do, however, have an issue with his terminology. First, since denial does not happen to be a nonrenewable resource with a characterizable depletion profile, its peak, should we detect one, is not particularly meaningful, because it could just as easily peak again tomorrow and then again next century. Second, I suspect that “denial” is no longer the right word to describe the social phenomenon we are currently observing. I think that Ugo Bardi pointed us in the right direction: in his article reacting to George Monbiot's assertion "We were wrong about peak oil, there is enough to fry us all," Ugo used Monbiot's approach to Peak Oil using another word: “delusion.”

We have become a

cmaukonen — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 23:58:29 +0000

In reply to Interesting times

We have become a nation/culture of inept, incompetent wimps who are totally lost if it isn't covered in the owners manual and written so a 10 year old can understand it.

Lost that spark of ingenuity that got us threw WWII. We have become totally dependent on everything being a turn key system where thought is no longer required.

Those people who came up with the plywood electric cars and similar ways to get from point A to point B are not more intelligent than we are, but they are a lot more creatively willing to do what is necessary.

Like the guy in Kashmir who keeps his old VW Vanagan truck running under horrible conditions. Or those who manage to get some sort of wireless internet and share it within their communities.

Turning sows ears into silk purses is why they are beating the pants off of us. And the elites take full advantage of this. By making sure the laws are written such that any attempt to do that here is squashed with idiotic laws that are supposed to protect us but also protect the elite's monopolies.

The problem with EVs is not the batteries and with Whole Foods is not just the supply lines. The problem is that if people figure out that it's possible to make an EV run nearly for ever by adapting other batteries to run it and home canning, freezing and preserving can keep their local produce around and local green houses can supply even during off seasons, their dependence on the elites is broken.

That is when we truly become independent.

Shell has loaded a lot of

Donal — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 23:28:00 +0000

In reply to Interesting times

Shell has loaded a lot of youtubes of designs in Eco-MarathonAsia, which took place in Malaysia. Here are a few.

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

And here is Eco-Marathon Europe, which took place in Rotterdam. Here's a long youtube in Dutch.