Private industry before WWII could get things done.

[cstone]

http://youtu.be/iKlt6rNciTo

[spongejosh]

Imagine what that generation could accomplish with today's technology. Now all we have are whiny entitled twats running around.

[merl]

Nope, we don't make anything (http://www.dailytech.com/IDF+2011+Intel+Looks+to+Take+a+Bite+Out+of+ARM+AMD +With+3D+FinFET+Tech/article22719.htm) nowadays.

[<MADDOG>]

Two different worlds, it is now quality over quantity...unless you're Chinese.

[cstone]

Nope, we don't make anything (http://www.dailytech.com/IDF+2011+Intel+Looks+to+Take+a+Bite+Out+of+ARM+AMD +With+3D+FinFET+Tech/article22719.htm) nowadays.

We might design it here, but we don't make it here. But my point wasn't about where it is made but whether the government can truly make anything. How many M1 Garands were manufactured by the US Govt? The government is a consumer, not a manufacturer. I wish people in DC understood this.

[Gman]

We could probably get robots to build them today.

The government has none of the efficiency of an actual producer. They'd likely keep continuously changing the design by committee today and the end result wouldn't work....like the Obamacare website.

[<MADDOG>]

We might design it here, but we don't make it here. But my point wasn't about where it is made but whether the government can truly make anything. How many M1 Garands were manufactured by the US Govt? The government is a consumer, not a manufacturer. I wish people in DC understood this.

I appreciate the context of your argument; but it many ways, only one thing has changed... I think the the difference is the "civilian" manufacturers have fled to off-shore locations; while many DOD manufacturers have stayed here.

IMO, Eisenhower said it best:

"A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations."

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html

I'll leave it there, but I think the context of his speech came true...

[cstone]

And why would all of the civilian manufacturers flee to off-shore locations? Perhaps we were exporting our pollution along with our manufacturing skills?

The government produces exactly nothing. I discount the millions of pages of laws and regulations which are printed each month, because I do not consider that manufacturing. Besides bovine excrement is already produced in sufficient quantities.

I would like our government to go back to the role of requesting products by specification from private sector manufacturers and get out of the business of micromanaging actual production.

[<MADDOG>]

And why would all of the civilian manufacturers flee to off-shore locations? Perhaps we were exporting our pollution along with our manufacturing skills?

That is a subject I wish not to get into an extended diatribe about. However, I will say (as a long story short) unions, government regulations, and cultural impacts over the years have had the greatest impact IMO.


The government produces exactly nothing. I discount the millions of pages of laws and regulations which are printed each month, because I do not consider that manufacturing. Besides bovine excrement is already produced in sufficient quantities.

The government does produce via proxy. Without the current fiat currency; does one think if we (the US) were still on the gold standard, we would be in the position we are now? Think about SS, Medicare, EBT, etc, and now ACA, before you answer.


I would like our government to go back to the role of requesting products by specification from private sector manufacturers and get out of the business of micromanaging actual production.

That is already, and has been, happening. Ref:https://www.fbo.gov/

Although in the contracting market, get the ACE out of the picture...

[Rabid]

How about we give thanks to the people that flew in the box car. Here is a whole group, that is for the most part dead now, that flew in the 8th air force http://www.458bg.com/
The B-24 still remains as the most produced war-time plane ever made. Yes ford made the most but 4 other companies had a production line helping the effort.

[SAnd]

I just finished reading "Freedoms Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II" by Arthur Herman. It covers how America converted to producing so much for WWII. The author shows a big reason that production was so big was that the government stayed out of micro managing. http://www.amazon.com/Freedoms-Forge-American-Business-Produced/dp/1400069645 From Freedoms Forge - July 1940 to August 1945
141 Aircraft carriers
807 cruisers, destroyers, & destroyer escorts
203 submarines
52 million tons of merchant shipping
88,410 tanks & self ropelled guns
257,000 artillery pieces
2.4 million trucks
2.6 million machine guns
41 billion rounds of ammunition
324,750 aircraft

[flogger]

I just finished reading "Freedoms Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II" by Arthur Herman. It covers how America converted to producing so much for WWII. The author shows a big reason that production was so big was that the government stayed out of micro managing. http://www.amazon.com/Freedoms-Forge-American-Business-Produced/dp/1400069645 From Freedoms Forge - July 1940 to August 1945
141 Aircraft carriers
807 cruisers, destroyers, & destroyer escorts
203 submarines
52 million tons of merchant shipping
88,410 tanks & self ropelled guns
257,000 artillery pieces
2.4 million trucks
2.6 million machine guns
41 billion rounds of ammunition
324,750 aircraft

Today it would take 15 years just to complete environmental impact studies before starting production on anything mentioned.

[Colorado_Outback]

I would like our government to go back to the role of requesting products by specification from private sector manufacturers and get out of the business of micromanaging actual production.

I'm a welder by trade and the job shop that I work for does a lot of Military and Medical. All the Aluminum GTAW I rip at work go's to the govt..
Were so busy we turn work away on a regular basis, our biggest problem is finding skilled workers.

[Tim K]

I know what you're saying Chuck, but don't lump us all together. We're little up here in the mountains, but we crank out work! Of course, we have the advantage of being small and not bogged down in bureaucracy.