What DONT we make here any more?

With all the outsorcing and plant closings, sort of got me thinking. What dont we make any more? I cant think of any one item that we dont make any of, sure there are lots of items that we import most of. Is there an item that we dont make any more. How about

Toasters, what about other small appliances
TVs this might be one
Radios,CD players, VCRs, Computers?
Ships, cargo, cruise?
Toys, mostly imports, do we make any?

There must be more...

On the other hand what do we make here and export?

Auto parts, yep, your Nissan, BMW, and other has USA made parts in it.
Farm equipment?
Scrap metal and raw materials does not count here..

High end oilfield products are still being made here. But that is changing!

oilfield products are still being made here. But that is changing

Click to expand...

Funny story, but we export oil field workers to China. Where I have been to in China, there are alot of Texans running around. They even opened a Texmex restaurant, not to bad either. They rotate guys in and out of the oil fields and out of the country, strange but true.

A visit to any retail store with an eye to looking at the country of origin might be
an eye opener for you. I think non US origin
is the case for 98% of small appliances and
electrical items such as clocks, lamps, fans
heaters, blow dryers etc. Small electrical
tools are very rapidly being outsourced,
I expect anything under $100 to be so. There
may be some assembly plants for TV in the US
but the parts, especially any electronics will
be imported. Ditto for CD, VCR (those few left)
and any DVD, audio/video products from consumer
upto pro levels in video. Audio still has a
few boutique producers that manufacturer in the
US but components will be large foreign sourced.
These will be items in the multi $1000 range.
A few kit makers are around, but again components
in the kits will be more foreign than domestic.
There are a few ship builders in this country for
other than military ships. Several US yacht and
sail boat makers have a very high world rep, and
the odd mid range boat, ferry, fishing boats are
made in yards scattered around the coasts. Truly
large non military ships are not made in the US.
Toys made in US will be the boutique toys only
a few hundreths of a percent of the market. Not
sure about games like Monopoly etc, whether they
are still made in US. US content in computers is getting to be vanishingly small: motherboards
"0%", cases ditto, power supply ditto plug in boards ditto (though ATI 'may' source in Canada,
haven't checked lately, they use to), keyboards,
mice, printers all ditto. Moniters ditto. US
does supply the processor, some support chips, and occasionally the memory chips, but even these
tend to assembled in Asian finishing factories.
Software is still US sourced.

Airbus claims 30% of most of their planes are US
sourced components, and 45-50% of the 380 is US
sourced. US sells $10-15B annually in military
equipment, most of which has largely US made content, was upto $20B last year. A large percentage of the auto parts made for non US
cars manufactured in the US is made by foreign
auto parts companies with US factories.

What DON'T we make here any more....

The American Flag

Pretty damn sad.

TMT

Years ago when Lee's K-car was 1st on market, a SNL spoof was made on a TV commercial for said car. Lee stated that this new car was 100% American made! While in back of Lee 3 Japaneese businessmen huddled together and then called Lee aside. Lee then remarked new car's drive train was 100% .... The buisnessmen again called Lee aside .... this continued untill Lee's last claim was that the floor mats were 100% American made @ which time the businessmen gave a "thumbs up". This was over 25 years ago!

Years ago when Lee's K-car was 1st on market, a SNL spoof was made on a TV commercial for said car. Lee stated that this new car was 100% American made! While in back of Lee 3 Japaneese businessmen huddled together and then called Lee aside. Lee then remarked new car's drive train was 100% .... The buisnessmen again called Lee aside .... this continued untill Lee's last claim was that the floor mats were 100% American made @ which time the businessmen gave a "thumbs up". This was over 25 years ago!

One thing to keep in mind thou with certain products is where the raw materials are located. I have heard that virtually all of the rare earth metals that are used in computer chips, as well as materials like Tungeston are almost always found in China. One interesting thing that does seem to appear to be happening today at least in the steel mills (like the US ones that are starting to slowly reopen), is as China's costs are rising and the US dollar is falling, (Warren Buffet for example is hedging his bets against the dollar), it seems more and more common the location of raw material deposits governs where stuff is made, which in many ways is how it should be. That said, other then coal, aluminum, iron, and some copper what minerals do we have in great abundance?

Adam

Surgical instruments
Ophthalmic instruments, almost all are imported.
Microscopes, almost all are imported.
Eye glass frames and lenses.
These are products I am servicing or using

American flags? There's a bunch of flag maker here. Google Annin and North flags to name just two.

Same with surgical instruments. The US make more than any other country.

As for the rest I don't have first hand knowledge. There is a high end microscope manufacturer in Chicago called Gaertner. I have a toolmakers microscope built by them. It beats the pants off any Mitutoyo I've ever seen.

Swiss screw machines is about the only thing I can think of that are no longer made here. But we never made very many when they were made here.

If you want a real eye-opener, glance through any National Geographic magazine from the '50's.
It seems back then everything was made here, from camera's to cars. We were a country that was very vibrant and growing... sorta like Communist Red China is now, thanks to you.

The thing that gets me is how the wealth of this country was spread nicely around, totally unlike our Commie friends. Despite todays main goal in America these days to make the rich even richer, we had rich people here back then even though we actually manufactured things and others got a piece of the pie!

I can clearly remember when almost everything in the stores was made here. I guess I'm like all the rest and just took it for granted.

Ever watch the movie Norma Rae ? During one of the scenes a line went something like "my Daddy worked here, I work here, and my kids will work here too". How WRONG was that statement.

First went the toys and nobody cared, then went the clothes, and again nobody cared, then electronics went bye-bye and nobody cared.

I heard statements from preppy yuppie punks on the news back in the 90's that "low wage jobs" weren't needed here anyway. Who needed a factory that made shoes and paid their employess 4 bucks and hour ?

Well, excuse me, but didn't machine shops do repair/replacement work for those "low wage" companies, and don't toolmakers make a halfway decent living ? What about the electricians and maintenance workers who kept those "low wage" factories humming ?

The Tool & Die shop I worked at in the 80's kept us working 10 hours each weekday, and 8 hours on Saturday when we weren't working 12 hour shifts back in the bore-mill department. Right now that same shop is working their guys four 8 hour days each week. A good friend still works there, and he's hoping to hire on at a Japanese transplant. Gotta pay the bills !

30 years ago, if somebody woulda told me that our society would have tolerated a mass exodus of jobs OUT of this country, and illegals INTO this country I would have laughed.

Well, I'm not laughing.

How long before the dollar bills will say "Made
in China" O.B.

If we don't make a product here anymore it's because the majority ruled and said we didn't want to have it made here anymore.

We vote every time we purchase something.

Manufacturers have been tallying our "votes" and learned the we'll buy $45 Levi's jeans made in China by young women who earn 6 cents and hour working 12-20 hours/day. (PBS-Independent Lens documentary-VERY interesting)......and nearly anything else.

Slave labor is against the law here in the U.S.A. but apparently we think it's O.K. if people in OTHER countries work like slaves to make neat stuff for us.

I buy American made whenever I can, although an increasing amount of items are made here using illegal immigrants.

I even buy old American made stuff in order to avoid buying imports. My mother needed a new blender, so I bought her an older perfect Waring blender made in Milwaukee Wisconsin [eBay-$10].

We the consumers are collectively "the deciders" Ha Ha Ha....love to use that stupid phrase.

One item that is getting taken over is the backyard grill. Last year when I was looking for one, that was my requirement "Made in the USA".

I thought I had found one and was in the checkout line still trying to find where it was made and found made in China or Taiwan, can't remember which. Needless to say, it stayed in the store.

I finally found one that was made down south (Tennessee I think)

-Ron

http://www.gatewaymachine.com

“When you have 6+billion people, the value of one [or even of a considerable group] drops close to zero. Other values displace the value of human life.”–Pondurenga Das

I think that's what we're seeing.

Ask the American Indians sometime about not controlling immigration. Ask also what happened to the Romans.

Richard

Remember, there is a difference between "Made in USA" and "Assembled in USA".

Watch trucking companies get exported when NAFTA shifts into high gear.

Entertainment
Drugs
Violence
Selfishness
Greed and Pride

It is said that people vote for their representatives in government.
They forget that their candidate of choice comes from among them.

I've said this before, if Americans want to turn the tide they must be willing to make some seriously challenging sacrifices. Laws will have to change and serious no non-sense discipline.

Now that the manufacturing jobs have all but disappeared, how many people will be fighting for the same job? A dog eat dog competitive society.

It was quite a grand strategy. How do you defeat a nation who has the greatest infrastructure in the world? Whereas we dropped bombs on Berlin, Japan, W. Germany, Taiwan, China, Mexico dropped economic bombs on the US.

That part about Rome.
I understand that the US was modeled after Ancient Rome. What happened to Rome?
Somewhere, someone said that the US Government was the "Great Experiment". As you know, all experiments, great or small, come to an end.
Ever heard of Project X? There were scores of them.

History can be a great teacher, if you listen to it.

GatewayMachine:

What type of grill is the one you got, and where'd you get it?

I'm ready to replace my old one.

"if somebody woulda told me that our society would have tolerated a mass exodus of jobs OUT of this country..."

How about one single company?

Google "IBM & Lean" and see what you come
up with.

How will our economy withstand a hundred thousand
layoffs so jobs can go to india?

Jim

We still make the world's best and highest paid CEO's, by God!! Where is your Pride in the USA?