On Fri, 13 Mar 2020 13:08:07 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 3/13/2020 11:40 AM, wrote:
On Fri, 13 Mar 2020 10:47:30 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

I could never figure out why China as a potential adversary is the
primary source for aircraft components, auto industry parts and so
on.

===

Cheap, abundant labor combined with lax environmental policies have
led to very low production costs. That's a tough combination to beat
in a highly competitive global marketplace.



When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor it almost brought the USA to
it's knees.

It was the amazing manufacturing capacity we had that contributed
to the ultimate defeat of both Germany and Japan. Our allies, including
Russia, played major roles but no one else could match the USA in
overall manufacturing capacity.

Now we are in a pickle because we can't produce enough test kits
or face masks.

We should always maintain a certain level of manufacturing capacity
so we never get caught with our pants down again.

It's done in the high-tech weapons area thankfully. Companies
like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and others are critical
to national defense.

The problem is it is hard to maintain an unprofitable business. That
is one reason why our defense budget is so high. Most of it is
propping up the defense contractors we need if we want to be truly
secure.

On things like these test kits, why would anyone have them laying
around for a disease we never knew existed? Even if we were making
kits here, it would take a while to turn the line around to make this
particular kit. It took a year to turn River Rouge from a car
manufacturer to an aircraft manufacturer and it was almost 2 years
before they were really cranking the B24s out in significant numbers