Is America losing it?

[Old Listener]

Exactly what were your needs in a car, suv or truck that GM, Ford, or Chrysler didnt' build? I find that one very difficult to believe.
Inferior as to quality is a mis-placed perception.

fun to drive: Small size, good handling, quick steering with good feel, enough power to be fun.

reasonable cost to own: reasonable purchase price and operating costs, reasonable gas mileage and good reliability.

And the car shouldn't look like a garish cartoon.

For many of those nearly 50 years, poor quality and reliability were a reality for American cars.

Details for our car choices:

BMW 2002: what small, great handling American made sports sedan could we have bought in 1969?

Lotus Europa Twin Cam: a really great handling, fast mid-engine car. A C3 Corvette was a very ugly dog in comparison.

Honda Civic sedan: economical, reliable transportation bought in 1982. What American car would have been an adequate substitute?

Ford Fiesta: bought in ~1980 as a commute car. Great steering, good handling and fun to drive.

Honda CR-X: lovely handling and cheap to buy and operate. I drove that car from 1989 through mid-2002 and loved every minute. Looked good too. What 1990 American car would I have bought that would have been as much fun and as economical?

Nissan Sentra SE-R: a very nice sports sedan with good handling and quite good power. My wife commuted in it from 1992 to ~2005 and enjoyed it. The 1992 Mustang didn't have competitive handling.

Subaru WRX hatchback: Lots of power and great handling. Four seats, four doors and a hatch for practicality. We put the seats down and loaded the back with stuff for our habitat restoration projects many, many times from 2002 to late 2009. We drove it all over the west and across the country.

2001 BMW M Roadster bought used in fall 2002: lots of power and fine handling. Lovely steering feel. Just driving that car with the top down on a back road feels so good. A Mazda Miata was the most attractive alternative but we were willing to pay more to get the BMW. A C5 Corvette was a possibility but we like cars with low door height. The Corvette had high window sills that made us feel like kids sitting in a deep bathtub. The BMW is narrower (and shorter) than a Corvette which makes suddenly meeting traffic on very narrow back roads less stressful.

VW GTi hatchback: a more refined replacement for the WRX at the end of 2009. Fine front wheel drive handling and good power. Gas mileage is quite good. It too swallows all our tools and material for a restoration event. Looks good. It's been all over the west and across the country.

The Honda Civic sedan was the least fun of the cars we've bought and it wasn't bad. The rest ranged from good handling to really, really good handling. None was all that expensive to buy or operate. I could not think of an American car that I would have preferred to the cars we owned.

 

[NorthSky]

Good read above.

 

[dallasjustice]

If you believe in free market economics, then you must agree that the only true arbiter of a product's value is the subjective valuation of those who pay for it. I'm a believer in Austrian economics. That school holds that the consumer is sovereign in his decisions concerning price. By contrast, the Marxists believe price is determined by cost and means of production.

In the U.S., there is a growing movement among younger consumers who subjectively prefer locally made foods, clothing and other products. I agree that those products could be produced at a lower cost over seas. But this group of consumers will frequently vote local with their dollars. There's nothing wrong with their vote. As they say, "The customer is always right."

I always find that a paradoxical argument, because it is subverting the free market - saying that the customer should ignore price and quality in favour of 'politics' - but not suggesting anything better than the free market.

If it is the government doing the persuasion (using the tax payer's dollars to put the message across), it is almost like protectionism - putting up a barrier against imports and ultimately putting up prices for the consumer.

Really, if a person believed that the free market is a fundamentally sound mechanism that results in optimal returns for consumers and producers, they wouldn't interfere with it in that way. Alternatively, they should do it properly and advocate going down the socialist route, or the communists' command economy.

 

[Old Listener]

Old Listener,

you wrote:

«This thread started with the assertion that the USA could no longer innovate»

Well, you are partly right.

The MIT article says that industrial innovation and strength is a complex issue where innovation, say at the university, needs to be supported by a network, ecosystem, of capabilities. Innovation cannot be separated by production.

See my (the MIT) point?

This is really gun powder from MIT because it flies in the face of the Ricardo theory of competitive advantage and ever higher degree of specialization (to the degree where you believe everyone in the nation can work as a designer).

The MIT article says a great deal about industrial strength of other countries like for example Germany and points to different choices taken, policies guiding different countries.

I've provided examples of innovation by American companies. What does Google need to enable it to innovate in its core businesses? Reliable electric power. Reliable network connections and lots of bandwidth. Most importantly, it needs people with high skills and creativity.

Google has been working on driverless cars. Will suppliers for parts and subassemblies be crucial to their success or will the same the factors that were crucial to their successes so far continue to be the basis for the success with driverless cars?

Thinking about Amazon leads to other interesting ideas. The logistics of transporting and storing goods has been transformed by the application of computers and communications. Without that revolution companies like Amazon could not operate. That revolution also made it feasible to make goods on one side of the world and reliably and efficiently transport them to markets thousands of miles away.

These days the big important innovations often come from software and systems rather than from hardware. Those innovations often require different infrastructure than traditional manufacturing businesses.

Even a traditional manufacturing business can be transformed by application of modern technology. This article about a new "printed" turboprop engine shows how that affects the infrastructure needed to support companies making aircraft engines. Fewer parts probably means fewer separate suppliers and suppliers with different skills.

http://aviationweek.com/ebace-2017/ge-s-printed-turboprop-will-run-year

I don't dispute that the USA needs to have world class skills and infrastructure to support the design and production of the products and services that will be important sources of jobs and prosperity in the future. I think it is arbitrary to focus solely on manufacturing and rule out software and services. That leads to a concentration on restoring what was needed in the past.

 

[Sal1950]

fun to drive: Small size, good handling, quick steering with good feel, enough power to be fun.

Again easy enough demands to satisfy, I don't believe you took the time to investigate the domestic options at the time, going more by preconceived perceptions and a need to make status statements. (BMW, Lotus).
Beyond that, when you take into account that for most people their car is the second largest investment they'll make in life next to the home, for me making that investment in the economy of foreign shores is not and never will be an option.

 

[Old Listener]

Again easy enough demands to satisfy, I don't believe you took the time to investigate the domestic options at the time, going more by preconceived perceptions and a need to make status statements. (BMW, Lotus).
Beyond that, when you take into account that for most people their car is the second largest investment they'll make in life next to the home, for me making that investment in the economy of foreign shores is not and never will be an option.

No substance to your post. Just blind doctrine. You asked a question and I went to the trouble to detail what I had chosen. You issued a blanket dismissal without any detail.

You don't know me but you are quick to dismiss my choices. I do my homework carefully before making any major purchases and since I have always been a car buff, I kept up on what was available.

You are welcome to your own choice to buy American. If you are going to dismiss other people's choices, you might bring some actual information to the discussion.

 

[Sal1950]

You are welcome to your own choice to buy American. If you are going to dismiss other people's choices, you might bring some actual information to the discussion.

That would have been a waste of time as your mind was already made up, as is mine.
I worked in the industry over my entire life.
What would there be to gain in a model to model debate.

 

[watchnerd]

No substance to your post. Just blind doctrine. You asked a question and I went to the trouble to detail what I had chosen. You issued a blanket dismissal without any detail.

You don't know me but you are quick to dismiss my choices. I do my homework carefully before making any major purchases and since I have always been a car buff, I kept up on what was available.

You are welcome to your own choice to buy American. If you are going to dismiss other people's choices, you might bring some actual information to the discussion.

Consumer Reports Top 5 Subcompact Cars 2017:

1. Toyota Yaris
2. Honda Fit
3. Chevrolet Sonic
4. Toyota ***** C
5. Nissan Versa Note

Consumer Reports Top 5 Compact Cars 2017:

1. Subaru Impreza
2. Chevrolet Cruze
3. Toyota Prius
4. Toyota Corolla
5. Kia Forte

Consumer Reports Top 5 Midsized Sedans 2017:

1. Kia Optima
2. Toyota Camry
3. Honda Accord
4. Subaru Legacy
5. Subaru Legacy (2018)

 

[NorthSky]

Harley Davidson, she is made in America, with some unique loud noise.
But bikes from Yamaha, Honda, BMW, Italian, German, Japanese, ... some real sweet performing ones among them.

McIntosh audio gear is solid American, not made in China.

 

[NorthSky]

If you look @ the science behind audio and cars, @ the best performance, best reliability, best design, best value, I think America is losing it on all fronts, big time.

 

[Cosmik]

If you believe in free market economics, then you must agree that the only true arbiter of a product's value is the subjective valuation of those who pay for it. I'm a believer in Austrian economics. That school holds that the consumer is sovereign in his decisions concerning price. By contrast, the Marxists believe price is determined by cost and means of production.

In the U.S., there is a growing movement among younger consumers who subjectively prefer locally made foods, clothing and other products. I agree that those products could be produced at a lower cost over seas. But this group of consumers will frequently vote local with their dollars. There's nothing wrong with their vote. As they say, "The customer is always right."

The trouble with your argument (that it is still the free market if customers make their choices while being influenced by a "movement") is that the movement can be the child of decidedly non-free market forces. According to your definition, the free market produced these beauties because customers made subjective evaluations of them and chose to buy them with their own money:

But in fact they were produced by a partly state-owned company - with the state using tax payers' money to advertise them (in the 'free market') and impose tariffs against foreign competitors.

Here's an article that makes the argument in great detail:

Like any good capitalist, I firmly believe that automakers need competition to produce their best and most innovative work. This isn’t to say that America doesn’t make good cars—it’s just that there’s no financial incentive to produce anything beyond the bare minimum when you’re only effectively competing with a few other domestic companies instead of the best and brightest designs in the world.

http://jalopnik.com/protectionism-is-only-good-if-you-love-really-terrible-1791311290

 

[svart-hvitt]

The trouble with your argument (that it is still the free market if customers make their choices while being influenced by a "movement") is that the movement can be the child of decidedly non-free market forces. According to your definition, the free market produced these beauties because customers made subjective evaluations of them and chose to buy them with their own money:

View attachment 8863

But in fact they were produced by a partly state-owned company - with the state using tax payers' money to advertise them (in the 'free market') and impose tariffs against foreign competitors.

Here's an article that makes the argument in great detail:

http://jalopnik.com/protectionism-is-only-good-if-you-love-really-terrible-1791311290

A debate on free-market vs state is little fruitful because extremes are seldom right.

It seems like the most successfull industrial nations combine both «free market» and «state» without being dogmatic about the two.

Just a quick question: Can anyone name one interesting (innovative) product/producer of audio gear (with speaker drivers) that develops and produces in America?

 

[Cosmik]

A debate on free-market vs state is little fruitfull because extremes are seldom right.

But that implies they are sometimes. Maybe this would have been one of those times...

 

[watchnerd]

Just a quick question: Can anyone name one interesting (innovative) product/producer of audio gear (with speaker drivers) that develops and produces in America?

Martin Logan, designs in USA, builds electrostats in Canada (box speakers in Taiwan).

Wilson Audio builds everything in USA.

Magico builds in USA.

Magnepan builds in USA.

etc.

As for cars, Tesla.

 

[svart-hvitt]

Martin Logan, designs in USA, builds electrostats in Canada (box speakers in Taiwan).

Wilson Audio builds everything in USA.

Magico builds in USA.

Magnepan builds in USA.

etc.

As for cars, Tesla.

Let’s focus on audio.

You’re naming producers of legacy speakers; passive, no DSP, no digital in etc.

Is USA legacy?

 

[watchnerd]

Let’s focus on audio.

You’re naming producers of legacy speakers; passive, no DSP, no digital in etc.

Is USA legacy?

Why is that the definition of innovative?

It happens to be my preference, too, but manufacturers have to follow customer preferences and, so far, most high-end customers who will pay the high costs of made in USA haven't shown a liking for that.

However, Martin Logan uses DSP crossovers on the woofer.

And Barefoot Audio in the pro sector does, as well, and uses DSP not just for crossovers, but for voicing.

 

[watchnerd]

BTW, I wouldn't exactly call digital input with DSP x-overs innovative.

It's incredibly common in the pro audio world, the car audio world, and at the opposite end of the spectrum the cheapo consumer portable Bluetooth speaker world.

It's so common that there are pre-made integrated circuits that supply the building blocks.

 

[Sal1950]

Can anyone name one interesting (innovative) product/producer of audio gear (with speaker drivers) that develops and produces in America?

I believe you can add some of the Klipsch line to the list.

The Klipsch Heritage Series, Professional, THX Ultra2, Palladium, select Reference II as well as many of the professional and cinema speakers are still assembled, outfitted and finished by hand and never with the assistance of robotics in Hope, Arkansas.
http://www.klipsch.com/usa-engineered

 

[svart-hvitt]

I believe you can add some of the Klipsch line to the list.

The Klipsch Heritage Series, Professional, THX Ultra2, Palladium, select Reference II as well as many of the professional and cinema speakers are still assembled, outfitted and finished by hand and never with the assistance of robotics in Hope, Arkansas.
http://www.klipsch.com/usa-engineered

Klipsch...almost forgot them...

It makes me wonder why Klipsch don’t have a bigger footprint among enthusiasts and in studios. Or am I mistaken?

 

[dallasjustice]

Protectionism always requires government action. OTOH, consumers are free to prefer American made products as they wish. You can criticize their choice but they will still make those choices. I oppose protectionism. It increases prices for everyone.

The trouble with your argument (that it is still the free market if customers make their choices while being influenced by a "movement") is that the movement can be the child of decidedly non-free market forces. According to your definition, the free market produced these beauties because customers made subjective evaluations of them and chose to buy them with their own money:

View attachment 8863

But in fact they were produced by a partly state-owned company - with the state using tax payers' money to advertise them (in the 'free market') and impose tariffs against foreign competitors.

Here's an article that makes the argument in great detail:

http://jalopnik.com/protectionism-is-only-good-if-you-love-really-terrible-1791311290