Although I have worked in manufacturing (Chemical engineering) for 45 years, it was because I liked the work. Most of my engineering classmates ended up richer and traveling to better places working in finanical type fields after 10-15 years. Look at the issues with getting workers to build transfomers. It takes more than a year to train a person to wire up the large units yet the salary is that of a MacDonalds manager in an average city. See https://www.wsj.com/business/the-factory-workers-who-build-the-power-grid-by-hand-4a846658?st=vct3qp&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink and https://x.com/shanumathew93/status/2001328531792416922?s=66. Add on the terrible situation with housing costs for young people which makes it risky to move to where a factory is and then the factory is closed or "leaned" when bought by private equity. PS It does not help that the current administration is investing their own money in crypto.
Excellent. We owe a public apology to the thousands of serious, competent defense, government, and industrial technology workers—and the business owners who backed them—who warned us for decades while we ignored, mocked, and socially sidelined them. They were treated as backwards while the rest of us chased fast money in information technology and congratulated ourselves for it. A small cohort of patriots and realists stayed in the fight anyway, preserving hard-won materials, manufacturing, and hardware know-how—and without them, we would already be completely irrelevant in the physical world.
Wow, the part about the government acting as an underwriter instead of an annoyed customer really hit different. How do you think such leverage will impact actual inovation vs just cost-cutting? Brilliant insights, as always!
Although I have worked in manufacturing (Chemical engineering) for 45 years, it was because I liked the work. Most of my engineering classmates ended up richer and traveling to better places working in finanical type fields after 10-15 years. Look at the issues with getting workers to build transfomers. It takes more than a year to train a person to wire up the large units yet the salary is that of a MacDonalds manager in an average city. See https://www.wsj.com/business/the-factory-workers-who-build-the-power-grid-by-hand-4a846658?st=vct3qp&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink and https://x.com/shanumathew93/status/2001328531792416922?s=66. Add on the terrible situation with housing costs for young people which makes it risky to move to where a factory is and then the factory is closed or "leaned" when bought by private equity. PS It does not help that the current administration is investing their own money in crypto.
Excellent. We owe a public apology to the thousands of serious, competent defense, government, and industrial technology workers—and the business owners who backed them—who warned us for decades while we ignored, mocked, and socially sidelined them. They were treated as backwards while the rest of us chased fast money in information technology and congratulated ourselves for it. A small cohort of patriots and realists stayed in the fight anyway, preserving hard-won materials, manufacturing, and hardware know-how—and without them, we would already be completely irrelevant in the physical world.
Excellent overview - much appreciated
second!!
Wow, the part about the government acting as an underwriter instead of an annoyed customer really hit different. How do you think such leverage will impact actual inovation vs just cost-cutting? Brilliant insights, as always!