Yabby telling us about US industry? Which US manufacturing products do we buy here? Name one television,computer etc.Holden and Ford are Australian creations which are subsidised.

http://www.ustr.gov/countries-regions/southeast-asia-pacific/australia

Arjay, we spent 21.9 billion $ buying US goods in 2010, you really
need to open your eyes a little.

From Catepillar equipment powering our mines, to John Deere
harvesters and tractors on our farms, Boeing aircraft in our skies,
military equipment, billions worth of drugs, medical equipment in
our hospitals, dna analysers in our labs, Cisco equipment in our
telecommunications, gas turbines in our power stations, Intel
chips driving our computers, let alone Microsoft and Apple software
driving our computers

Yabby,

It goes even further than that. In the important technologies of the future such as nanotech and biotech the US for now at least seems to have the lead.

Another factor working in favour of the USA is that China's neighbours, including India, want an American presence in Asia to counter-balance China. This includes regular joint exercises between the Indian Air Force and the USAF, something that would have been unthinkable not too long ago.

Incidentally that other emerging Asian giant, India, seems to have a limitless appetite for Israeli military technology.

Yes Steven, nanotech and biotech are two more. I think that the
Arjay's of this world, simply don't have a clue as to how
manufacturing is changing. 3D printers for instance.

As the Economist special report on manufacturing pointed out,
the total value of US manufacturing and Chinese manufacturing are
about the same, but the US does in with 10% of the labour.

Its all about change and innovation and America remains an
innovative country with a flexible workforce, unlike ourselves.

Hi Yabby,

3D printing is one of the technologies I had in mind under the rubric of nanotech. I don't know which way it will go. Will we really be "printing" motor car components on demand? Maybe.

Have you ever looked at the insides of an iPhone? It's a work of art the way all those components are packed into such a tiny space. No wonder you need a huge labour force with nimble fingers and low wages to manufacture them profitably.

But my guess is that within a few years all those components and more will be in a single chip. A phone on a chip! Will it then still be worthwhile manufacturing phones in China?

In fact if there had been no FoxConn in China my guess is that smartphones would have been engineered differently. We would already have "phonechips."

Hi Steven,
No, I don't have an Iphone, but I have a couple of Ipads, they are
also assembled by Foxconn, with materials from specialised companies
around the world. According to the Economist report, the labour
value in China for assembling them, is only around 8$ a piece!

Samsung of Korea will likely develop far more efficient ways of
building smartphones. IMHO the reason why Apple are doing so well
is not the hardware, but in terms of offering consumers solutions
and of course that includes the software. In the end, that is
what consumers want. Samsung still rely on Google for software and
anything that Google makes, comes with being bombarded with advertisements.

Apple clearly learnt their lesson, when they nearly went broke in
the 90s, for overpricing their products and Bill Gates undercut them.
Now I can buy great apps for the Ipad for just a few bucks. But
when they sell hundreds of millions of them, its huge money and even
more sales of ipads and iphones. No wonder that they have 110 billion
cash in the bank. The thing is, assembling the ipad is only a tiny
fraction of its final value. The big money is being made elsewhere