- Dec 9, 2004
- 583
- 1
- 18
manufacturing leadership? i grew up in the sixties when the US led the world in steel, textile, electronic, and auto manufacturing. the Big 3 actually built all of their own manual transmissions. back in the 80's when horsepower started to rise GM had to license ZF technology to build a 5 speed transaxle because they didn't have any engineers that could. this is from the same company that built the muncie m-22 behind 450hp chevelles. ford decided to sell the toploader tooling and it's still being sold by Tremec, albiet slightly re-engineered as a 5 and 6 speed.
did we as a country sell our ecomic future for short term gain by sending our jobs to foreign countries for cheap labor like the textile industry, or was it honest competition and we lost. what about the steel and auto industries? japan is known for it's quality steel and autos, while we aren't anymore. did we just fall behind in technology or was it that not enough profits were invested in new products and technologies.
i know that in electronics japan just plain kicked our a$$ with better development of the product, after all they didn't invent the tv, cd, fax, vcr, etc... but they sure developed and marketed them better.
did we as a country sell our ecomic future for short term gain by sending our jobs to foreign countries for cheap labor like the textile industry, or was it honest competition and we lost. what about the steel and auto industries? japan is known for it's quality steel and autos, while we aren't anymore. did we just fall behind in technology or was it that not enough profits were invested in new products and technologies.
i know that in electronics japan just plain kicked our a$$ with better development of the product, after all they didn't invent the tv, cd, fax, vcr, etc... but they sure developed and marketed them better.