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The Chinese can do it with full protective suits. The United States cannot even provide sufficient face masks or protective gear for hospital medical staff. Staff in some Bay Area hospitals are wearing garbage bags. Why exactly is that, Mr. President?
A medical worker wearing a full protective outfit tests a man for Covid-19 symptoms in a street in Wuhan, China.
He never understood the term "pandemic diseases". This administration got caught flat-footed in stockpiling these protective equipments even though the Playbook tells them so. This is like a replay of the Titanic without adequate life boats on board. It is embarrassing to see such a rich country and the lack of these common protective equipments.
America doesnt have enough protective equipment because everything is made overseas now.That is a situation that preceded Trump being in office.Blaming Trump for everything is wrong.
I would take much of the news coming out of China with a grain of salt. Same for tales of rapidly scaling quality PPE.
This is not to say that I'm not extremely disappointed in aspects of our own response, including the so-called leadership and colossal dunderheadedness of our POTUS.
This has been going on at least 50 years. We have a list of essential services, but what about a list of essential manufacturing, essential resources and essential roles each of us should have already been trained in, as citizens of this country, when this kind of sh*t happens? Feeling helpless is not an option. Figuring it out in the moment is not an option.
You can't provide a service (in this case healthcare) without the resources that support that service (masks, gowns, ventilators, etc.). Hopefully we finally wake up from this outsourcing syndrome, but I doubt it.
Judge the present administration as you will, but this sh*t has been going on through many administrations. We love to play the blame game when the sh*t hits the fan.
Get upset at our own stupidity...there enough there to keep all of us very busy.
Most of that stuff is probably made there. There were reports early on that China was prohibiting exports of things like masks "made by" American companies in Chinese factories.
So maybe American business will take their business someplace else. Someplace where they think it will be easier to have their way.
But I don't see them bringing the manufacturing back home just to be good citizens.
But @bee, isn't that what the Defense Production Act is there for? To mobilize industry to change there manufacturing output if needed in wartime or crisis? Seems like the path was there but a path not followed. I could be wrong but that was my perception.
@MikeM GE and Ford will have a joint effort ventilator available in 100 days. Probably not even made in the US.
At best we will have assembly lines that put these together. The US has very few manufacturing facilities anywhere on US soil. No act of government will help change that in an instant. We source most manufactured things...down to the nut & the bolt...from elsewhere.
That office (Defense Production Suite) was abandoned when Nixon went to China. We all enjoyed the disinflation that followed. We exported our inflation to the emerging world. We hide corporate profits in overseas accounts. We fueled aggregate demand of cheap crap by encouraging all forms of consumer credit. We sent kids to college and loaded them up with more debt.
Countries, like Germany, decided many years ago to keep manufacturing alive and well. It was and still is in the best interest of any country's security.
We have awoke to a reality without the tools to even respond in a meaningful way to that reality.
Got this from an article on Fidelity's website by Barrons re: March Payroll Data Understates the "Full Horror". I won't copy and paste the whole article but this is from the Manufacturing section.
"Insights by Cresset Asset Management, cressetcapital.com
March 31: America, like many of her developed-market trading partners, embraced globalization in the early 1980s and benefited from outsourcing manufacturing to low-cost countries like China. The results were transformational: Productivity climbed while profits soared against a backdrop of disinflation and lower interest rates. At its manufacturing peak in 1979, America boasted nearly 20 million goods-producing jobs, comprising 21% of the workforce. By the end of 2019, America's manufacturing workforce had plunged to 12 million, or 8% of total employment. Before the coronavirus pullback, the number of food-service workers in the U.S. nearly equaled the total number employed in manufacturing.
Reshoring -- bringing manufacturing capabilities back to the U.S. -- dovetails with many of President Trump's 2016 campaign stances. The domestic manufacture of critical products related to national security, like medical equipment, drugs, microchips, and lithium-ion battery components, will be top policy priorities as our economy begins to normalize. For example, the U.S. currently manufactures only about 2% of the world's supply of lithium-ion batteries. Government incentives will likely expand to cover other, nonessential manufactured industrial and electronic goods. Reshoring of manufacturing will require investment in industrial real estate and warehouses. Construction will likely focus on regional, mid-size manufacturing facilities that are conducive to automated production, not the megafactories of yesteryear. Simply put, the secular trends ushered in by globalization will reverse. --Jack Ablin"
@Mark- I have to concede that I was very much against the "offshoring" of such critical types of manufactures back in the 80's, and I've seen no reason to change my mind on that. In fact that's one of the few areas with which I basically agree with Mr. Trump. If it's non-critical to the safety, defense, or economy of the US, fine- manufacture it wherever is the cheapest. Otherwise, do it here!
If ever there was an example of the results from letting libertarian financial types and market capitalists run free, this is it. For years people of respectable credentials have pointed out the dangers involved, but no administration of either political party took notice or alarm. You need look no farther to observe the results of the lobbying and bribing of the Koch brothers and their bought and paid for Cato Institute. Those people have made their vast fortunes here in the United States, but have absolutely no loyalty to anything other than profit, no matter the damage to our country.
So confused. Corporate PR you cite seems to make it clear made in USA. No? So ... you did not mean what you typed and what I was querying? Reread what you posted and tell me where I am off, k? 'Probably not even made in the US.' How about that. What am I missing?
Assembled in the US is very different than made in America. PR will make this seem like such a great US manufacturing accomplishment. Bullsh*t!
100 days....many hot spots will have peaked while they wait for Chinese part to arrive or they tool up in house ...either way 100 days is unacceptable.
A couple of inventors put this solution together over the weekend for $100. Done.
Read the article, watch the video. It looks to be as made in the USA as any of the assembly lines for robots recently or trucks long ago where I have worked in my career. Of course parts are sourced globally.
Are you charging that these are imported whole and simply tested and branded in-house in the US, as VCRs were in the 1980s? Is that what this is about?
Don't change the arg to crisis stats, not what is under discussion. Just own what you posted: >> ventilator available in 100 days. Probably not even made in the US
These will clearly be made in the USA in any modern normal sense of the words.
Now, no one is not saying it's too little too late. Just go back to your post and judge away after explaining and owning what you originally wrote.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/30/ford-ge-ventilator-coronavirus-partnership/ Airon had produced three pNeuton Model A ventilators per day in a production facility in Melbourne, Fla., according to the release, highlighting the need for faster manufacturing. Before moving production to Michigan on April 20, Ford will send a team to Florida to help Airon boost production at its own facility.
Do you say that this is just some impo business, like audio components or smartphones or laptops?
I don't share your sense of mediocrity. Acquired elsewhere...Assembled here is not made in the USA. Your "modern sense of the word" and "of course parts are sourced globally" are two points you accept.
This event is the very definition of disruption...let see how this all works out for tomorrow's ICU patient who has to sit tight for 100 days.
It seems unlike you, in my experience, to stay so stubbornly mistaken. (Do you seriously believe that we stamp out all the parts and boards here for such manufacturing as we still do? Sometimes yes, more often not. Warfighter rescue and intel robots, plus soldier PPE gear, all these the last phase of my tech career, are not wholly dissimilar from HC gear.)
But whatever, maybe it's the CV anxiety all of us feel? And you went off-topic in any case. No one is predicting great lifesaving outcomes from these USA-made machines, or any other, as the articles I linked to about ventilation make grimly clear. No one in ICU is going to sit tight for 100 days, or even 10 days, not how it works, available or not, and not how covid19 works either, ventilation or not. You know all this, as do I, directly.
This has been going on at least 50 years. We have a list of essential services, but what about a list of essential manufacturing, essential resources and essential roles each of us should have already been trained in, as citizens of this country, when this kind of sh*t happens? Feeling helpless is not an option. Figuring it out in the moment is not an option.
You can't provide a service (in this case healthcare) without the resources that support that service (masks, gowns, ventilators, etc.). Hopefully we finally be a wake up from this outsourcing syndrome, but I don't it.
Judge the present administration as you will, but this sh*t has been going on through many administrations. We love to play the blame game when the sh*t hits the fan.
Get upset at our own stupidity...there enough there to keep all of us very busy.
lots of problems, lots to blame, but thinking outsourcing is a chief problem really misses the mark, and shows profound misunderstanding of the state of play today and in recent decades.
you want even worse HC cost increases (not to mention construction equipment, construction materials, smartphones, computers, shoes, cars, meds, and so much else)? --- well, make everything, or even more things, in the USA.
this is so odd for a group aspiringly savvy about economics and investing.
Yeah, globalization's real social drawbacks have often been understated and underrecognized by progressive types and the huge benefits (lower costs of goods and much else) easy to take for granted and also hype at the same time. It is way easy for middle-class econs and academics in the field (plus thoughtless pols) to advise adaptation and relocation and skills development and all that, while ignoring the crucial needs for expanded support. It is all the more pitiful that those so badly wrenched overwhelmingly support and vote for such pols.
Comments
This is not to say that I'm not extremely disappointed in aspects of our own response, including the so-called leadership and colossal dunderheadedness of our POTUS.
This has been going on at least 50 years. We have a list of essential services, but what about a list of essential manufacturing, essential resources and essential roles each of us should have already been trained in, as citizens of this country, when this kind of sh*t happens? Feeling helpless is not an option. Figuring it out in the moment is not an option.
You can't provide a service (in this case healthcare) without the resources that support that service (masks, gowns, ventilators, etc.). Hopefully we finally wake up from this outsourcing syndrome, but I doubt it.
Judge the present administration as you will, but this sh*t has been going on through many administrations. We love to play the blame game when the sh*t hits the fan.
Get upset at our own stupidity...there enough there to keep all of us very busy.
So maybe American business will take their business someplace else. Someplace where they think it will be easier to have their way.
But I don't see them bringing the manufacturing back home just to be good citizens.
At best we will have assembly lines that put these together. The US has very few manufacturing facilities anywhere on US soil. No act of government will help change that in an instant. We source most manufactured things...down to the nut & the bolt...from elsewhere.
That office (Defense Production Suite) was abandoned when Nixon went to China. We all enjoyed the disinflation that followed. We exported our inflation to the emerging world. We hide corporate profits in overseas accounts. We fueled aggregate demand of cheap crap by encouraging all forms of consumer credit. We sent kids to college and loaded them up with more debt.
Countries, like Germany, decided many years ago to keep manufacturing alive and well. It was and still is in the best interest of any country's security.
We have awoke to a reality without the tools to even respond in a meaningful way to that reality.
"Insights
by Cresset Asset Management, cressetcapital.com
March 31: America, like many of her developed-market trading partners, embraced globalization in the early 1980s and benefited from outsourcing manufacturing to low-cost countries like China. The results were transformational: Productivity climbed while profits soared against a backdrop of disinflation and lower interest rates. At its manufacturing peak in 1979, America boasted nearly 20 million goods-producing jobs, comprising 21% of the workforce. By the end of 2019, America's manufacturing workforce had plunged to 12 million, or 8% of total employment. Before the coronavirus pullback, the number of food-service workers in the U.S. nearly equaled the total number employed in manufacturing.
Reshoring -- bringing manufacturing capabilities back to the U.S. -- dovetails with many of President Trump's 2016 campaign stances. The domestic manufacture of critical products related to national security, like medical equipment, drugs, microchips, and lithium-ion battery components, will be top policy priorities as our economy begins to normalize. For example, the U.S. currently manufactures only about 2% of the world's supply of lithium-ion batteries. Government incentives will likely expand to cover other, nonessential manufactured industrial and electronic goods. Reshoring of manufacturing will require investment in industrial real estate and warehouses. Construction will likely focus on regional, mid-size manufacturing facilities that are conducive to automated production, not the megafactories of yesteryear. Simply put, the secular trends ushered in by globalization will reverse.
--Jack Ablin"
If ever there was an example of the results from letting libertarian financial types and market capitalists run free, this is it. For years people of respectable credentials have pointed out the dangers involved, but no administration of either political party took notice or alarm. You need look no farther to observe the results of the lobbying and bribing of the Koch brothers and their bought and paid for Cato Institute. Those people have made their vast fortunes here in the United States, but have absolutely no loyalty to anything other than profit, no matter the damage to our country.
>> GE and Ford will have a joint effort ventilator available in 100 days. Probably not even made in the US.
huh? where do you get that?
How about we start with the company's website:
https://ge.com/reports/teaming-up-ge-healthcare-and-ford-partner-to-quickly-manufacture-ventilators-for-covid-19-patients/
And,
https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2020/03/30/ford-to-produce-50-000-ventilators-in-michigan-in-next-100-days.html
So confused. Corporate PR you cite seems to make it clear made in USA. No?
So ... you did not mean what you typed and what I was querying?
Reread what you posted and tell me where I am off, k? 'Probably not even made in the US.' How about that. What am I missing?
Assembled in the US is very different than made in America. PR will make this seem like such a great US manufacturing accomplishment. Bullsh*t!
100 days....many hot spots will have peaked while they wait for Chinese part to arrive or they tool up in house ...either way 100 days is unacceptable.
A couple of inventors put this solution together over the weekend for $100. Done.
https://businessinsider.com/mit-emergency-ventilator-cheaper-design-plans-2020-3
Not that survival outcomes from ventilation therapy is all that comforting:
https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2766420/
It seems clear you do not understand how manufacturing works now.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/04/ventilators-coronavirus-ford-gm/
Read the article, watch the video. It looks to be as made in the USA as any of the assembly lines for robots recently or trucks long ago where I have worked in my career. Of course parts are sourced globally.
Are you charging that these are imported whole and simply tested and branded in-house in the US, as VCRs were in the 1980s? Is that what this is about?
Don't change the arg to crisis stats, not what is under discussion. Just own what you posted:
>> ventilator available in 100 days. Probably not even made in the US
These will clearly be made in the USA in any modern normal sense of the words.
Now, no one is not saying it's too little too late. Just go back to your post and judge away after explaining and owning what you originally wrote.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/30/ford-ge-ventilator-coronavirus-partnership/
Airon had produced three pNeuton Model A ventilators per day in a production facility in Melbourne, Fla., according to the release, highlighting the need for faster manufacturing. Before moving production to Michigan on April 20, Ford will send a team to Florida to help Airon boost production at its own facility.
Do you say that this is just some impo business, like audio components or smartphones or laptops?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/opinion/coronavirus-ventilators.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/03/coronavirus-survivors-recovery/
This event is the very definition of disruption...let see how this all works out for tomorrow's ICU patient who has to sit tight for 100 days.
But whatever, maybe it's the CV anxiety all of us feel? And you went off-topic in any case. No one is predicting great lifesaving outcomes from these USA-made machines, or any other, as the articles I linked to about ventilation make grimly clear. No one in ICU is going to sit tight for 100 days, or even 10 days, not how it works, available or not, and not how covid19 works either, ventilation or not. You know all this, as do I, directly.
you want even worse HC cost increases (not to mention construction equipment, construction materials, smartphones, computers, shoes, cars, meds, and so much else)? --- well, make everything, or even more things, in the USA.
this is so odd for a group aspiringly savvy about economics and investing.
Nothing personal. I am just not as impressed as you with the flattening of the world.
This flattening has caused dislocations. A working wage is not a living wage neither here nor overseas.
I am seeing dislocation of resources and wealth. Which I guess is nothing new.
It's just more apparent at times like these.
It is way easy for middle-class econs and academics in the field (plus thoughtless pols) to advise adaptation and relocation and skills development and all that, while ignoring the crucial needs for expanded support. It is all the more pitiful that those so badly wrenched overwhelmingly support and vote for such pols.