HELP !!!

[Charlie Tame]

You mentioned one of the most important elements of maintaining competency
and that is: know-how vs. know-why, which can be translated to how to design
a product vs. how to make a product.

Using your example of PC boards,


Probably not many, but can they be made and operated without the critical
components and design guidelines from Intel and AMD? I guess the answer is,
No. This is where we can see the line between know-why vs. know-how.

I disagree somewhat, for Intel and AMD to succeed they have to be able
to manufacture their designs, and the technology and plant to do so is
part of that, it can go elsewhere.

I will have to say that it's not that we "cannot" make it, but for various
of reasons, it is not economic for doing it including but not limited to
those reasons for which I've mentioned in another post. The path is to move
on to those even higher level of skills and knowledge, such as how to design
products and services.

Margaret Thatcher was very big on losing manufacturing jobs and
switching to "Services", however if you remove manufacturing jobs those
people who lose them cannot afford to buy the "Services". Jobs lost =
jobs lost.

Also using PC as an example, despite the fact that nearly 80% of components
are outsourced but guess what are the most popular brands globally? I guess
no one will object for me to say that it's the American brands? Why?
Configure a system isn't just to put components together and it's much more
than that, and I am so sure most of you will agree. Another example of the
difference between know-how and know-why?

"Brands" doesn't mean much. Westinghouse sounds "American", my TV has
"Made in China" on the back.

No doubt "Some" money comes back to the USA, but where that plant may
have supported 500 American families it probably now supports 50 in an
office. Profit is not everything, though I do agree that it may not be
viable to make it here due to labor costs. My point is though, that
those 450 jobs are not creating "Purchasing Power" here and so who will
buy your "Services".

I agree with you but we have to ask ourselves, are we doing our jobs for
keeping up with the world?

Why is not that 24-hr customer service center mentioned in another post
feasible? Another reason is that multilingual isn't exactly one of the
American workforce's strengths, so how could it be possible to serve a
multinational company's worldwide customers with the majority employees that
can speak only one language?


A more important issue is to create additional jobs that can sustain a
higher living standard instead of holding on those that are no longer
adequate. This is the area that many should think about for how to move on,
not just for an OS.

But not everyone can do every job, I cannot suddenly become an
accountant, or a social worker, or a doctor. I am 55 years old, it is
too late for me to start a whole new career. Sure, my present job is
below my skill level, but I HAVE to be at the buildings to work on them,
I cannot do it by remote desktop or VNC. Job standard seems to be either
security or higher earnings. I fear we are putting many more of our own
people into this corner.

Comes to something when Ford, who basically invented the mass produced
motor car say in their ad "Build quality is now as good as Toyota".
William E Deming taught the Japanese how to do quality, he was from Iowa.

After all these discussions, can we agree on that MS should give us an easy
to use OS so we can focus more on our business instead of dealing with all
these issues?

Also, if they (MS, Dell, HP, etc.)
would stop off-shoring our works, it would be greatly appreciated.
My 2 cents,

Not all offshore outsourcing are "purely" for saving labor costs [snip]
So... you're saying that if shifting offshore is gonna be MORE
expensive, companies would still do it?

BOOLA SHEET!
I think the poster was referencing the cost of labor only, not overall
cost.

There is a bigger problem with outsourcing.

Take for example the various boards in your PC. Anything made in USA? Most
likely not. So there went the manufacturing jobs.

However the plant to manufacture them with has also gone away, so we can't
go back to making this stuff because we don't have the equipment.

But worse still we gave away the designs for the plant, and now the
competition do not need our ideas because we taught them how to design the
plant, and they have our experience of getting it wrong a few times so
they mostly have brand new plant that is designed better and more
efficient than we ever had.

This is fine at the moment but what happens in a crisis? War is a pretty
good crisis, in WW2 the UK, USA and Germany who had manufacturing
capability turned those plants into munitions factories. It doesn't take a
big modification to change a machine over from bolts to bullets. But
things have changed, the machines we need these days are not so easy to
convert or to make from scratch. Can we really keep up with (Say) the
engineers at NVidia when we are not actively doing the work ourselves?

If, for some natural crisis or some kind of conflict we suddenly need hi
tech manufacturing plant we are in trouble. Hell we may even have
forgotten how to make it.

Now I am not paranoid, don't expect another world war any time soon and I
don't "Hate foreigners", but I do see a trend toward the West losing out.
The best paid jobs will go from the US economy, leaving only those jobs
like mine that require a physical presence at some location - I work on
buildings - I can't do that from China, but my Boss can supervise from
Alabama which may as well be China for all the physical work he could do
on our buildings in Iowa. He can of course do the work, but not remotely.

So I am pleased to see Microsoft stay in the USA, and Google, and Sun etc.
And I am pleased that the USA takes defense technology seriously, at least
that does force them to keep some hi tech capability onshore, but when
only the military can get the supplies then martial law is not far behind.

So for me the issue is not the jobs that HAVE gone, it is those in the
future that will never be here.

 

[xfile]

Hi,

I understand issues like this one is difficult to reach an agreement (hey,
many of us cannot even agree on Vista), so what I will do is to make a few
clarifications and then I will rest my case

(1) manufacturing jobs: I apologize if I mislead you to believe that I meant
to abolish all manufacturing jobs. I am not a politician so I can't be that
naive

There are different levels of manufacturing employing different
levels of technologies. In another post, I mentioned the needs for overseas
production that are not aimed at saving labor costs but to serve the local
and/or nearby markets among other considerations. As for the overall
economic structures, it's to move up to the hi-tech and hi-skill based
manufacturing instead of the low-tech and labor intensive production. I
couldn't agree more that no country could survive solely based on a service
industry.

(2) purchasing power: The purchasing power will come from both domestic and
international trading for both physical and service products.

More importantly, international trading will not happen (as we all
experienced and still are experiencing in certain parts of the world) if
each and every
country is actively practicing protectionism. How many foreign
multinationals have come to the states for setting up factories, and what
will happen if they also withdrew because of the same anti-overseas
production sentiments?

In simple words, it's a give-and-take and no one can have it all. We have
been there and done that, and again, it's not going to work.

My two cents and now I rest my case

Incidentally, Dr. Deming's TQM was not appreciated by Americans but was
"worshipped" by Japanese, so who should be blamed?

You mentioned one of the most important elements of maintaining
competency and that is: know-how vs. know-why, which can be translated to
how to design a product vs. how to make a product.

Using your example of PC boards,


Probably not many, but can they be made and operated without the critical
components and design guidelines from Intel and AMD? I guess the answer
is, No. This is where we can see the line between know-why vs. know-how.

I disagree somewhat, for Intel and AMD to succeed they have to be able to
manufacture their designs, and the technology and plant to do so is part
of that, it can go elsewhere.

I will have to say that it's not that we "cannot" make it, but for
various of reasons, it is not economic for doing it including but not
limited to those reasons for which I've mentioned in another post. The
path is to move on to those even higher level of skills and knowledge,
such as how to design products and services.

Margaret Thatcher was very big on losing manufacturing jobs and switching
to "Services", however if you remove manufacturing jobs those people who
lose them cannot afford to buy the "Services". Jobs lost = jobs lost.

Also using PC as an example, despite the fact that nearly 80% of
components are outsourced but guess what are the most popular brands
globally? I guess no one will object for me to say that it's the
American brands? Why? Configure a system isn't just to put components
together and it's much more than that, and I am so sure most of you will
agree. Another example of the difference between know-how and know-why?

"Brands" doesn't mean much. Westinghouse sounds "American", my TV has
"Made in China" on the back.

No doubt "Some" money comes back to the USA, but where that plant may have
supported 500 American families it probably now supports 50 in an office.
Profit is not everything, though I do agree that it may not be viable to
make it here due to labor costs. My point is though, that those 450 jobs
are not creating "Purchasing Power" here and so who will buy your
"Services".

I agree with you but we have to ask ourselves, are we doing our jobs for
keeping up with the world?

Why is not that 24-hr customer service center mentioned in another post
feasible? Another reason is that multilingual isn't exactly one of the
American workforce's strengths, so how could it be possible to serve a
multinational company's worldwide customers with the majority employees
that can speak only one language?


A more important issue is to create additional jobs that can sustain a
higher living standard instead of holding on those that are no longer
adequate. This is the area that many should think about for how to move
on, not just for an OS.

But not everyone can do every job, I cannot suddenly become an accountant,
or a social worker, or a doctor. I am 55 years old, it is too late for me
to start a whole new career. Sure, my present job is below my skill level,
but I HAVE to be at the buildings to work on them, I cannot do it by
remote desktop or VNC. Job standard seems to be either security or higher
earnings. I fear we are putting many more of our own people into this
corner.

Comes to something when Ford, who basically invented the mass produced
motor car say in their ad "Build quality is now as good as Toyota".
William E Deming taught the Japanese how to do quality, he was from Iowa.

After all these discussions, can we agree on that MS should give us an
easy to use OS so we can focus more on our business instead of dealing
with all these issues?

Leythos wrote:
Also, if they (MS, Dell, HP, etc.)
would stop off-shoring our works, it would be greatly appreciated.
My 2 cents,

Not all offshore outsourcing are "purely" for saving labor costs
[snip]
So... you're saying that if shifting offshore is gonna be MORE
expensive, companies would still do it?

BOOLA SHEET!
I think the poster was referencing the cost of labor only, not overall
cost.




There is a bigger problem with outsourcing.

Take for example the various boards in your PC. Anything made in USA?
Most likely not. So there went the manufacturing jobs.

However the plant to manufacture them with has also gone away, so we
can't go back to making this stuff because we don't have the equipment.

But worse still we gave away the designs for the plant, and now the
competition do not need our ideas because we taught them how to design
the plant, and they have our experience of getting it wrong a few times
so they mostly have brand new plant that is designed better and more
efficient than we ever had.

This is fine at the moment but what happens in a crisis? War is a pretty
good crisis, in WW2 the UK, USA and Germany who had manufacturing
capability turned those plants into munitions factories. It doesn't take
a big modification to change a machine over from bolts to bullets. But
things have changed, the machines we need these days are not so easy to
convert or to make from scratch. Can we really keep up with (Say) the
engineers at NVidia when we are not actively doing the work ourselves?

If, for some natural crisis or some kind of conflict we suddenly need hi
tech manufacturing plant we are in trouble. Hell we may even have
forgotten how to make it.

Now I am not paranoid, don't expect another world war any time soon and
I don't "Hate foreigners", but I do see a trend toward the West losing
out. The best paid jobs will go from the US economy, leaving only those
jobs like mine that require a physical presence at some location - I
work on buildings - I can't do that from China, but my Boss can
supervise from Alabama which may as well be China for all the physical
work he could do on our buildings in Iowa. He can of course do the work,
but not remotely.

So I am pleased to see Microsoft stay in the USA, and Google, and Sun
etc. And I am pleased that the USA takes defense technology seriously,
at least that does force them to keep some hi tech capability onshore,
but when only the military can get the supplies then martial law is not
far behind.

So for me the issue is not the jobs that HAVE gone, it is those in the
future that will never be here.

 

[Pete Stavrakoglou]

I'm not criticizing any of these posts but I have a question. Why do

so many people make all these comments about the billions of dollars some
individuals possess without making comments about the billions of dollars
they give to charity and other organizations that help needy people
worldwide?
I'm well aware that they receive tax credits for these contributions
but the fact remains they did not have to give the money. The money they
have given has improved the lives of millions of people worldwide and has
eased the suffering of millions more.

No good deed goes unpunished.

 

[Pete Stavrakoglou]

Yeah...some Mexican guy is the richest in the world now. But back to
Gates...he does have $58 billion, but even if it was only $5
billion...wouldn't that be enough?

The fellow from Mexico is #2, Warren Buffet is now #1.

 

[Charlie Tame]

Hi,

I understand issues like this one is difficult to reach an agreement (hey,
many of us cannot even agree on Vista), so what I will do is to make a few
clarifications and then I will rest my case

A polite discussion is usually more more effective than a confrontation

(1) manufacturing jobs: I apologize if I mislead you to believe that I meant
to abolish all manufacturing jobs. I am not a politician so I can't be that
naive

I understood that.

There are different levels of manufacturing employing different
levels of technologies. In another post, I mentioned the needs for overseas
production that are not aimed at saving labor costs but to serve the local
and/or nearby markets among other considerations. As for the overall
economic structures, it's to move up to the hi-tech and hi-skill based
manufacturing instead of the low-tech and labor intensive production. I
couldn't agree more that no country could survive solely based on a service
industry.

Right, that too. However I do see a possibility that we will not move up
technologically when overseas workers can (for example) graduate more
cheaply or easily than US workers. Also, less labor intensive means less
jobs for the people already too old to adopt new skills. I don't mean
that to insult anybody, simply that (say) 40+ is old to start learning a
new skill set.

(2) purchasing power: The purchasing power will come from both domestic and
international trading for both physical and service products.

More importantly, international trading will not happen (as we all
experienced and still are experiencing in certain parts of the world) if
each and every
country is actively practicing protectionism. How many foreign
multinationals have come to the states for setting up factories, and what
will happen if they also withdrew because of the same anti-overseas
production sentiments?

Multinationals come to gain market share in the US, but they may abandon
it if the economy gets so bad there is no market (disposable income) to
share.

In simple words, it's a give-and-take and no one can have it all. We have
been there and done that, and again, it's not going to work.

My two cents and now I rest my case

I agreem I am not for protectionism, however I also do not think
Governments should assist companies to export jobs. Rather they should
pay extra taxes, not to penalize the companies but to pay for the extra
cost the country has to bear in supporting those places out of work.

Incidentally, Dr. Deming's TQM was not appreciated by Americans but was
"worshipped" by Japanese, so who should be blamed?

Quite so, the Japanese listened and many others did not, and the
Japanese often started over with new equipment and facilities, others
just made do with old stuff.

You mentioned one of the most important elements of maintaining
competency and that is: know-how vs. know-why, which can be translated to
how to design a product vs. how to make a product.

Using your example of PC boards,

Anything made in USA?
Probably not many, but can they be made and operated without the critical
components and design guidelines from Intel and AMD? I guess the answer
is, No. This is where we can see the line between know-why vs. know-how.

I disagree somewhat, for Intel and AMD to succeed they have to be able to
manufacture their designs, and the technology and plant to do so is part
of that, it can go elsewhere.

However the plant to manufacture them with has also gone away, so we
can't go back to making this stuff because we don't have the equipment.
I will have to say that it's not that we "cannot" make it, but for
various of reasons, it is not economic for doing it including but not
limited to those reasons for which I've mentioned in another post. The
path is to move on to those even higher level of skills and knowledge,
such as how to design products and services.

Margaret Thatcher was very big on losing manufacturing jobs and switching
to "Services", however if you remove manufacturing jobs those people who
lose them cannot afford to buy the "Services". Jobs lost = jobs lost.

Also using PC as an example, despite the fact that nearly 80% of
components are outsourced but guess what are the most popular brands
globally? I guess no one will object for me to say that it's the
American brands? Why? Configure a system isn't just to put components
together and it's much more than that, and I am so sure most of you will
agree. Another example of the difference between know-how and know-why?

"Brands" doesn't mean much. Westinghouse sounds "American", my TV has
"Made in China" on the back.

No doubt "Some" money comes back to the USA, but where that plant may have
supported 500 American families it probably now supports 50 in an office.
Profit is not everything, though I do agree that it may not be viable to
make it here due to labor costs. My point is though, that those 450 jobs
are not creating "Purchasing Power" here and so who will buy your
"Services".

Now I am not paranoid, don't expect another world war any time soon and
I don't "Hate foreigners", but I do see a trend toward the West losing
out.
I agree with you but we have to ask ourselves, are we doing our jobs for
keeping up with the world?

Why is not that 24-hr customer service center mentioned in another post
feasible? Another reason is that multilingual isn't exactly one of the
American workforce's strengths, so how could it be possible to serve a
multinational company's worldwide customers with the majority employees
that can speak only one language?

So for me the issue is not the jobs that HAVE gone, it is those in the
future that will never be here.
A more important issue is to create additional jobs that can sustain a
higher living standard instead of holding on those that are no longer
adequate. This is the area that many should think about for how to move
on, not just for an OS.

But not everyone can do every job, I cannot suddenly become an accountant,
or a social worker, or a doctor. I am 55 years old, it is too late for me
to start a whole new career. Sure, my present job is below my skill level,
but I HAVE to be at the buildings to work on them, I cannot do it by
remote desktop or VNC. Job standard seems to be either security or higher
earnings. I fear we are putting many more of our own people into this
corner.

Comes to something when Ford, who basically invented the mass produced
motor car say in their ad "Build quality is now as good as Toyota".
William E Deming taught the Japanese how to do quality, he was from Iowa.

After all these discussions, can we agree on that MS should give us an
easy to use OS so we can focus more on our business instead of dealing
with all these issues?


Leythos wrote:
Also, if they (MS, Dell, HP, etc.)
would stop off-shoring our works, it would be greatly appreciated.
My 2 cents,

Not all offshore outsourcing are "purely" for saving labor costs
[snip]
So... you're saying that if shifting offshore is gonna be MORE
expensive, companies would still do it?

BOOLA SHEET!
I think the poster was referencing the cost of labor only, not overall
cost.



There is a bigger problem with outsourcing.

Take for example the various boards in your PC. Anything made in USA?
Most likely not. So there went the manufacturing jobs.

However the plant to manufacture them with has also gone away, so we
can't go back to making this stuff because we don't have the equipment.

But worse still we gave away the designs for the plant, and now the
competition do not need our ideas because we taught them how to design
the plant, and they have our experience of getting it wrong a few times
so they mostly have brand new plant that is designed better and more
efficient than we ever had.

This is fine at the moment but what happens in a crisis? War is a pretty
good crisis, in WW2 the UK, USA and Germany who had manufacturing
capability turned those plants into munitions factories. It doesn't take
a big modification to change a machine over from bolts to bullets. But
things have changed, the machines we need these days are not so easy to
convert or to make from scratch. Can we really keep up with (Say) the
engineers at NVidia when we are not actively doing the work ourselves?

If, for some natural crisis or some kind of conflict we suddenly need hi
tech manufacturing plant we are in trouble. Hell we may even have
forgotten how to make it.

Now I am not paranoid, don't expect another world war any time soon and
I don't "Hate foreigners", but I do see a trend toward the West losing
out. The best paid jobs will go from the US economy, leaving only those
jobs like mine that require a physical presence at some location - I
work on buildings - I can't do that from China, but my Boss can
supervise from Alabama which may as well be China for all the physical
work he could do on our buildings in Iowa. He can of course do the work,
but not remotely.

So I am pleased to see Microsoft stay in the USA, and Google, and Sun
etc. And I am pleased that the USA takes defense technology seriously,
at least that does force them to keep some hi tech capability onshore,
but when only the military can get the supplies then martial law is not
far behind.

So for me the issue is not the jobs that HAVE gone, it is those in the
future that will never be here.

 

[The poster formerly known as 'The Poster Formerly]

xfile wrote:


I agree I am not for protectionism, however I also do not think
Governments should assist companies to export jobs. Rather they should
pay extra taxes, not to penalize the companies but to pay for the extra
cost the country has to bear in supporting those places out of work.

What extra costs the country has to pay in order to support those out of
work?

Quite so, the Japanese listened and many others did not, and the
Japanese often started over with new equipment and facilities, others
just made do with old stuff.

TQM, LOL, I remember going through training for that 10 yrs. ago. The
company did it in conjunction with ISO9000 training. No, I was not
working for a Japanese company at the time.

--
"Fair use is not merely a nice concept--it is a federal law based on
free speech rights under the First Amendment and is a cornerstone of the
creativity and innovation that is a hallmark of this country. Consumer
rights in the digital age are not frivolous."
- Maura Corbett

DRM and unintended consequences:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/security/?p=435&tag=nl.e101

 

[xfile]

TQM, LOL, I remember going through training for that 10 yrs. ago. The

company did it in conjunction with ISO9000 training. No, I was not
working for a Japanese company at the time.

My first project was between 1989-1990 and we considered ourselves already
late. But it's better late than never.

"The poster formerly known as 'The Poster Formerly Known as Nina DiBoy'"