US Corporate Stupidity

The fact that so many technology companies traded their intellectual property in exchange for cheaper Chinese labor costs gives us some idea of how dumb these guys are.  The giveaway hype started with getting access to 1.5 billion potential Chinese consumers, so the US companies rushed over to set up shop.  In electronics and software, the dangers were obvious and the disadvantages were also obvious. 

When US electronics manufacturers decided to take the 50% discount on their cost of producing circuit boards, they knew that Chinese assemblers would need to go through the learning curve and returns for reject boards would be part of the drill.  They also knew that Chinese Engineers would be maintaining these boards as components became obsolete. That meant that their boards would be redesigned by these Chinese Engineers.  That begs the question on who then owns the intellectual property of the newly designed boards.

Putting Chinese Engineers in charge of redesign would obviously alert other Chinese companies to go into the semi-conductor business to design chips for these Chinese “Contract Manufacturers”. Asia already controls all the technology related to automotive, consumer electronics and industrial electronics and the software that runs these systems.  The real danger to the US is in defense electronics.

The US auto companies had already ceded the US market to Asian auto companies.  Rather than responding to the need for higher miles per gallon, US companies continued to build “muscle cars”. Most US consumers were more interested in fuel efficiency and bought foreign cars. Those who ran these US auto companies were living in a bubble. The US Congress did begin to require better fuel efficiency, but also required lower carbon emissions for cars, but in the meantime, Toyota introduced the Hybrid Prius and it was far better than anything the US auto manufacturers had to offer.

Chrysler was sold to Fiat.  GM and Ford are focusing on sales overseas and all are investing in electric car and self-driving car technology with no clear idea how thin consumer demand will be.

The US contributed to winning World War I and World War II by leveraging its manufacturing and infrastructure capabilities prior to 1913 to become a reliable supplier of military equipment. We already had companies building ships, airplanes, cars and weapons and we tasked these companies to deliver war materials. We had established rail and natural resources to mine coal, iron ore and minerals needed to produce everything imaginable.  We were producing labor saving devices and making advances in communication technologies. US manufacturing capability advanced with the application of electric power generation and electric motor development. The US had also been the leader in manufacturing chemicals, but we allowed the Chinese to take over this industry.

Over the past 30 years, we have seen our industrial companies decline and move overseas.  We have replaced these industries with toy manufacturers. We have Apple smart phones that can take movies and pictures and communicate on the internet.  We have Facebook we can post these pictures and videos on.  We have Google to look things up on the internet and don’t have to go to the library any more to get a book.  We have retail websites to order consumer goods and have them delivered to our homes. We are living in a bubble with expensive toys we don’t really need.

The industries we relied on from 1900 to 2000 are no longer viable. We are needing to rebuild our steel and aluminum industries and we need to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US in order to restore our middle class. Our industrial decline was encouraged by our own government.  The US State Department and our Intelligence Agencies have traded off our economy for fleeting behavior changes the Deep State wanted other countries to make.  We gave away all of our manufacturing jobs in exchange for promises that were never fulfilled.  We’ve been had and the guys running our government for the past 100 years weren’t very smart either.

The real danger for those companies who gave away their intellectual property is that they will shrink and fail as the Chinese establish their own companies to replace them. The double threat is that investors in the US will also move to replace them.  These are not popular companies for most US citizens. Consumers are already cancelling their services with AT&T, Comcast and Facebook.  Apple I-Phone sales missed their targets. Chinese-made electronics products are expensive, unreliable, fragile, non-repairable, poorly made and disposable.

We have our entire financial system on the internet and all of our critical infrastructure is accessed electronically. We need to ensure that these systems are protected. We need to become the experts in cyber security. We are screwed.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader