I keep seeing people advocating that the idea that we should build everything, and every piece or everything, here is a good one. Why? Is this just an isolationist dream? The reductive, absurd, extreme of this is why don't individual people go out and build all their own stuff like cars and houses. Let's all go out and learn how to mine and refine metal ore so we can get started on building the family sedan! There is an argument for what the right balance is, and likely a good argument that at lest some minor capability should exist so we can keep re-assessing the value of that industry, but the notion that we should have it all in-house will just limit us to much more primitive tech since we can't gain the benefit of world wide innovation and build off of that.

How’s basing the US economy on services looking now?

My brother is an extremely skilled machinist, the sort who could build machine tools if he had the resources. And let me tell you there ain’t many of them, especially not young ones. Why? Because the US has emphasized college as the only respectable education path, as well as the only path to well paid jobs. That’s how you end up with a manufacturing industry full of lazy knuckleheads (and believe me I’ve got the stories to back this assertion).

And that's 30 years ago. It's worse now.

The US isn't producing much manufacturing machinery.

Machine tools last a long time, many decades. Replacement of worn-out machine tools does happen, but slowly. Because of this, the market for new machine tools is mostly driven by the growth rate of manufacturing, not the total level of manufacturing activity. If manufacturing is flat or in decline, new machine tool sales become rare. The US does have a big used machine tool market, and much demand is filled from there.

China now makes quite good machine tools. (Plus many crappy ones.) Search Alibaba for "CNC mill". There are decent 3-axis machines below US$20,000, and 5-axis machines below $30,000. Haas, the biggest machine tool builder in the Western world, has almost nothing below $70,000.[1]

As a rule of thumb, 10x the volume cuts manufactured product cost in half. It's hard to come back from being a small volume producer.

[1] https://www.haascnc.com/index.html

My town used to host the company that made the "Bridgeport machine"(the name of the town itself) and the Singer company. When both left, it relied on banking to pick up the slack, but now that seems to be falling apart as well with the skyline mostly empty after the banks left post-pandemic. Whenever I machine something on a Bridgeport I think about it. https://bridgeportmachinetools.com/about-us/ https://www.singersewinginfo.co.uk/bridgeport

The problem is cost. We used to buy tooling for Acme Multi-Spindle Screw Machines but the Chinese could produce it for a fraction of the cost. You would have the first set made locally, then send the drawings to China, and pay less than the material cost to have them shipped to your door. In competitive markets, customers hammer you for every penny on a machined item that costs 0.12.

These days not many Screw machine shops left, very few in the USA. Material costs were too high, and the Chinese could make it for 1/10th the cost. To bring it all back is very difficult since even the products that the parts were being made for are no longer manufactured in the USA.

On a tangent, watch Ives speak about trying to build the iPhone in America. When you understand what it takes, you quickly figure out it is impossible. The supply chains make it impossible when none of the 1000's of parts from screws to glue to chips are not manufactured in the USA.

It won't hurt if we try to bring it all back, but it will take the same amount of time and sacrifice China put in to take it. Who thinks our Gov has what it takes to do it?