[jppittma]

Not sure where I fall on that one. In business, it is said that one ought to focus on core competencies and let other companies handle the rest. Why shouldn’t a country do the same? Should low level manufacturing be a core competency of the US? Why? Turning steel into screws is certainly lower margin than turning screws and engines into airplanes.

[snickerbockers]

Because there's no higher power that can prosecute China for antitrust violations if they ever leverage our dependence on them against us. America is making the same mistake Europe made a few decades ago, which is constantly downsizing itself into irrelevancy because "helpful" countries are more than willing to take on the burden of economic domination. When we reach the point that all we make is fiat currency and software then we have nothing to offer the rest of the world and we become decadent and impotent.

Also our airplanes suck, you could not possibly have picked a worse example of American heavy industry than the Boeing corporation.

[vlachen]

Perhaps Neal Stephenson was correct in Snow Crash:

There's only four things [Americans] do better than anyone else: music movies microcode (software) high-speed pizza delivery

[anonymars]

In the pandemic there was a lesson I read somewhere that I will always keep with me and repeat: "efficiency" and "resiliency" are opposing points on a spectrum. Once you hear it I think you'll see it everywhere. What you describe is efficient but it isn't resilient.

[killjoywashere]

This. As someone who spends a lot of time thinking about national security problems, it's hard to convey how badly the 1980s MBA education failed us as a country. "Greed is good." Sure, Gordon. For who? Who's greed is good for who? How about the people of the country labor for the long term wealth of the nation? How about we all work for the long term wealth of the planet?

[bsder]

> In business, it is said that one ought to focus on core competencies and let other companies handle the rest.

In contrast, "Maximally efficient is minimally robust."

Something that business intelligentsia propagates should be given extra scrutiny. Why should you assume that statement about core competencies is correct, a priori? We have lots of evidence that statement isn't true in general. And we have mountains of evidence that such statements tend to be more incorrect the longer a time horizon you account for.

Vertically integrated businesses aren't rare. Everybody loves being a fabless chip company--until an earthquake or a pandemic hits. Designing chips was not a core competency for Apple--until it was and suddenly you have the M1. GE outsourced water heater manufacturing and lost their core competency to design them. etc.

[johnnyanmac]

>it is said that one ought to focus on core competencies and let other companies handle the rest. Why shouldn’t a country do the same?

Because a country isn't a business. If a companies falls out, they move on to another company based on the market.

If a country falls out, we go to war and sanction everything. If you can't survive those sanctions, the war is lost before any blood is spilt. Or at least any blood spilt by foreign invaders; the citizens will burn down the country for you instead.

[hollerith]

Actually, low-value manufacturing is a US competency because it is highly dependent on energy costs, which are lower in the US than in most countries.