America Revealed: Made in the USA
PBS has started airing its four-part series titled "America Revealed," based upon the BBC’s award-winning Britain From Above. Episode #4 of America Revealed is titled "Made in the USA," and I served as a consultant for that segment. Here's a preview:
"American manufacturing has undergone a massive revolution over the
past 20 years. Despite all the gloom and doom, America is actually the
number one manufacturing nation on earth. Yul Kwon crosses the nation
looking at traditional and not-so traditional types of manufacturing.
Along the way, he meets the men and women who create the world’s best
and most iconic products, engineers who are reinventing the American
auto industry, steelworkers who brave intense heat to accommodate
radical new ideas about recycling, and engineers who are re-imagining
the microchip. He visits one of the most innovative manufacturers on
earth: a small start-up company that is building personalized robots –
machines that may one day reshape our homes and offices, driving our
revolution further forward.
Yul further explores the emerging notion that manufacturing itself is
changing from a system based on the movement and assembly of raw
materials like steel and plastic to a system in which ideas and
information are the raw materials of a new economy based around
communications and social connections via companies like Facebook and
Google."
This episode premieres May 2nd, 2012. Check Local listings.
6 Comments:
I've read where we are the top arms manufacturing country in the world - fact or fiction? It seems a very taboo subject; this, and our Department of Defense, which I've also read is the largest employer in the world. I'm not looking for boogey men, just wondering why its so hush-hush a topic if it is in fact true...
Maybe the U.S. is the world largest assembler of weapons:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8876656/US-weapons-full-of-fake-Chinese-parts.html
Bruce: you could very well be right, hard to find definitive data on the topic - at least, I am not able.
America Revealed: Food Machine (episode 1) was pretty great. I'm sure Julian Simon would have approved. It was interesting going on the show's website and seeing the disgust from all the greenies about Food Machine. Malthusian Rachel Carsons (Silent Spring). Looking forward to the final three episodes - 2. Nation on the Move, 3. Electric Nation, 4. Made in the USA.
The post above does not make any sence. Making things is about turning raw materials into usefull products it makes no difference if its computers cell phones or a pair of shoes. Raw materials must be converted into usefull products. The products being produced today may be totally different and much more complex than the products that were being produced a hundred years ago along with the much more advanced manufacturing processes employed today' but the end result is the same for horseshoes that were produced a hundred years ago on a massive scale. Now they are still being produced but on a very small scale. Instead cars are produced on a massive scale today that have lots of computers and advanced electronics. But the raw materials for a car must come from plastic glass steel gold which requires mining and smelting and refining. The same as the steel or other metals that horseshoes are made from. I find the post very confusing. The basis of any modern economy is the ability to convert raw materials into ever more usefull products. Ideas are great but without the Technical ability to convert metal ores into steel copper' brase and silocone into glass and oil into gasoline and other chemicals we would all still be in the stone age. I don't know if the authors of the post above have visited walmart lately but if they have and if they looked at the tags on the products being sold at walmart they would find that most if not all of the product is made in china.
Thanks for the heads up about the upcoming PBS series. I am blogging on all things "Made in the USA" at simply-american.net. Please stop buy for a visit if you have a moment.
All the best,
John Briggs
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