Thursday, May 17, 2012

Manufacturing: U.S. Will Own the Mid-21st Century and America Remains a Country Without Limits

From today's WSJ article "The Future is More Than Facebook" by Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard:

"Manufacturing? America will own the mid-21st century. Geopolitical instability and rising oil prices will wreck the late 20th-century rationale for outsourcing. Chinese labor costs are rising 20% a year while robotic costs are dropping by 30% a year. Do the math. 

"Made in the USA" is set to have a major comeback. The showstopper will be 3-D printing, which makes physical objects from a digital file. It will turn our artists into artisanal manufacturers and reward American-style creativity (see related CD post here
on 3-D printing, featuring a 2011 Forbes article by Mr. Karlgaard).

Energy? America's natural-gas and shale oil boom will bridge us to 2030 or so when solar energy and algae-based fuels will be closer to market parity and begin to make a real contribution. As long as I'm on the topic of the natural-gas boom, what key technology made this happy surprise possible? High-tech horizontal drilling. Who knew? We were all too busy fiddling with our iPhone apps to see it coming.

Question: If America could have only one of the following—Facebook, Twitter or horizontal drilling—which would be the smarter choice?

Happily, we don't have to make that choice. America remains the world's innovator, a country without limits."

5 Comments:

At 5/17/2012 3:17 PM, Blogger Hell_Is_Like_Newark said...

Developing a sane tax policy would be a big help. The proper corporate tax is 0%. If this is not politically possible then:

1. Replace depreciation with expensing. Depreciation rules utterly arcane and punish business that need heavy up front capital expenditures. Allow businesses to deduct 100% (including property purchases) in the year purchased. If there is a loss, allow it to be carried forward say up to 20 years.

2. Eliminate capital gains tax and the ATM. The ATM is particularly loathsome to people with successful LLC's and S-corps.

3. Eliminate the inheritance tax. Why should a profitable business be liquidated because of improper estate planning?

 
At 5/17/2012 4:09 PM, Blogger juandos said...

Good points all hiln...

We could definitely see some headway being made if those little details were intelligently addressed...

 
At 5/17/2012 10:35 PM, Blogger Che is dead said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

 
At 5/17/2012 10:36 PM, Blogger Che is dead said...

"America Remains a Country Without Limits"


America is like Gulliver being held down by the regulatory/tax strings secured by thousands of Democrat Lilliputians.

 
At 5/19/2012 8:48 AM, Blogger jperryfly said...

Good blog Mark, I knew there was another sane one in the family.
John Perry

 

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