America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it
I work in one of the last remaining large industrial manufacturing labs in the US. Some of my colleagues worked at Bell before that was shuttered.<p>My sense from talking to the previous generation is that financialization of the US has started (finally) failing the American people.<p>The previous generation cashed in on major profits by off shoring (Kodak), but we overdid it.<p>In a round about way our company is run by pension funds, and I work on projects that would get 8-9 figure investments if we were doing this in APEC, but we would rather have stock buybacks, so we end up getting 6 figures and puttering along.<p>Meanwhile the higher ups wonder ‘what happened to R&D?!’