标题: The Atlantic, December 2012 [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 12-10-2012 09:39 标题: The Atlantic, December 2012 The cover: COMEBACK[;] WHY THE FUTURE OF INDUSTRY IS IN AMERICA. Articles by James Fallows and Charles Fishman."
(A) James Fallows, Mr China Comes to America. For decades, every trend in manufacturing favored the developing world and worked against the United States. But new tools that greatly speed up development from idea to finished product encourage start-up companies to locate here, not in Asia. Could global trade winds finally be blowing toward America again? http://www.theatlantic.com/magaz ... -to-america/309160/
Excerpts in the windows of print (the following is the order they appear in print, whose pertinent text is near by; the online version gets they all mixed up):
(i) For the first time in memory, I’ve heard “product people” sound optimistic about hardware projects they want to launch and facilities they want to build not just in Asia but also in the United States.
(ii) A convergence of trends make operations in America more attractive and feasible, just as the cost and friction of operating in China are increasing.
(iii) Many factory managers say openly that they prefer women: women, they say, learn new jobs faster, handle high-precision work better, and pose fewer disciplinary challenges.
(iv) To “design the product, and launch, and fulfill orders within one month—that meant that outsourcing to China was not ever a feasible option,” says Craig Dalton, a veteran of tech start-ups.
(v) Promising new tools are making it possible for American innovators torapidly convert their ideas into products—and jobs.
My comment:
(1) The English surname Fallows is "for someone who lived by a patch of fallow land * * * The name is also borne by Ashkenazic Jews, as an Americanized form of one or more like-sounding Jewish surnames."
(2) What is most interesting about the essay is his venture into a Foxconn "campus."
(a) The author explains, "On previous attempts to get in over the years, I had never made it past Foxconn’s front gate—not surprising given the company’s policy of stiff-arming most foreign and domestic reporters. But a new PR team at Foxconn had apparently decided that closed-door secretiveness was making the company look even worse than it otherwise would. (If only this team were in charge of Chinese government policy—regarding the press, the Internet, letting people into and out of the country, and so much more.)"
(b) How3ever, most of the introductionis known to us (non-Americans), so browse it (introductio) quickly and starts at the end of teh paragraph 1 of section 1 The Big Picture, that
"the Chinese 'investment led' model is showing strain. That model has involved a kind of hyper-Keynesianism far beyond what the United States experienced even during the most government-run periods of the New Deal."
(3) At the beginning, PCH is mentioned. More about PCH will come later in the essay.
(4) The essay reasons, "You learn a lot about China from its factories, of which I have now visited nearly 200—just as you would have learned a lot about the England of Charles Dickens and Friedrich Engels by seeing its factories, and the America of Theodore Dreiser and Upton Sinclair."
(a) Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
(b) Friedrich Engels (1820-1895; In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research)
Wiki
(c) Theodore Dreiser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Dreiser
(1871-1945; an American novelist)
(d) Upton Sinclair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair
(1878-1968)
(i) The Scottish surname Sinclair (of Norman origin): "name of a powerful Scottish clan, originally a habitational name from Saint-Clair-sur-Elle in La Manche or Saint-Clair-l’Évêque in Calvados, so called from the dedication of their churches to St Clarus (see Clare 3)."
(ii) The English surname Clare: "3 from the Middle English, Old French female personal name Cla(i)re (Latin Clara, from clarus ‘famous’), which achieved some popularity, greater on the Continent than in England, through the fame of St Clare of Assisi. See also Sinclair."
(5) The essay states, "Although Gou is Taiwanese and Foxconn’s headquarters are in Taiwan, the company is the largest private employer in mainland China [where] a worker typically gets about $400 a month."
The monthly take of $400 is probably the take-home pay, as Foxconn pays for uniform, room and board.
(6) Henry Ford http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford
(1863-1947; also [known] for being the publisher of antisemitic texts such as the book The International Jew)
(7) Right after Excerpt (iii) is the disclaimer: "(I am just telling you what they say.)" This is because the excerpt is considered sexist in US.
(8) The heading of section 3 is "The New Smiley Curve."
Quote: "Based on this, ACER has adopted a business strategy to recreate itself from a manufacturer into a company that focuses on global marketing of brand-name PC-related products and services. Meanwhile, ACER also has invested aggressively in R&D to develop innovative technology."
(9) The essay features prominently "Liam Casey, the Irish-born entrepreneur, now in his mid-40s, who founded PCH 16 years ago. (The name is a sentimental allusion to the Pacific Coast Highway in Southern California, where Casey had been living until his failure to get a green card forced him to leave."
(a) The Irish surname Casy is "reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Cathasaigh ‘descendant of Cathasach’, a byname meaning ‘vigilant’ or ‘noisy.’"
(b) For Pacific Coast Highway, see California State Route 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Route_1
(Highway 1 has several portions designated as either Pacific Coast Highway (PCH), Cabrillo Highway, Shoreline Highway, or Coast Highway)
(10) Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Random House, 1961.
(11) The essay later says Mr Casy "had just leased a 30,000-square-foot building off I‑280, the former home of the San Francisco Bay Guardian."
(a) Interstate 280 (California) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_280_(California)
("a 57-mile (92-km) long north–south Interstate Highway in the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It connects San Jose and San Francisco")
(b) San Francisco Bay Guardian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Guardian
(a free alternative newspaper published weekly in San Francisco)
(12) The essay fleetingly alludes to "hipsters in the East Bay and the city, rich naturalists in Marin."
(a) East Bay (San Francisco Bay Area) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Bay_(San_Francisco_Bay_Area)
(b) Marin County, California http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marin_County,_California
(section 1 History: The origin of the county's name is not clear)
(13) The esssay comments, "The 400 manufacturing firms that have factories in San Francisco and are part of the SFMade coalition employ a total of just over 3,000 people, equivalent to a busy week’s intake at Foxconn’s Longhua campus."
The "intake" means the recruits. Please recall the essay says earlier: "In a typical week, the Shenzhen Longhua facility will take on about 2,000 new employees for its own factories, and recruit and train many more for other Foxconn sites."
(14) The essay talks about "the 100-employee LeeMAH electronics firm, founded by an immigrant from China."
* LeeMAH Electronics, Inc was founded in 1971 by B Hong MAH in San Francisco.
(15) DODOcase http://www.dodocase.com/
* dodo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo
(16) At last, the essay alludes to "'quick iteration' way of deciding which ideas will be most practical for manufacturing," and quotes Linus Chung as saying, "You iterate an adapt quickly."
(a) Linus Chung. LinkedIn, undated http://www.linkedin.com/in/linuschung
(VP Corporate Development at PCH International; BS at Stanford University)
(b) iterate (v): "to say or do again or again and again : REITERATE" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/iterate
(c) The "quick iteration" may refer to PCH, because the sentence first mention Lime Lab which was acquired by PCH.
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I will introduce the other essay when I have time, possibly tomorrow. 作者: choi 时间: 12-11-2012 16:54 本帖最后由 choi 于 12-11-2012 16:58 编辑
Charles Fishman, The Insourcing Boom. After years of offshore production, General Electric is moving much of its far-flung appliance-manufacturing operations back home. It is not alone. An exploration of the startling, sustainable, just-getting-started return of industry to the United States. http://www.theatlantic.com/magaz ... urcing-boom/309166/
My comment:
(1) You may want to read until (and including) the paragraph ("Why does it suddenly make irresistible business sense to build not just dishwashers in Appliance Park, but dishwasher racks as well?"), and the skip six paragraphs and continue with the paragraph that begins with "The GeoSpring water heater."
(3) The article said, "(Even as recently as 2000, a typical Chinese factory worker made 52 cents an hour. You could hire 20 or 30 workers overseas for what one cost in Appliance Park.)"
(5) The article stated, "Amana, for instance, introduced the first countertop microwave—the Radarange, made in —in 1967, priced at $495. Today you can buy a microwave at Walmart for $49 (the equivalent of a $7 price tag on a 1967 microwave)—and almost all [are foreign-made]."
(a) Amana Colonies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amana_Colonies
(b) Amana Corporation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amana_Corporation
(founded in 1934; Amana was acquired in 1965 by Raytheon, which had invented the microwave oven in 1947, and introduced the commercial Radarange Model 1611 in 1954)
(6) The article commented, "Only 500,000 factory jobs were created between their low, in January 2010, and September 2012—a tiny fraction of the almost 6 million that were lost in the aughts."
(a) aught (n; alteration (resulting from false division of a naught) of naught; First Known Use 1872):
"ZERO, CIPHER" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aught
(b) 2000s (decade) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_(decade)
(The 2000s was a decade that began on January 1, 2000 and ended on December 31, 2009; section 1 Names for the decade: Others have advocated the term "the aughts", a term widely used at the beginning of the twentieth century for its first decade)
Naturally I am doubtful about the claims, including the description in the article: "the GeoSpring pulls ambient heat from the air to help heat water."