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Kathleen Weber's avatar

One of the things that I like about your blog is that you are critical of economic data. So many people go to extremes these days either worshiping the chart or rejecting all statistics. Maintaining a judiciously critical attitude is the difficult position.

Another thought that popped into my head while reading this post is the fact that military effectiveness demands both constant improvements in equipment and human capital. Many are saying that we have over invested in gigantic ticket items, such as fighter planes, aircraft carriers, and tanks--while under investing in low ticket items, such as drones. What we must absolutely be best at is coordinating material and human beings so that we can find out where to attack and concentrate our forces on it.

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Wesw's avatar

Love the blog, but I think you're overlooking Learning Curves (Wrights Law) as the primary factor behind declining manufacturing productivity. These curves state that production costs drop significantly with each doubling of units produced, but only for standardized items made in factories.

This explains why housing and solar costs remain high (not factory-made), Moore's Law exists (it's just Wrights Law for chips), and market share matters (more volume = lower costs).

Most U.S. manufacturing has shifted from high-volume factory production (where Learning Curves thrive) to construction, repair, and custom work—none of which benefit from these curves.

Case in point: Dayton, Ohio. In 2007, the city have over 400 machine shops, many producing standardized parts for giants like GE, NCR (National Cash Register), and Delphi Auto. However, Delphi left in 2005, GE in 2008, and NCR in 2009. Today, less than 100 shops remain, primarily focused on repair work, custom projects, and small-batch manufacturing—work that doesn't benefit from learning curves. If you were to analyze Dayton's manufacturing productivity today, it would likely show a steep decline, but this is because the nature of the work has changed. Volumes matter.

Learning curves are also the reason I didn't go bankrupt. In 2016, I bought a struggling equipment manufacturer. When a supplier threatened to bankrupt me, I tried making their product myself. My costs were 6x higher than theirs. However, a 15% learning curve predicted I'd break even at 80 units and match their costs at 2,000. I went all-in, and within 3 years, we were more profitable than ever. No amount of money or technology could have sped up that process; we simply had to produce repeatedly until we became efficient.

Learning Curves are real, but they only apply to specific types of production. The U.S. has largely moved away from those types, which is the real reason behind the decline.

If you want more info, there are good sources here:

https://www.construction-physics.com/p/where-are-my-damn-learning-curves

https://www.ark-invest.com/wrights-law/

https://hbr.org/1964/01/profit-from-the-learning-curve

https://www.bcg.com/publications/1968/business-unit-strategy-growth-experience-curve

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