It’s hard to be top notch in every industry.
The best talents in a country will bring strength to one industry which is tech for the US. If tech gets the smartest minds, of course other industries may not be able to compete at their max potential.
Boeing pleads guilty for 737 Max crashes.
Boeing benefited from its market position and gov contracts, while GM needs to compete in the more fierce commercial world. However the drivers and outcome feel a bit similar to me.
It could be about global competition but that’s limited (Airbus and SpaceX), and Covid is just one-off. Blame China? Sure China is not buying many planes like before, but it’s very early in actually competing in airplane manufacturing. I assume Airbus is not breaking many rules to compete. SpaceX might have some technology breakthrough, but Boeing also has r&d and should have unparalleled industry expertise.
The harder question is what’s Boeing’s (and broadly US manufacturing) competitive advantage over the longer term? Why TSMC didn’t do well in the US?
From a previous post, I touched on this – how to recreate the manufacturing industry in US is a question about how to make this sector attractive compared with other industries for young people and for capital.
Fiscal spending and subsidy is not a permanent solution. Tech didn’t rely much on subsidy to grow.
Maybe there is a negative side effect of being very strong in the technology sector?
Maybe US has evolved over the years so that the nature of this industry didn’t deserve a lot of attention? Maybe Tesla robot is an answer to unleash the manufacturing potential.