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If America is in a period of Byzantinian decline then how do the great tech-hub city-states like San Francisco and New York play into this narrative? This doesn't seem consistent.

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Byzantium also had perhaps the greatest city of its time, Constantinople.

The document says that cities not states become the centers of power which is matches your SF/NY example.

IMO, I don't think America is represented at all by SF or NY, in fact I think they're the exceptions. Other than a few regions and city-states (New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Dallas, Silicon Valley, Seattle, Portland) in the US I'd say the US largely lives in perpetual willful ignorance and continues to pat itself on its back for World War II.

To quote The Wire, "We used to make shit in this country." Now? Some do, but not so much anymore. I feel like more than every America is diverging.

RIP Frank Sobotka

That's a myth, the US continues to be manufacture ~ 20% of the world's output (this has held since at least 1982). The real story is that manufacturing jobs have eroded though.

Apart from GM corn [I don't want] I can't think of any USA products that I come in contact with; could you give a list of the major ones or a link to such?

TBH the same is true of my own country (excepting food). Perhaps it's just that China market themselves well by ensuring China itself is a global brand (as in "China" appears on so many products).

Edit: Silly me, TV+Films+Music, what else?

My external hard drive was made in the US.

Which company was that, did they manufacture the internals or just the box the drive comes in? Maybe Seagate?

Our industrial production has done nothing but increase (recessions and minor blips excluded). We make more than just TV shows.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/INDPRO

Everyday stuff made in the US: cars (e.g., my mom's Toyota), airplanes, medical devices, construction supplies.

Interestingly, a significant US export is industrial machinery. Many of those factories in China use industrial machinery built in the US.

>Everyday stuff made in the US: cars (e.g., my mom's Toyota), airplanes, medical devices, construction supplies.

Cars appear generally to be bought/made close to the point of use - "far eastern" cars are made in the UK for example. I'd guess that Toyotas used in Europe are mainly made in Europe now, but stand to be corrected. Sp[eculating further I'd say the same will be true of construction supplies - I've heard of prefab stuff being moved around Europe a lot but I imagine demand and transportation costs allow/require production close to point of use. Aeroplanes and medical devices, yes they should have come to mind.

I've also heard that it is best to have precision dies and things made elsewhere and then shipped to China for the mass production part of the process.

WRT the link I wonder how resource use has increased over that time too. How much of this increased level of production is down to increasing population confounded with a per head increase in resources?

Thanks for your reply.

My US-made computer keyboard: http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/cus101usenon.html.

On second thought, this isn't a major product at all. It's actually quite obscure. I just like it a lot.

Not only do we do so with a much smaller number of people, but certain industries seem to dominate the export scene (e.g. aerospace) and more than that, our dynamicity in manufacturing is no longer there.

The hot fields, like where our iPads and their batteries are made, is focused in places like Japan, Germany and China, where the former two make the interesting components and the latter is where it is assembled. The interesting work we do is in the high-level engineering and design of the devices.

What are some interesting things we build here? People cite cars, but for a lot of that, the design is done overseas (e.g. Toyota). Airplanes, medical devices and heavy equipment aren't exactly fast moving fields.

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