Quote:
Originally Posted by Brendan
Michael Savage said that if we went to War we will be in big trouble , becouse we dont make hardly anything any more. Ford built Willow Run in no time at all, and figured out how to build B-24's
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Manufacturing is a dirty business. The greenies yelled so we sent that business overseas. It was cheaper to let other countries pollute than clean it up here and have the the stockholders take a hit. The old out of sight out of mind problem. Ford spun off the Rouge steel plant in 1989. Rouge Steel Company went bust in 2004 and the Russians bought it.
For WWII the entire auto industry switched over within a few months. My dad was a tool and die maker at Saginaw Steering Gear. When they got the contract for the Browning Machine Gun the price was $667 each. When they delivered the first batch they were able to produce them for $142 each. My parents moved to CA by cashing in the war bonds he was awarded for his engineering and cost cutting measures. His big one was drilling and rifling 6 M1 carbine barrels at one time in one pass. They were doing them one at a time with 4 passes. In total they made about 400,000 Brownings and 300,000 Carbines.