1. WTF is a 19 axis machine? I think you might be off by a dozen or so. Never heard of more than 7, and never saw anyone actually use it. Give me a link, if you got one.

2. The multi-million dollar machine can repeat a cut probably within .000001 of a inch. 3d printers are current at about .01 (maybe .001). There is just a massive difference in the quality of the materials and the overall machine. So right now the only people that can truly use the current tech are those without tight tolerances, which is usually not people that buy million dollar machines.

I can't read the article, so I'll take your word on it. But if that is the case, this guy at Pioneer is an idiot. We paid welders between $30k - $40k. There is a whole metric ton of welders in the south that would take $200k and be up there in about 16 hours.

Sorry, but I just can't buy into this. There is something more to it. You don't pay 3-4 times the going rate of an employee. If you do, you suck at business.

Are these "Master Welders" that know the intricacies of the difference of sine and square waves and know the metallurgical properties that are affected by using each? Can they weld on any damn material in the known world?

Hey, welders in Ohio, when you are done cruising in the Tesla and reviewing your massive investment accounts, can you hop on /. and tell us why you make as much or more than 99% of American and why you do but the welder in Alabama gets $40k + overtime?

I have a background in manufacturing. I have attended Chamber meetings, city gatherings, and focus group-thingies. I heard about this skills gap and how manufacturers needed good qualified employees but just couldn't find them.

Well, it's bullshit. They can find them... they don't want to pay them. You really think a welder is going to make $150k anytime soon? No.

The reason Ariel wants the local job center to have the same equipment they have is so they can pay some kid $9/hr (maybe) to run their machines. They don't want a truly skilled employee to run a machine all day. They want a dumb, barely passed maths kid that can follow instructions. Bonus if he already knows where they cycle stop button is located on your machines.

I like this idea. I think more kids need job training. I do not think manufacturers are truly hurting to fill positions. My last company had no issues with filling positions, even if they wouldn't think of starting someone at more than $10/hr.

I am not here to bash US manufacturing, as I do think it is vital to US success. But let's not look at this like all the non-tech's look at H1-B's and think that the poor manufacturers are just a victim of our lack luster education system.

You are forgetting a tenant of economics: there is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone is paying for that software. Heartbleed shows how you pay for it. You can use open source and never donate, living off the work of others for free. That's perfectly acceptable. But when the shit hits the fan, you have to pony up OT and scramble to patch and fix.

It is absolutely mandatory to pay for software. Everything requires resources to be built and maintained. If someone used OpenSSL and did not contribute, then they are now paying for the software.

Aren't you cute. As if there is only one domain you are allowed to visit.

Not that I disagree about the hypocrisy, but you just look stupid when you harp on how people should only use one site all the time. Dumbass?

Mod this AC up. WTF /.?????? Some article about devastating effects of EMP and an easy preventative measure (that I wanted to read about). But the links are to foxnews.com and watchdog.org!!!! There is no content!

Would people stop using /. and start using soylentnews.org, please!?!? I can't take this anymore!

AC you will never see this, but here goes. You have no idea how taxes work. 12% wasn't my bracket. That was what I actually paid (plus the one time deal that got me a nice penalty to make it 15%). You know tax/income = percent. My bracket was 25, but effective was 15 and with some credits and junk it came down to an actual 12%.

I don't use AGI to calculate how much I pay in taxes, but the total of all income. I brought in x. I paid y. That's z percent. It was 12%.

But the company that pays my wages already pays all kinds of tax, so why isn't my tax cut in half? If the company had paid no tax, I would get a bigger check and could pay more taxes.

That is the exact same thing as saying "But the company I own already pays all kinds of taxes..."

Either way you gain income from a company, wages or profit income, you gained income from a entity that has already paid taxes. The lower capital gains is nothing more than sticking it to the wage earners. Full stop.

If you make $70k and pay 30+% in FEDERAL INCOME TAXES alone, you're doing it wrong. I make more than that (and have two dependents) but paid half that percentage wise. All taxes combined is another story. But then again so is the capital gains if you include all taxes.

Federal Income Tax = 15%. And that included a special one-time deal. Otherwise it would be 12%. Standard deductions and credits. Nothing special.

And I am close to the top 10% of income. I still can't figure out why everyone complains so much about taxes. I find it quite fair.

I didn't include state because that is wildly variable from TX to NY to MT.

The government would miss out on less than $2 billion of the over $2 trillion they collect. Drop in the bucket.

A much bigger loss would be all the people that have holes in their pocket and are unable to pay come 4/15.

Almost, AC. The problem with "Go See" is that is as much "Go Talk" as anything. You talk to the machine operators, the assemblers, etc. You can't get quite the same experience asking Scotty in IT how the machine is programmed and if it ever has a problem with x part mating to y part. It can't tell you that 10% of y seem to have a burr and require extra force to insert*.

What they want is to be able to "Go See" and "Go Talk" to someone who can see/talk. TPS (Toyota Production System) values asking those performing the work and including them in improvements. TPS is all about small, simple, incremental improvements.

* = you can record the force/resistance and a whole other host of measurements, but they have to be on every machine, you have to write the code to function and to report. As someone with manufacturing and programming experience, there are many times I think we would be better of with John running the operation so we can get his feed back. He also used to work in the work center just before this one, so he knows about the component materials and how they should be. The benefits go on and on.

They penalize you if you want to owe them more? I don't really see how that is affected by paycheck deductions? Also, you must be the first person I have met with that attitude. [/sarcasm]

Seriously though, lets say you make good money and ended up paying $15,000 in federal taxes. What interest rate could you get on that? Quick check at wellsfargo.com says you can get a whopping .01%. If you have over $25,000 in an account you can get a massive .05%. Linked checking account gets you to .1%!

So if you put that money into a savings account (and helping you out by depositing all on 1/1 of year, but not not doing compound interest) you made:

$15k * .0001 = $1.5
or
$15k * .0005 = $7.5
or
$15k * .001 = $15

So if you didn't give them a dime throughout the year, you saved a whopping $15. I meanwhile, saved $15 not buying Tylenol or needing Prozac.

My wife doesn't pay me to do all that at the house! I had to put in work on my lunch break today!

But I do get your point... it can be a crappy job. Especially when combined with a Noreaster. But why use NYC wages... it seems like they wanted it to look better by using bigger numbers to help their point.

I know 20 million people live there, but the other 280 million in the US look at this:

and think WTF have spent the past 10 years doing??? It took me 10 years, a degree, tons of hours of work, to get my salary up to that level and I am sure I could have been running some RG-58 pretty efficiently for the past 10 years.