Originally Posted by
Wildtree
Very few.. and in high tech there's a high quality control in place.
As for Germany, we have that control even perverted.. I admit that right away.
You cannot produce ANYTHING without being subject to a Norm catalog.
For everything you will find a norm, which is essentially law. Depending on the level of precision, the room for error ; read allowed tolerance ; can be as little as 0.005%.
So now, from there it is a lot easier to stay within that tolerance, when you deal with micro measurements.
And do not ignore the first key sentence. We are not talking about simple stuff. We are talking about trade goods...
You know, there's not a single country that is self sustained. ALL Countries living from Import and Export.
The latter is where the money is... The more you can export, the more income you produce.
If you make stuff at your own pleasure and likes, no one else can use it.. No one else will buy it.
Now, for the import... If you live isolated from the international standard, no one can sell you anything. Because no one can afford to make things specifically tailored for you. Twice the amount of machinery prep time? Not profitable.
So, if country A cannot sell you goods, why should country A buy your goods preferably?
The world works differently... And I said that too already a few pages earlier.. if you pay attention when you shop, you will find metric information on packaging of most goods in the USA.
There's only one reason in my opinion why the country hasn't fully switched yet, and that's that Carter had just one term as President. He was the last President who pushed for the total switch, nationally. Internationally that change took already place.