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Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#71

Post by yummyfajitas »

rfrank wrote: post #39
yummyfajitas wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may seem to be getting harder, but in reality it's not. Rank based measures of mobility are stable. Since income inequality is up, absolute mobility has also increased. https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/chettyetalAERPP2014.pdf

"When compared to 24 middle-income and high income countries, the U.S. ranks 16th in the amount of inter-generational earnings mobility. The relatively low level of mobility in the U.S. may arise in part because low-income children in the U.S. tend to have less stable and lower-income families, less secure families, and parents who have less time to devote to their children." http://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/defa…

The numbers you quote do not address the point under discussion at all.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#72

Post by titanomachy »

dragonwriter wrote: post #67
titanomachy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good points. However, the macroeconomic benefits of manufacturing don't necessarily require people to be employed in manufacturing, do they? If America builds enough productive, highly-automated factories, the country is still generating wealth. As long as some of this wealth is captured for the people, then standard of living can increase.

> However, the macroeconomic benefits of manufacturing don't necessarily require people to be employed in manufacturing, do they? "Macroeconomic benefits" as usually measured by aggregate output measures, clearly not. Distributional benefits, OTOH... well, not a strong requirement. But... > As long as some of this wealth is captured for the people, then standard of living can increase. The challenge is establishing t…

That resistance is strong, but not universally or globally. It's not the kind of social innovation likely to come from America. But that doesn't mean it's a doomed prospect at the outset.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#73

Post by duaneb »

choicewords wrote: post #69
steven777400 wrote: post #19

The memory is that these old factory/manufacturing jobs were high paying (middle class), secure, and accessible to people of low intellect, minimal education, and limited social grace. The proposed replacements "caregivers, retail workers and customer-service representatives" are significantly lower wage and also require more "EQ" that the working man of the prior generation didn't need. The voters these politicians…

The reality is there is still plenty of hard, material stuff that needs to be made. Just look at SpaceX. It's cool, it's tech and it is most certainly hard material science. We won't be able to make it with just soft skills and software. Improving our material lives (including not wasting resources) matters.

Hard material science is light years from manufacturing jobs.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#74

Post by titanomachy »

jfoutz wrote: post #70
titanomachy wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments employ experts in myriad capacities. Some of these experts achieved their position through actual merit rather than successful politicking. I think many politicians, despite appearances, actually listen to these expert advisers. It takes a generalist to integrate information from disparate domains of expertise and make a decision. It takes a political expert to establish public support for the decision an…

I agree, but there's an inherent dilution. It's not hard to imagine and expert proposing something really innovative, that slowly turns into "more manufacturing jobs". Each step dilutes an idea down to something that both sides can understand. The final step is generalists convincing other generalists, politicking. Maybe good parts stick, maybe not. I have frustrations. Things work ok, i guess. I don't have a grand a…

> I don't have a grand alternative.

Me neither. It would be better if all sides trusted experts more, but that seems to be the opposite direction from where we're heading. Denouncing experts seems to be a wellspring of political capital these days.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#76

Post by hasbroslasher »

golergka wrote: post #38
steven777400 wrote: post #19

The memory is that these old factory/manufacturing jobs were high paying (middle class), secure, and accessible to people of low intellect, minimal education, and limited social grace. The proposed replacements "caregivers, retail workers and customer-service representatives" are significantly lower wage and also require more "EQ" that the working man of the prior generation didn't need. The voters these politicians…

> actively resisted it Honest question. Is this a reality or a degrading stereotype?

Yes, it is real. I'm from a small town in Montana with a strong timber industry presence, and loads of people stick around, largely because their parents want them to stay or because they don't want to leave everything they know. Often times, there's no choice because the kids didn't do well enough to go to "coastal school," nor could they or their parents afford it if they did.

People from cities exhibit this kind of behavior too, but for some reason no one talks about it as negatively as they talk about staying in your shitty rural town after high school.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#77

Post by philipkglass »

akiselev wrote: post #54
philipkglass wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a finite demand for manufactured goods too. If anything, the price elasticity for manufactured goods seems likely to be lesser than that for restaurant meals; I'd eat out more often if it cost less, but I'm not going to buy additional dishwashers or dining tables for my house no matter how cheap they get. I'm not going to buy light bulbs or printers faster than they need replacement due to failure. With laser…

You're correct that manufacturing too has a finite demand but it still has an order of magnitude more potential than the service industry. The vast majority of service jobs are extremely local or tied to a language/region/jurisdiction so those jobs have very little to export. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the world is not yet affluent enough to afford most luxury manufactured goods so as the population gets wealthi…

I see a lot of growth potential for manufactured goods if you measure them in mass. I'm not sure there's great growth potential if you measure them in money. Every wave of industrial relocation so far has overtopped the previous one by lowering costs. China's steelmakers are exporting more tonnes of steel than US steelmakers did 50 years ago, but they're also commanding significantly less money per tonne. For that matter, if poor countries are going to get wealthier but buy manufactured goods from abroad, where is their new wealth coming from if not manufacturing or services?

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#78

Post by madengr »

sithadmin wrote: post #53
golergka wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> actively resisted it Honest question. Is this a reality or a degrading stereotype?

It's very much a common reality among working-class families of nearly any ethnic background in the USA. I have plenty of friends and some non-intermediate family members that have reported that their friends and family actively discouraged continuing their education after highschool for one reason or another. In some cases, reasons like "you'll earn more working an honest trade", and "college debt is a scam" are giv…

My anecdotes are the opposite. Usually the parents had a job they hated (manufacturing or service sector), and encouraged their kids to attend college.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#79

Post by Animats »

helloworld wrote: post #10

I wasn't aware of these facts: -- [T]here can be no revival of American manufacturing, because there has been no collapse. Because of automation, there are far fewer jobs in factories. But the value of stuff made in America reached a record high in the first quarter of 2016, even after adjusting for inflation. -- [T]here were 64,000 steelworkers in America last year, and 820,000 home health aides.... Soon, we will be…

Here's the US table of employment by category.[1] (I keep mentioning this table in discussions of employment.) 14% of the workforce makes all the stuff. That's manufacturing, mining, construction, and agriculture. 14%. US manufacturing employment peaked in 1979. Manufacturing output is at peak now.

That 14% number was about 50% in 1950, and maybe 90% in 1900. That's how much things have changed.

As for imports, China's government has decided that it is going to reduce its imports from the rest of the world. This is part of the "China 2025" program announced by Li Keqiang in 2015.[2] The US may have to reduce its imports from China to keep up. At most, though, this will add a few percent to manufacturing employment.

[1] http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm [2] http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/922394.shtml

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#80

Post by SkyMarshal »

Andy Grove spent the last decade or so of his life crusading about this. He framed the problem as, Silicon Valley invests a great deal in creating innovation, but outsources the scaling of it. Even though that may be in the short term best interests of the companies doing the outsourcing, both they and the country lose out on the economic growth, jobs, and crucial institutional knowledge that scaling innovations brings. And the knowledge transfer to other countries better enables them to continue building on the original innovation, developing their own capacity for original innovation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Grove#Preference_for_a_...

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