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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?

#121

Post by hasbroslasher »

bluedino wrote: post #99
hasbroslasher wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

>> 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. We've really fallen as Americans, too eager to stick in one place. 2-3 generations ago many of our ancestors left everything they had in their home country to come here with nothing more than the money in their pockets and shirt on their back.

True. Not saying it's good, just providing some pathology.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#123

Post by Houshalter »

jdietrich wrote: post #114
dragonwriter wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of service are personal services (the thing you are servicing is the customer), and categories of personal service expand and contract with, essentially, fashion. Service can literally be created out of thin air.

Personal trainers, nail artists, psychotherapists, tour guides, social media consultants, maids, window cleaners, YouTubers, Mariachi bands, pet groomers, translators, golf instructors...

And who is going to pay for those services? All those services are for the rich upper classes that can afford them. Your servant can't afford her own servant.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#124

Post by Turing_Machine »

philipkglass wrote: post #23
Houshalter wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there aren't a finite number of factories. If more factory work gets automated, then it will reduce the cost of building more factories and producing even more goods. Whereas service jobs seem more finite. There is only a finite demand for burgers or shelf stockers, unless you increase the population. I really don't understand how a mostly service based economy is sustainable. In any case, the service based jobs…

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…

Perhaps you wouldn't, but I do know people who regularly change out all their furniture and appliances for newer models that have more bells and whistles and/or are more "fashionable".

Would they do it every single year if the furniture and appliances got cheap enough? IMO, yes.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#125

Post by Turing_Machine »

guyzero wrote: post #42
nickbauman wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why this is being down-voted: it's pretty well established that service economies have limited potential to export or achieve economies of scale, and thus unable to benefit from expanding global trade.

The plus side of service economies is that they're a lot harder to outsource - you can't open a Manilla call-center to handle a nursing home.

If your local hospital doesn't have a vastly disproportionate number of nurses from the Philippines, it is... atypical.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#126

Post by Turing_Machine »

jdietrich wrote: post #114
dragonwriter wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of service are personal services (the thing you are servicing is the customer), and categories of personal service expand and contract with, essentially, fashion. Service can literally be created out of thin air.

Personal trainers, nail artists, psychotherapists, tour guides, social media consultants, maids, window cleaners, YouTubers, Mariachi bands, pet groomers, translators, golf instructors...

This is actually directed at the sibling comment from Houshalter:

I'm pretty sure that people who aren't members of the "rich upper classes" do make use of most of those services. To take just one as an example, nail salons are actually more common in the poorer parts of town in most cities I've been in.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#128

Post by IndianAstronaut »

Houshalter wrote: post #9
twblalock wrote: post #2

Last week's NYT article on free trade was pretty good: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/29/business/economy/more-weal... This is the bottom line on American manufacturing: > From 2000 to 2010, the United States lost some 5.6 million manufacturing jobs, by the government’s calculation. Only 13 percent of those job losses can be explained by trade, according to an analysis by the Center for Business and Economic Research…

But there aren't a finite number of factories. If more factory work gets automated, then it will reduce the cost of building more factories and producing even more goods. Whereas service jobs seem more finite. There is only a finite demand for burgers or shelf stockers, unless you increase the population. I really don't understand how a mostly service based economy is sustainable. In any case, the service based jobs…

Human desires are more infinite though. We all want a bigger house, faster car, cooler phone, a masseuse appointment every week, etc.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#129

Post by joe_the_user »

euyyn wrote: post #86
joe_the_user wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" I don't think it's so much a cultural thing as the high intellectual capabilities required for high paying knowledge jobs. Coding, for example, is just too hard for a huge segment of the population, regardless of how much training they get. " Maybe but it doesn't matter that much. If some breakthrough in education made it easy for 60% of the population to become good quality coders, it would lower the wages of exis…

I work on developer tools, with the explicit long-term goal to automate developers out of their job, and we need all hands we can get :)

1) Developer tools don't really eliminate jobs, not any time soon, not in way a robot can entirely eliminate a line welder position or a self-driving car could eliminate a taxi driver position.

2) Sure, you need all the hands you can get in the current market. Still, you wouldn't hire a ten thousand new developers tomorrow even if ten thousand people as competent as your most competent lead developers showed up on your doorstep tomorrow.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#130

Post by steven777400 »

noobermin wrote: post #106
thesmallestcat wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire comment is an absurd stereotype, and about what you'd expect to find in this forum. Manufacturing jobs weren't (and aren't) filled with a bunch of meatheads coloring by numbers any more than are construction jobs.

>about what you'd expect to find in this forum I disagree, you find a diverse set of viewpoints on HN, this isn't representative. The fact that a distillation of r/theredpill dogma is the top comment is upsetting to me, but then again, I have come to expect that when the number of comments exceeds the number of upvotes on a story, such stories are more of a lightning rod of politicizing than it is substantial convers…

I'm sorry you're upset. I regret my original comment, and trying to remove it, today I found out HN doesn't let users delete comments older than a certain small amount of time.
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