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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?

#191

Post by mattmanser »

cconcepts wrote: post #180
coldtea wrote: post #164

> Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing? Because when the shit comes to shove and the global economy takes a nosedive or your previous friendly third world manufactures give you the finger, having a "service industry" is worth nothing, but being able to produce the actual shit your businesses design and sell/export, matters. Of course for the US this might be less so, because they can always force, by di…

For a relatively angry-toned comment, I feel you hit the nail on the head.

If you or the OP had actually read the article, you'd know that isn't the case:

From an economic perspective, however, there 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. The present moment, in other words, is the most productive in the nation’s history.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#192

Post by digi_owl »

_pmf_ wrote: post #178
pjc50 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Service industry" includes financial services, which have been hugely lucrative to the West. It's a globally integrated supply chain, and cannot be otherwise. There is no way countries are going back to a blast-furnace-to-car vertically integrated manufacturing world. It costs far too much and you couldn't even do it back when Ford tried it. He needed to import rubber, modern cars need to import chips. The only non-…

> "Service industry" includes financial services, which have been hugely lucrative to the West. If you buy into the philosophy that it is something other than an elaborate global Ponzi scheme.

Ol' Marx saw capitalism as a 3 way standoff between workers, industrial capitalists, and financial capitalists. And he lamented that while the industrial capitalists would in the long run be better off siding with the workers, they would invariably side with financial capitalists until it was too late.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#193

Post by clarry »

walshemj wrote: post #187
mamon wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "unskilled". I would say that even if software developer does not have a degree he or she still needs to be quite smart. Now imagine typical blue collar worker having IQ below 100, who dropped from high school (as they often do) learning advanced technical concepts like network protocols, dozen of JS frameworks, not to mention higher order functions and macros. That's the issue with technical advancements: the…

Not all "Blue" collar jobs are unskilled and some do require intelligence for example an experienced machinist or technician may know as much if not more than the "Profesional"

But even there the trend is towards making the "blue collar" machinist a mere button pusher & tool bit changer while the machining process is planned and the machine programmed elsewhere. Perhaps by a former machinist now sitting in an office. I can only imagine it going more and more in this direction with improved CAD & CAM tools that enable people without any machining experience to program the machines. I don't have a problem with this development.

It can be quite a depressing sight to take a tour at the machine shop floor where machinists sit next to their CNC machines, maybe wiping coolant off of pieces and putting them in boxes, maybe just reading a comic..

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#194

Post by wycx »

bigger_cheese wrote: post #134

I work at a steelworks in Australia. The economic conditions are not identical to America but a lot of the same pain exists. Australia also has worse Anti-dumping protections then the US. China is dumping steel (i.e selling below cost) into our market - see: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-28/china-trade-arrangemen... The government deciding to build a submarine fleet 'in Australia' was a huge election issue. The…

Are any specialty steels (tool steels, etc.) made in Australia, or do we just make low carbon structural steel and a little alloy steel?

When I call up steel suppliers and ask if they have any maraging steel, they just laugh at me.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#195

Post by brianwawok »

JBReefer wrote: post #115
brianwawok wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can bring in h1b nurses for half pay.

That's not how that system works

Have you been to a nursing home lately? I see a lot of nurses that are fresh in the country. Not sure if h1b or work visa or what. There is definitely some shady things going on around foreign nurses in nursing homes.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#196

Post by mtbcoder »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #124
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…

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.

I would argue this is done more as a psychological status symbol. If goods such as furniture and appliances are so cheap that your "average joe" can buy the latest appliance on a whim, the symbolism becomes diluted and your friends will be less inclined to make frequent purchases for these items. They will seek out new status symbols.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#197

Post by mtbcoder »

BurningFrog wrote: post #137
jfoutz wrote: post #35

Politicians are amateurs. I don't mean that in a pejorative way. Politicians are experts at politics, they can achieve consensus in seemingly impossible circumstances. If you pick a random politician, and ask them to design a transmission, or perform open heart surgery, they'd do as poorly as you or me. Yes, there are politicians from all walks of life, and you can probably find a surgeon politician. In general, the…

I'd say the core skill of politicians is to get elected. Writing good laws is not entirely unimportant, but it is a much smaller factor. And, as you say, they have experts to help out with that stuff.

> I'd say the core skill of politicians is to get elected.

In the US, this could easily be mitigated with shorter campaign cycles.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#198

Post by mohamedattahri »

pjc50 wrote: post #167
coldtea wrote: post #164

> Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing? Because when the shit comes to shove and the global economy takes a nosedive or your previous friendly third world manufactures give you the finger, having a "service industry" is worth nothing, but being able to produce the actual shit your businesses design and sell/export, matters. Of course for the US this might be less so, because they can always force, by di…

"Service industry" includes financial services, which have been hugely lucrative to the West. It's a globally integrated supply chain, and cannot be otherwise. There is no way countries are going back to a blast-furnace-to-car vertically integrated manufacturing world. It costs far too much and you couldn't even do it back when Ford tried it. He needed to import rubber, modern cars need to import chips. The only non-…

> The only non-globalised manufacturing chain is defence, which is instead prohibitively expensive.

It actually is globalised. Things may be assembled in the US, but many components are imported from France, UK, Germany, Taiwan, etc.

> Manufacturing is popular because it's perceived as a source of blue-collar jobs

Totally agree. I would add that in the case of Germany, the manufacturing of industrial machines is very different in nature and volume from that of consumer products, etc.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#199

Post by mikekchar »

mattmanser wrote: post #191
cconcepts wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a relatively angry-toned comment, I feel you hit the nail on the head.

If you or the OP had actually read the article, you'd know that isn't the case: From an economic perspective, however, there 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. The present moment, in ot…

I'm not sure there is such a disconnect as you suggest. While value has increased, I might posit that the value is due to the fact that the US focuses on the value-added side of the equation. So if the US produces cars, it doesn't produce the Daihatsus or the Fiats of the world. They focus on $40K cars. It took me moving to Japan to realise that you can buy a perfectly good car for under $10K.

If the bottom falls out, the US may find that there are no customers for their comparative luxury goods and no US citizen willing to work for little enough to be competitive with anything else.

I am, of course, an random guy on the internet and my observations are worth slightly less than that, so who knows ;-)

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#200

Post by jameshart »

rfrank wrote: post #18
hueving wrote: post #4

Manufacturing is a target because it's easy for people to see concrete results. They can point at something and say, "we made that", and it tends to generate some sense of pride. The same doesn't really apply for service industries or innovation in the service industries: "we produced consumer surplus by lowering transportation costs via automation" doesn't roll off the tongue as well. :) The same problem exists for…

Manufacturing also provides jobs for both high and low skill workers. As such can be seen as more valuable to a community than say, a software company that only hires engineers and a CS center in a different state. Manufacturing was one of the best roads for a low skill worker to earn good money and move up the rung economically - something that only seems to be getting harder as time goes on.

I've seen many people work their way up within IT from help desk to sysadmin to ops to management to CIO. Some successfully transition into development. Manufacturing doesn't have the monopoly on on-the-job skill-driven mobility.
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