Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#201

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 12:33 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #179

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. For whom? > 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. The most competitive manufacturing though is "blast-furnace-to-car vertically integrated", just not within the same factory (which it wa…

For whom is manufacturing lucrative? The capital owners. Isn't that why we had all those labour disputes and replacement of labour with capital? As others have been pointing out this is mentioned in the article: "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".

Is China better, or just cheaper, due to starting from a low wage baseline in a blank slate with few environmental or worker protections?

Is it just an advantage from not having yet depleted its natural resources? The UK steel industry was built near iron and coal mines, almost all of which are now closed.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#202

Post by piva00 » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 12:40 PM UTC

_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.

Why not go a little further and call it a structured asset-backed Ponzi scheme? It sounds more daunting, novelty and official.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#203

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 12:42 PM UTC

drewrv wrote: post #15

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…

That was basically Mitt Romney's whole pitch.

[deleted]

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#204

Post by bigger_cheese » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 12:45 PM UTC

wycx wrote: post #194

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.

The technical capability is there but my understanding is the sales volume is not present for speciality grades to be profitable.

It is basically an economy of scale problem unless you make specialised grades in large amounts (thousands of Tonnes) it is not economical. The market for that volume is not there.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#205

Post by imtringued » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 12:48 PM UTC

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

It doesn't matter how it's supposed to work. If it produces the wrong results then that's how it works in reality. After all if it's not working how it's supposed to work why not change it? If nobody is going to fix it that means the true intention was to produce that "wrong" result in the first place.

H1Bs are bound to the employer and a transfer costs $1k - $3k in legal fees. There's even an optional premium fee to ensure that it will be processed within two weeks instead of two to six months. Sure the new employer may cover this but it's obviously going to be priced in the salary.

Such a system pressures the employee to stick with their current employer even though it may be a suboptimal choice.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#206

Post by jameshart » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 12:55 PM UTC

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…

You have an over-narrow concept of 'services'. A large part of 'service' wealth creation happens in management of supply chains (import/export, sales, marketing, logistics, right down to shelf stacking and warehouse workers) which scale alongside industrial demand, not population. Overseas manufacturers can't access markets at all without effectively paying service providers to help them distribute their goods. Walmart is, in a way, an exporter of market access services.

That's even before you consider service industries that create intellectual property which scale with global laziness and boredom, or the finance industry which provides services that scale with global economic activity, rather than local population.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#207

Post by jackcosgrove » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 1:01 PM UTC

douche wrote: post #183

vacri wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my favourite counter to millenials complaining about how booomers had jobs handed to them on a platter. "What, you want an unfulfilling factory job doing the same mundane thing day in, day out, probably on your feet, and probably without climate control? And if you're a woman, explicitly get paid less for it?" The boomers may have had a higher employment rate, but they weren't design consultants and business…

I've done both blue-collar, shitty industrial jobs and white-collar cushy programming jobs. If they both paid the same, I'd be very tempted to take the blue-collar job. There's something very fulfilling about working with your hands and producing something tangible. As bad as turning wrenches or pumping a grease gun can be, days of endless meetings with obtuse stakeholders or perpetual yak-shaving aren't any better.

Bodies break down faster than minds. Ceterus paribus an office worker will have a longer career than a factory worker because their mind will still be sharp when the factory worker has arthritis.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#208

Post by hasenj » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 1:03 PM UTC

andrewfong wrote: post #32

Is there some dystopian novel where the majority of workers spend their time taking CAPTCHAs? I almost expect it to happen, as a way to keep the masses occupied in a way that's difficult to automate.

That will either be automated, or those workers job would actually be doing that to train the AI that will solve the captcha.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#209

Post by jackcosgrove » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 1:04 PM UTC

thesmallestcat wrote: post #49

golergka wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

The implication that "coastal" people value education more is also a crude stereotype.

Re: Why Are Politicians So Obsessed with Manufacturing?

#210

Post by brightball » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 1:05 PM UTC

mehwoot wrote: post #171

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…

From the article: The value of stuff made in America reached a record high in the first quarter of 2016, even after adjusting for inflation. It's not that the U.S. doesn't make things anymore, it's that there aren't endless jobs in making things.

There are. If there weren't those jobs wouldn't exist in other countries.