The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020 • Hacker News Board

Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#101

Post by norea-armozel » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

ageofwant wrote: post #6

Jobs that are vulnerable to automation are generally not worth keeping. That's no comfort to those loosing them though. Science fiction from the 60's painted a world where people would lounge around in their airships hopping between beaches, and mountains and parties while robots took care of everything and the lord scientists and engineers that gifted the wold with such plenty smiled benevolently down on the citizen…

It's always been the problem that the previous social orders tried to excuse as a natural consequence. Be it divinely ordained or a material necessity (calling the rich job creators when in practice their ventures act as a conduit for which demand is satisfied). Folks like Adam Smith and David Ricardo were acutely aware of this (go back further still to Thomas Aquinas and the scholastics for just price theory) problem but people continue to clutch pearls whenever any distributionist notions are entertained. It seems to me that it's time to push back hard against anti-distributionist (be they anti-Marxists or otherwise) because it's gotten to a point that the next generation after the Millennials may be poorer than them.

Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#102

Post by MR4D » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 5:26 PM UTC

throwaway2016a wrote: post #7

I haven't been myself but my wife is a process engineer and had to go to China to install and train people on a new machine so this is only second hand... But one of the reasons China is so good at manufacturing is because everything is in one place (or at least clusters)... need 10,000 of an Integrated Circuit? The company that makes it is literally down the street. Need some raw materials? That's down the other str…

The oil & gas industry in Texas is just like that. Someone else mentioned Silicon Valley too.

We need to figure out how to expand this to other regions and industries.

Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#103

Post by 0xcde4c3db » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 5:31 PM UTC

jaekwon wrote: post #55

We're not even using the right metric system, so our export abilities are crippled, right? I remember trying to find parts for my 3d printer in the US.

Most stuff is at least secondarily labeled in metric units. In many cases the metric measurement is actually the authoritative one in the specifications and contracts, even when it's in smaller print or parentheses on the package.

Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#104

Post by maxerickson » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 5:33 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #94

maxerickson wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I wrote is perfectly compatible with your pedantry. "We should also start"... Obviously I didn't go on and on about it, but it is implied there that attitudes would need to change.

You seem to have read a "No, we shouldn't, because..." into my post that wasn't there. My point was directly that it is, in fact, not a policy failure in the usual sense since it is working both as policy makers and voters intend, and, on a deeper level, that --given that people who, in fact, benefit from housing price appreciation are overrepresented among those who actually vote -- changing this is likely to requir…

I simply didn't state that it is a policy failure.

I said We should also start treating rising housing prices as a policy failure.

It's a prescription for what society should do, not an assessment of whether current policy aligns with voter wishes.

In the comment I replied to initially, rising prices are treated as a measure of economic success. Treating them as a policy failure would contrast with that current attitude...

Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#105

Post by throwanem » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 5:40 PM UTC

malka wrote: post #83

fennecfoxen wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a place that produces no food and has to import 100% of what is needed to survive like, say, New York City? Sure! No, the rooftop garden on the Park Slope Whole Foods does not count.

Ny is not in a position where the people whom feed it could use it as a leverage in diplomatic relationships

'Who feed it', not 'whom'. The latter is the objective case of the pronoun, parallel to e.g. "them"; just as we wouldn't say "them feed it", we wouldn't say "whom feed it", either.

Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#106

Post by blakeyrat » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 5:44 PM UTC

scottm84 wrote: post #24

throwaway2016a wrote: post #7

I haven't been myself but my wife is a process engineer and had to go to China to install and train people on a new machine so this is only second hand... But one of the reasons China is so good at manufacturing is because everything is in one place (or at least clusters)... need 10,000 of an Integrated Circuit? The company that makes it is literally down the street. Need some raw materials? That's down the other str…

Seattle is this way. Washington state has an airplane factory in the woods and a car fiber (BMW) plant out in the desert. In the city you can find businesses to build anything.

The big question is what happens when the Chinese government puts a high priority on getting into aerospace and tries to replicate their own 787s or A-350s.

That said, Boeing's defense contracts might keep is secure regardless of what happens in civil aviation. United Airlines might buy a plane from China (in a decade), but the US Navy certainly wouldn't.

Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#107

Post by redler » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 5:50 PM UTC

brightball wrote: post #52

hacknat wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Although I hope it is true. I don't know if being a manufacturing powerhouse is actually all that exciting anymore. There aren't really that many jobs in manufacturing anymore. Some of Toyota's modern car plants employ a meager 1500 people which is about and order of magnitude decrease from what car plants used to employ. This las election was frustrating for this very reason everybody assumes getting manufacturing…

One of the big perks to manufacturing is that it draws the entire supply chain around it naturally. Even if the manufacturing job itself isn't as abundant, the peripheral jobs that comes with it from shipping materials, producing materials, distribution, sales agreements, logistics, building construction and maintenance...they all provide benefits. With the manufacturing hub overseas all of that's overseas too, which…

Yes, but since China is the manufacturing hub for so much of the world, its local surrounding galaxy of expertise, supply chain, and related resources will exceed the size of such a galaxy built only in the US — especially if the US efforts are by dint of tariffs and related policies, and not economics.

Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#108

Post by carsongross » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 5:51 PM UTC

witty_username wrote: post #99

carsongross wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took two years of economics indoctrination at Cal. Yes, I'm aware of the theory. Suffice to say, I no longer believe that ceteris is paribus.

Why?

Watching the asian economies thrive with mercantilist practices, learning about America's early mercantilist practices, and reading Vox Day, John C. Médaille and Steve Keen on the matter.

Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#109

Post by hackuser » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 6:01 PM UTC

coliveira wrote: post #63

hacknat wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Although I hope it is true. I don't know if being a manufacturing powerhouse is actually all that exciting anymore. There aren't really that many jobs in manufacturing anymore. Some of Toyota's modern car plants employ a meager 1500 people which is about and order of magnitude decrease from what car plants used to employ. This las election was frustrating for this very reason everybody assumes getting manufacturing…

Producing our own food is not exciting either, but would you like to live in a place that produces no food and has to import 100% of what is needed to survive? This is the same thing here. Manufacturing is not a sexy activity anymore, but it is necessary, as long as we still live in a physical (non-virtual) world.

I believe most countries import massive amounts of food, including the U.S. It's much more efficient: Let those who can produce the food most efficiently do that, and you produce whatever you do most efficiently, then you trade. It's called 'comparative advantage' in economics.

Trade is necessary for the wealth of modern economies. Self-sufficiency is North Korea's approach.

Re: The U.S. Will Surpass China as the No. 1 Country for Manufacturing by 2020

#110

Post by mywittyname » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 6:15 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #25

maxerickson wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should also start treating rising housing prices as a policy failure.

What about inflation? Why would anyone buy land if it was guaranteed to depreciate. I'd be better off renting from someone else losing money.

Land already does depreciate to a degree, because most places levy property taxes on land. People don't realize capital losses when they sell because the paper value of the land likely increased. But it's completely possible to experience a net-loss holding land over a long-term, even if it is sold for a profit.