Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#51

Post by sbov » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:02 PM UTC

david-cako wrote: post #34

ryanmarsh wrote: post #9

> Cook told "60 Minutes” in 2015. “I mean, you can take every tool and die maker in the United States and probably put them in a room that we’re currently sitting in. In China, you would have to have multiple football fields.” In that interview he also said that the jobs weren't coming back. This is one of the most powerful statements uttered on American labor and employment trends in recent memory. I have shared thi…

What's the answer? Protectionism? That's the thing I don't get, so many people will advocate "fewer regulations", yet are perfectly content with prohibitive tariffs from the place that allows people living in section 8 to afford iPhones. You're 100% right, but i just don't see a good answer other than coming to terms with the fact that cheap labour overseas and automation WILL back us into UBI in the very near future…

But it's not completely a labor play. Some of it is to skirt environmental protections. I'm not going to assume, but if you consider yourself both a globalist and an environmentalist, how do you personally resolve those two beliefs? Anyone reading this who does, how do you resolve those beliefs?

I can vote for all the environmental protections that I want, but what good does that do if it just forces companies to manufacture goods in places that have worse environmental protections than we do?

I ask this as someone who believes in both movements, and don't have a great answer to resolve this internal conflict.

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#52

Post by alexbeloi » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:03 PM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #13

It's so incredibly obvious that the best course of action is to let all these companies bring home all those foreign revenues so long as a significant portion of it is reinvested in the US is a reasonable period of time, excluding investments in financial instruments (stocks and bonds) and non-productive assets like land. Any money that is stuck abroad will be reinvested abroad, making foreign economies more competit…

Reducing/removing taxes from abroad just incentivizes the firm to move as much of their profit abroad as possible, leaving nothing but domestic holding companies that report losses on behalf of their profitable overseas subsidiaries.

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#53

Post by mikeyouse » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:05 PM UTC

pm90 wrote: post #23

danm07 wrote: post #14

Anyone else find it odd that all these headlines states only how much these companies are going to spend on manufacturing, but none of them say what they're actually going to be making?

Is it really that odd? Its a way for companies to prevent getting hit by a Trump tweet that deplores them for not hiring enough Americans. So now, everyone wants to portray any US investment they make, any US workers they hire, loudly and with big but vague/unspecific numbers.

Exactly this, which is also why every single automaker now publicly announces their retooling costs and shift changes for new model years. "We're spending $4B to improve manufacturing and hiring 10,000 workers" is a politically friendly headline even if you've done the same thing every year for the past few decades.

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#54

Post by carsongross » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:06 PM UTC

theptip wrote: post #50

ryanmarsh wrote: post #9

> Cook told "60 Minutes” in 2015. “I mean, you can take every tool and die maker in the United States and probably put them in a room that we’re currently sitting in. In China, you would have to have multiple football fields.” In that interview he also said that the jobs weren't coming back. This is one of the most powerful statements uttered on American labor and employment trends in recent memory. I have shared thi…

Trade has certainly fucked _some_ workers. But it helped others; it's just a lot harder to see the ways in which the average American worker is better off, because the benefits of trade are spread across the economy, and the costs are concentrated among a smaller number of individuals. Here's a libertarian making this point: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2017/04/does_trade_with.... "Using novel data on firms fr…

> But it's not as cut and dried as your last paragraph suggests.

It was the libertarians and liberal economic establishment who claimed it was cut and dried that unrestricted free trade was better for all Americans. Anyone who objected (Buchanan, Perot, now Trump) was obviously stupid, and probably racist.

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#55

Post by saimiam » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:07 PM UTC

david-cako wrote: post #34

ryanmarsh wrote: post #9

> Cook told "60 Minutes” in 2015. “I mean, you can take every tool and die maker in the United States and probably put them in a room that we’re currently sitting in. In China, you would have to have multiple football fields.” In that interview he also said that the jobs weren't coming back. This is one of the most powerful statements uttered on American labor and employment trends in recent memory. I have shared thi…

What's the answer? Protectionism? That's the thing I don't get, so many people will advocate "fewer regulations", yet are perfectly content with prohibitive tariffs from the place that allows people living in section 8 to afford iPhones. You're 100% right, but i just don't see a good answer other than coming to terms with the fact that cheap labour overseas and automation WILL back us into UBI in the very near future…

> What's the answer? Protectionism?

If you have the means, invest with the wealth makers. I'd buy into SPY or FANG and let these CEOs do the work for me while I relocate to a low CoL location.

Does it scale? Probably not. I honestly can't think of any other way to make ends meet one my skills become moot.

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#56

Post by ajross » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:08 PM UTC

theptip wrote: post #50

ryanmarsh wrote: post #9

> Cook told "60 Minutes” in 2015. “I mean, you can take every tool and die maker in the United States and probably put them in a room that we’re currently sitting in. In China, you would have to have multiple football fields.” In that interview he also said that the jobs weren't coming back. This is one of the most powerful statements uttered on American labor and employment trends in recent memory. I have shared thi…

Trade has certainly fucked _some_ workers. But it helped others; it's just a lot harder to see the ways in which the average American worker is better off, because the benefits of trade are spread across the economy, and the costs are concentrated among a smaller number of individuals. Here's a libertarian making this point: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2017/04/does_trade_with.... "Using novel data on firms fr…

That's exactly the right frame. Globalism "totally fucked" the american worker in the sense that the western working class broadly hasn't seen any net improvement in quality of life over the last two decades or so. Certainly nothing to compare with the gains seen in the western professional classes.

Globalism also quite literally lifted hundreds of millions of non-western (mostly, not exclusively chinese) workers out of destitution and into the middle class.

Let's keep some perspective on this, please. We can certainly do better with equality of opportunity here in the US, but let's check that privilege a little before demanding to unwind all the gains made elsewhere. To the rest of the world, the 1960's were a nightmare, not a golden age.

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#57

Post by nebabyte » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:08 PM UTC

sbov wrote: post #51

david-cako wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the answer? Protectionism? That's the thing I don't get, so many people will advocate "fewer regulations", yet are perfectly content with prohibitive tariffs from the place that allows people living in section 8 to afford iPhones. You're 100% right, but i just don't see a good answer other than coming to terms with the fact that cheap labour overseas and automation WILL back us into UBI in the very near future…

But it's not completely a labor play. Some of it is to skirt environmental protections. I'm not going to assume, but if you consider yourself both a globalist and an environmentalist, how do you personally resolve those two beliefs? Anyone reading this who does, how do you resolve those beliefs? I can vote for all the environmental protections that I want, but what good does that do if it just forces companies to man…

Stop trying to handle env at the domestic level; measures only work at an international level (UN regulations or tariffs/sanctions or whatever).

But that's for later society (ones with people with stable livelihoods) to figure out, not currently on the table. If you allow yourself to be paralyzed by one issue tapping into the next, you'll deadlock yourself. One issue at a time. The environment is the least of the american worker's immediate concerns anyways, you might as well save your breath in that context.

(Yes, the environment is fucked, "sooner the better" etc - but that's idealism, not pragmatism, and guess which by which one the world actually turns. Bringing up noise just impairs yourself to communicating with the public.)

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#58

Post by jcmoscon » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:12 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #56

theptip wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trade has certainly fucked _some_ workers. But it helped others; it's just a lot harder to see the ways in which the average American worker is better off, because the benefits of trade are spread across the economy, and the costs are concentrated among a smaller number of individuals. Here's a libertarian making this point: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2017/04/does_trade_with.... "Using novel data on firms fr…

That's exactly the right frame. Globalism "totally fucked" the american worker in the sense that the western working class broadly hasn't seen any net improvement in quality of life over the last two decades or so. Certainly nothing to compare with the gains seen in the western professional classes. Globalism also quite literally lifted hundreds of millions of non-western (mostly, not exclusively chinese) workers out…

>Globalism also quite literally lifted hundreds of millions of non-western (mostly, not exclusively chinese) workers out of destitution and into the middle class. Do you know how the "lifted" the poor to middle class in Brazil? By redefining what is middle class. This is all left wing bs my friend!

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#59

Post by ianceicys » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:13 PM UTC

imron wrote: post #33

ianceicys wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debt. Look at the financials in China and you'll see a huge bubble that's just beginning to burst. Going to take a year to fully materialize but it will be ugly.

People have been making that same claim for a couple of decades already [0], and it still hasn't happened. I mean, I'm sure it will happen eventually and then all the naysayers will be 'right', but not really (broken clock, twice a day, yadda, yadda, yadda). 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coming_Collapse_of_China

Just remember people said the housing crisis would never happen in the US.

'"Someone Is Blowing Up": RBC Warns China-Induced Unwinds Are Escalating'

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-04/someone-blowing-rbc...

Just realize it's not all sunshine and rainbows in China.

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#60

Post by module0000 » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:13 PM UTC

ice109 wrote: post #41

no1youknowz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's something else that should shake US and UK highly skilled workers. Our time will soon come as well. In China, they are racing to match and surpass western standards. I would say, they have already matched in some cases. But unlike the west where companies export out to save costs. Companies in China do everything in-house. There will be a time where these 6 figure jobs that some HN users have, will go down by…

what exactly is the problem with this? a 50% pay cut is still a fantastic wage (globally relative). what exactly is wrong with the standard of living going up in other places while ours gets a little worse? also if the tech sector really loses half of it earning power the markets that cater to those people will simply deflate. globalization /is/ good in the long run because it brings supply/demand markets to an equil…

The problem with this is people don't like to take a loss, they will never be OK with taking one. Whether it's right or wrong is irrelevant, they wont' like it(the cause) and will rant and rave and possibly "do something about it"(the effect).

tldr; people don't like pay cuts, whether it benefits someone else or not.