Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 288 posts

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

#251

Post by s73ver »

pm90 wrote: post #16
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…

American labor was fucked anyways, Globalism only accelerated trends that would have happened anyhow. From a long term perspective, its absolutely amazing that the US has managed to export all the factory level jobs to other countries and yet managed to keep the better paying jobs back here in the states. The current lack of (low skilled) jobs in manufacturing has made it clear to those Americans willing to listen: t…

"they (or their children) need to acquire those skills that make them employable in the 21st century"

Who's going to pay for that? Who's going to pay the mortgage while they go back to school? This is, of course, not even getting into the rampant agism in a lot of industries, and that many of these people are over 40.

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

#252

Post by s73ver »

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…

"a 50% pay cut is still a fantastic wage (globally relative)."

I'm not interested in relative to global. I'm interested in relative to where I live. Cause, you know, that's where I have to pay rent and buy food.

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

#253

Post by s73ver »

flamedoge wrote: post #178
specialp wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not good that comments like this against the group think are voted down. I certainly do not want my wages to go down, and I am not sure yet that globalization is good in the long run. When equilibrium is reached, in a world with infinite resources and space we would all benefit this is true. But in our current situation there will be more demand for limited natural resources if everyone is living at the same sta…

Wages rarely go down, they just replace you. I'm mixed about wages going down. It generally points to cost of computing and developing going down, so it may discourage holding traditional jobs down and encourage people to do more creative things because computing is cheaper.

"so it may discourage holding traditional jobs down and encourage people to do more creative things because computing is cheaper."

It's hard to do creative things when you have to work the gig economy all day to barely afford a cardboard box to sleep in at night.

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

#254

Post by s73ver »

cubano wrote: post #47
ryanmarsh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> continue as a global technological powerhouse (unless it gets fucked by Trumpism and populism of course). Capitalism breathes credit, credit is a function of belief in the future. I'm curious how much protectionism is necessary at home to maintain necessary levels of belief in the future. > they (or their children) need to acquire those skills that make them employable in the 21st century How? What skills are neces…

Gaining skills is just a matter of effort nowadays as everything anyone needs to learn to do pretty much anything is of course just clicks away. I think that's the real change that needs to be addressed...self directed learning should be the future, and the need for formal education is dying

Except that while you do that, you still need to provide for your family.

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

#255

Post by stouset »

kcorbitt wrote: post #134
aswanson wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just doing the numbers from a stat standpoint, assuming you need to be in the top 2 percent of intelligence to code, there is a latent pool of 42 million developers in China/India waiting for their "go" signal. Best thing to do imo is hoard and deploy money to investments, because capital is set up to clean labors clock in the coming decades.

Personally, I'm hedging my bets by living lean and investing every spare dollar while I'm making hay at potentially unsustainably high wages. I'm also continuing to develop myself professionally, and preparing to move to a lower-CoL country in the future if that ends up making sense. If everything goes well, I'll have the option to retire young and rich. If the world goes pear-shaped, hopefully at least one of those…

This is pretty well-trodden personal finance advice.

When money is generally cheap and easy to come by, save instead of spend. When money is tight and hard to come by, spend. It's "buy low, sell high" applied to personal savings.

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

#256

Post by stouset »

bgee wrote: post #143
Akkuma wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is overestimating how qualified the coders are in the east compared to their western peers. Everyone I've known from Hong Kong decried the education of mainland China. They said the education comes down to repeating book knowledge, so just memorization, and the inability to handle scenarios not covered by that. I'll be more concerned once leading technologies that are used by the rest of the world come o…

> Everyone I've known from Hong Kong decried the education of mainland China. I'm not surprised such comment came out from someone in Hong Kong but the truth is the education system in Hong Kong is even more "comes down to repeating book knowledge, so just memorization". Actually, most East Asian education systems have a heavy focus on "book knowledge, so just memorization". Lack of innovation? Just look at Japan. Di…

Having been educated in America, I'm not so certain this doesn't describe my own experience as well, for the majority of my classes.

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

#257

Post by MaysonL »

mtempm wrote: post #179
silverbax88 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Globalism is, and will continue to, happen no matter what the US does. The US needs to figure out how to make it work for the long term. Protectionism won't work. You might as well be a cooper or haberdasher trying to pass laws to keep people using barrels and hats. People keep trying to either spin globalism as evil or good, but it's neither. It's just something that was going to happen no matter what. The US does n…

Protectionism has proven to work well in some cases in history. You are also misunderstanding by conflating globalism with free trade. The two are related, but not the same. You can be for free trade of goods and services, but not for unelected central powers (i.e. an EU, a central bank). Mainstream academic economists are typically free trade, but we have no science to test this theory so just br careful about drink…

> Protectionism has proven to work well in some cases in history.

It's worked pretty well here for doctors and pharma.

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

#258

Post by bduerst »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #172
bduerst wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because American's romanticize manufacturing for some reason. They love the idea of someone doing back-breaking labor on a factory floor line, but hate the idea of someone working retail in air conditioning.

Those romanticized factory jobs were by and large protected by unions and offered better pay and pensions than any other blue collar occupation.

Which is ironic, considering the party claiming to want to bring back manufacturing jobs is also the party that busted the unions.

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

#259

Post by danderino »

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…

You rather bolster inefficient manufacturing processes and have Chinese workers/whole populace fucked so some more Americans can have better living standards?

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

#260

Post by danderino »

jliptzin wrote: post #115
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…

This is basically what happens when capitalism is allowed to run wild. Massive industries consolidate into a few major players who have immense power over their workers. In this case, manufacturers realized that it's more economical to manufacture in China than in the US so that's what they've been doing. Simple economics. They owe nothing to the workers, only the shareholders. The manufacturing centers of the Americ…

> In this case, manufacturers realized that it's more economical to manufacture in China than in the US so that's what they've been doing. Simple economics.

This is absolutely a good thing.

Why would you encourage inefficient trade?

Are Americans somehow more deserving of jobs than Chinese ones?

Post reply on HN