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Microsoft Closes US Surface Factory, Moves Production to China

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Re: Microsoft Closes US Surface Factory, Moves Production to China

#31

Post by tunap »

mmrezaie wrote: post #25
luma wrote: post #22

It isn't mentioned in the article, but I think it would be reasonable to suggest that a 25% tariff on nearly every component that goes into these devices might have impacted the decision. The alternative is to manufacture the device outside of the US and then importing the completed device with no tariff applied. Trump's economic policies are doing the exact thing everyone suggested they would, forcing modern manufac…

It is so sadly funny that the strongest economy in the world can be manipulated so deeply this fast and nothing happens. This makes me want to read more about the Mongols, Romans, and Persians history. This must be a great time to do analytical research on how to measure manipulation of the mainstream opinions about well anything. I like to see some good simulators on the matter. Maybe gaming industry can help!

A fairly modern take on mass manipulation, circa 1964:

The Image: A Guide To Psuedo Events In America

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/159979.The_Image

Re: Microsoft Closes US Surface Factory, Moves Production to China

#32

Post by eksemplar »

mmrezaie wrote: post #25
luma wrote: post #22

It isn't mentioned in the article, but I think it would be reasonable to suggest that a 25% tariff on nearly every component that goes into these devices might have impacted the decision. The alternative is to manufacture the device outside of the US and then importing the completed device with no tariff applied. Trump's economic policies are doing the exact thing everyone suggested they would, forcing modern manufac…

It is so sadly funny that the strongest economy in the world can be manipulated so deeply this fast and nothing happens. This makes me want to read more about the Mongols, Romans, and Persians history. This must be a great time to do analytical research on how to measure manipulation of the mainstream opinions about well anything. I like to see some good simulators on the matter. Maybe gaming industry can help!

There is a lot of historical data on it already. Also in markets much more similar to modern markets, but it’s important to keep in mind that things are different depending on the period.

Today the most valuable parts of a country isn’t raw materials or factories, but know-how, and know-how is a lot more mobile than any other resource.

Romans faced a different threat, in that their biggest resource was the materials and the factories, and because of that, they didn’t want one region to have access to all of it. So they made their weapons in a different place than their food source.

I don’t think protectionism or nationalism has ever really worked though. You mention the Roman Empire, but it thrived the most when it was the most inclusive, tolerating every region and culture as long as they all paid their taxes on time and accepted everyone else. One of the key reasons the Roman Empire originally was so tough on Christianity and Judaism was because the monotheisms didn’t accept others.

I think it’ll be alright though, America has been through worse than Trump and the alt-right.

Re: Microsoft Closes US Surface Factory, Moves Production to China

#33

Post by selimthegrim »

YouAreGreat wrote: post #19
golergka wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem Is there any problem at all, really? Humanity gets more and more efficient at allocating jobs and then at removing the need for human input at all. It's only a problem for people who cannot contribute to humanity in any way but repetitive manual labour, and while I genuinly tried, I can't feel sorry for them. You don't even have to have a high IQ for a different kind of a job - there's a LOT of jobs tha…

Please don't write "humanity" when you mean "capital". It's confusing.

This officially displaces that comment about winning the Putnam as the best one in HN history.

Re: Microsoft Closes US Surface Factory, Moves Production to China

#34

Post by jamespo »

throwaway9870 wrote: post #21
vvanders wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... and john deere tractors Not if they're < 100hp. Those are all made in Japan by Yanmar and rebadged. Ditto New Holland(merged with Ford) which is built by LS. There's not a single company that makes a compact tractor in the US that you can buy.

This is not correct. The Riding Lawn Equipment (RLE) is built in Horicon WI (as are the gators). The compact tractors (one series, two series, etc) are built in Augusta GA. The RLE has almost nothing from Yanmar in it except the diesels use a Yanmar engine. The sub-CUTs and CUTS use a lot of Yanmar components, but are Deere products and assembled by Deere. I have been to both factories and seen the lines in the last…

a throwaway account for this comment?

Re: Microsoft Closes US Surface Factory, Moves Production to China

#35

Post by nailer »

The documentary The Thirteenth mentions Microsoft (among many other companies) US uses prison labour - which allows the company to pay workers a pittance which is viewed as being a type of exploitation. After this was exposed, a few similar companies (Victoria's Secret) stopped doing this. Has Microsoft?

Re: Microsoft Closes US Surface Factory, Moves Production to China

#36

Post by vvanders »

throwaway9870 wrote: post #21
vvanders wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... and john deere tractors Not if they're < 100hp. Those are all made in Japan by Yanmar and rebadged. Ditto New Holland(merged with Ford) which is built by LS. There's not a single company that makes a compact tractor in the US that you can buy.

This is not correct. The Riding Lawn Equipment (RLE) is built in Horicon WI (as are the gators). The compact tractors (one series, two series, etc) are built in Augusta GA. The RLE has almost nothing from Yanmar in it except the diesels use a Yanmar engine. The sub-CUTs and CUTS use a lot of Yanmar components, but are Deere products and assembled by Deere. I have been to both factories and seen the lines in the last…

Not sure why you're talking about RLE and Gators as I was only talking about compact tractors.

You could say the same think about Kubota as the assemble their B/BX models in the US(they however don't outsource the engine).

There's nothing wrong with sourcing an engine/design from another company, however if you do that's definitely not something made completely in America. JD likes to play this up heavily in their marketing and honestly I find it to be a bit disingenuous.

Re: Microsoft Closes US Surface Factory, Moves Production to China

#37

Post by pfranz »

ahartmetz wrote: post #14
greglindahl wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all of the high-value parts of an iPhone are made in the US. Yet there is a lot of hand-wringing about the low-value, labor-intensive work done on iPhones in China.

Which ones? Screen, flash memory, CPU, DRAM, battery come to mind. All of these product types are also manufactured in the US, but not the majority of the output.

I think they're referring to a graph similar to this I've seen over the years (bottom of the page) https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2014/05/22/china-a...

The ones I've seen never show the US as the biggest slice, but China is always a sliver and the chart is usually dominated by Germany, South Korea, and Japan.

Re: Microsoft Closes US Surface Factory, Moves Production to China

#38

Post by goobynight »

wedowhatwedo wrote: post #26
luma wrote: post #22

It isn't mentioned in the article, but I think it would be reasonable to suggest that a 25% tariff on nearly every component that goes into these devices might have impacted the decision. The alternative is to manufacture the device outside of the US and then importing the completed device with no tariff applied. Trump's economic policies are doing the exact thing everyone suggested they would, forcing modern manufac…

It isn't mentioned in the article, because the Trump tariffs didn't exist when the article was written.

Just shows how quick people are to arrive at causation, especially when it is something "bad" they can attempt to pin on Trump.

Re: Microsoft Closes US Surface Factory, Moves Production to China

#39

Post by throwaway9870 »

vvanders wrote: post #36
throwaway9870 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not correct. The Riding Lawn Equipment (RLE) is built in Horicon WI (as are the gators). The compact tractors (one series, two series, etc) are built in Augusta GA. The RLE has almost nothing from Yanmar in it except the diesels use a Yanmar engine. The sub-CUTs and CUTS use a lot of Yanmar components, but are Deere products and assembled by Deere. I have been to both factories and seen the lines in the last…

Not sure why you're talking about RLE and Gators as I was only talking about compact tractors. You could say the same think about Kubota as the assemble their B/BX models in the US(they however don't outsource the engine). There's nothing wrong with sourcing an engine/design from another company, however if you do that's definitely not something made completely in America. JD likes to play this up heavily in their ma…

A Deere X700, which is made in Horicon, is a Deere engineers in Augusta design their current CUTS, they are built there and tested there. Yes, they use parts from many suppliers.

Re: Microsoft Closes US Surface Factory, Moves Production to China

#40

Post by sctb »

YouAreGreat wrote: post #19
golergka wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem Is there any problem at all, really? Humanity gets more and more efficient at allocating jobs and then at removing the need for human input at all. It's only a problem for people who cannot contribute to humanity in any way but repetitive manual labour, and while I genuinly tried, I can't feel sorry for them. You don't even have to have a high IQ for a different kind of a job - there's a LOT of jobs tha…

Please don't write "humanity" when you mean "capital". It's confusing.

Could you please read the guidelines and improve your commenting?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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