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America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

nytimes.com

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Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#141

Post by l3v3ll »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #133
l3v3ll wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t call ownership a benefit for the 71% of home owners with a mortgage. > Zillow’s Negative Equity 2012 Q3 data; we find 29% (20.6 million) of homeowners own their home outright https://www.zillow.com/research/free-and-clear-american-mort...

Just flip it around, would plummeting housing prices benefit homeowners with a mortgage? No, that's a disaster (see the 2007 housing crash). Borrowing, especially at the extreme low rates, on an appreciating asset is great, paying debt on a depreciating asset is a nightmare.

Flip what around? A mortgage doesn’t give you the benefits of being wealthy. Whether the market is good or bad. Anyway, the point is moot as the parent report shows the top 10% also own 41% of the houses, so the initial argument stands that the wealthy are benefiting the most.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#142

Post by machiaweliczny »

caeril wrote: post #111
seppin wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was that easy to displace the dollar, someone would have done it already. What advantage does a Chinese cryptocurrency have over a traditional one?

This. August 15th of this year will be FIFTIETH anniversary of Nixon telling the rest of the world that their dollars held in reserve are redeemable for precisely one bag of dicks. If the world was ever going to de-dollarize, they would have done it at any point in the last half-century .

You think noone tried? They just got assasinated.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#143

Post by nine_zeros »

I don't see any talk of removing US dollar as a reserve currency.

The only reason China is so export oriented is because they need to earn dollars to buy oil. If they didn't need to buy oil in dollars, they would reorient their factories to sell their manufactured goods domestically, giving everyone a high standard of living. Instead, they are making more and more goods for our fat American consumption just to earn more and more dollars.

Sure, removing dollar as a reserve currency will make all of us poorer by global standards but we won't need to import manufactured goods from China any longer.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#144

Post by mncharity »

legitster wrote: post #83

So few of these conversations actually discuss the reasons American manufacturing is so uncompetitive and assume it's entirely legislative/outside factors. As I been told, cost is rarely the primary factor - Chinese manufacturing is insanely flexible. You can set up a plant with almost no capital, be able to retool at a moment's notice to a customer's whim, and add and drop employees to production at the drop of a ha…

> actually discuss the reasons

On topics where the fraction of HN readership with professional expertise is relatively small, it seems HN infrastructure and culture often isn't able to surface that expertise, to sustain the quality of discussion which exists when the fraction is large.

I wonder if there might be some form of low hanging fruit, like maybe a cultural convention of creating a "professionals" comment tree, where people are expected to apply a stricter-than-usual test of whether they have the expertise to comment? Attempting to create a lump of critical mass professional discussion.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#145

Post by magicsmoke »

jhallenworld wrote: post #103
recursivedoubts wrote: post #6

We were sold down the river by our own elites, particularly on Wall Street and with the full complicity of the Economics Departments of the west. "Comparative Advantage", something something about corn and wool, meanwhile the whole supply chain was moved to China, our middle class was decimated and we went into tremendous amounts of debt to pretend everything was fine... Left, right... whatever. The elites have faile…

I think this all started as some kind of national security consensus that we would help China by having free trade with them. It worked in that millions of Chinese have been uplifted (of course this is vast oversimplification: they helped themselves and many other countries also trade with them), but has definitely failed if we ever thought to make the Chinese government less authoritarian as a side effect. It was de…

In a sense this has kept inflation low. China's factories and population can produce more cheap knick knacks than America can ever consume. Instead of newly printed money chasing after an inexhaustible supply of things to order from Amazon, it chases after things that are actually limited in quantity like land, stocks, gold, and bitcoin.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#146

Post by mncharity »

legitster wrote: post #83

So few of these conversations actually discuss the reasons American manufacturing is so uncompetitive and assume it's entirely legislative/outside factors. As I been told, cost is rarely the primary factor - Chinese manufacturing is insanely flexible. You can set up a plant with almost no capital, be able to retool at a moment's notice to a customer's whim, and add and drop employees to production at the drop of a ha…

> flexible

I don't disagree, and very not my field, but I found it curious that France's manufacturing exports per capita remain 2x the US[1], despite not having a reputation for flexibility.

Germany remains 4x. Which raises a question, with respect to manufacturing exports, why does the US look like a smaller EU, rather than like a larger France or Germany?

[1] https://tcdata360.worldbank.org/indicators/mnfc.ex?country=B...

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#147

Post by jbay808 »

nikanj wrote: post #15
recursivedoubts wrote: post #6

We were sold down the river by our own elites, particularly on Wall Street and with the full complicity of the Economics Departments of the west. "Comparative Advantage", something something about corn and wool, meanwhile the whole supply chain was moved to China, our middle class was decimated and we went into tremendous amounts of debt to pretend everything was fine... Left, right... whatever. The elites have faile…

The stock market and housing prices are higher than ever, so a large part of the population is doing good. Not just the elites have benefited from the spoils, people with retirement portfolios and paid-off houses are sitting nice and flush.

"Higher" is measured in dollars, so isn't a high stock market and housing price consistent with the US dollar simply decreasing in value?

If wages haven't risen in proportion, then this doesn't seem like a win.

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#148

Post by zepto »

m463 wrote: post #125
mynameisash wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work with a guy that liked to talk about how much porn has helped technology - primarily that the desire for privacy (in viewing and purchasing) helped drive SSL adoption. I'm sure he was being facetious, but the idea that an industry like porn or ads might drive technology that then can benefit other 'worthy' industries seems obvious to me.

I'm reminded of a story I read about a dictator that took over a country, who while corrupt, actually funneled more money into infrastructure than anyone before him and became very popular with the people. sort of deal with the devil though.

Xi?

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#149

Post by 908B64B197 »

babaganoosh89 wrote: post #48
recursivedoubts wrote: post #6

We were sold down the river by our own elites, particularly on Wall Street and with the full complicity of the Economics Departments of the west. "Comparative Advantage", something something about corn and wool, meanwhile the whole supply chain was moved to China, our middle class was decimated and we went into tremendous amounts of debt to pretend everything was fine... Left, right... whatever. The elites have faile…

The problem isn't comparative advantage, it's that the US left the poor states to languish with poor education. So instead of higher quality manufacturing / blue collar jobs, non-educated folks got minimum wage service jobs.

> the US left the poor states to languish with poor education

Why didn't state funding pick up the tab?

Re: America Can’t Even Produce the Things It Invented

#150

Post by 908B64B197 »

liminal wrote: post #13

"Made in America" is a nice slogan, but "Not Made by an Enemy" would be more apt. Made in an Ally would be fine too (Canada, Mexico, Western Europe...)

I would like that.

Especially when it's countries where it's as expensive to manufacture as here. And with whom we have free trade (meaning our products gets preferential treatments there too!)

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