The US is building factories at a fast rate • Hacker News Board

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#31

Post by majormajor » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 7:55 PM UTC

monero-xmr wrote: post #12

obblekk wrote: post #2

> The US has added around 800,000 jobs in manufacturing employment over the last two years, employing around 13 million workers It's too early to know, but if it turns out the solution to decades of economic misery for middle class blue collar workers was 1. 50% tariffs on China, and 2. $100B of subsidies to chip makers and green tech... The reversal of Reaganomics we're living through will become permanent for at le…

Maybe we shouldn’t consider this a success while subsidies are happening? We also gave $535 million to Solyndra to manufacture solar panels in 2009 and they imploded once our tax dollars stopped being funneled (as much) to them: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra The real test will be once they stop taking our taxes and handing it to businessmen if they can stand on their own merits. Until then this is charity…

We've subsidized things we consider strategically or economically important for, what, at least a century now?

It doesn't make sense to think of infrastructure and technological capacities as less important than agriculture anymore, when it comes to keeping some significant presence locally.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#32

Post by alexose » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 7:55 PM UTC

obblekk wrote: post #2

> The US has added around 800,000 jobs in manufacturing employment over the last two years, employing around 13 million workers It's too early to know, but if it turns out the solution to decades of economic misery for middle class blue collar workers was 1. 50% tariffs on China, and 2. $100B of subsidies to chip makers and green tech... The reversal of Reaganomics we're living through will become permanent for at le…

Another important factor is that China's workers make more money than they used to, especially relative to the West. There's not as much of a cheap-labor-arbitrage opportunity as there was in the early 2000s.

Here's a chart illustrating this point: https://i.insider.com/532ccb18eab8eadc39f33da6

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#33

Post by enraged_camel » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 7:56 PM UTC

FpUser wrote: post #17

nimish wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad free trade deals likely did more than Reaganomics here. NAFTA + China-WTO accession really did not help American manufacturing.

W in WTO stands for the World. It does not say anything about the US.

I mean, neither do any of the words in 'NATO' but the alliance has been immensely beneficial for the US.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#34

Post by 11thEarlOfMar » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 7:56 PM UTC

In order for this to be effective, these factories need to be able to produce at a desirable profit. The reason so much manufacturing drained out of the US in the first place was corporations seeking improved profits. That's not to say many won't succeed, but we need to ensure that global competitiveness is imbued into these operations. Southeast Asia and India remain inexpensive.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#35

Post by epistasis » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 7:56 PM UTC

golergka wrote: post #22

obblekk wrote: post #2

> The US has added around 800,000 jobs in manufacturing employment over the last two years, employing around 13 million workers It's too early to know, but if it turns out the solution to decades of economic misery for middle class blue collar workers was 1. 50% tariffs on China, and 2. $100B of subsidies to chip makers and green tech... The reversal of Reaganomics we're living through will become permanent for at le…

3. Fracking. Cheap, abundant energy which is uniquely close both to very educated labour pool and either the most navigable river basin in the world, or the ocean. Saudi Arabia, Russia and other countries may have more oil than US, but it's too far from there places where it would be usable for manufacturing.

And fracking itself was developed with massive amounts of government subsidy, which is conveniently forgotten whenever the issue of "subsidies" comes up.

There's also the political motivation of banks, which blindly trusted fossil fuel investments, leading to massive investment that was unprofitable in the first round of fracking.

When it comes down to it, fossil fuels are surviving, and continue to survive, largely as a cultural and political effort, as much as a technology effort. And once we move away from them we will be saving massive amounts of money that can be directed towards improving the economy in other areas that improve people's lives rather than damage their lungs and cause climate change.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#36

Post by majormajor » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 7:57 PM UTC

rufus_foreman wrote: post #23

obblekk wrote: post #2

> The US has added around 800,000 jobs in manufacturing employment over the last two years, employing around 13 million workers It's too early to know, but if it turns out the solution to decades of economic misery for middle class blue collar workers was 1. 50% tariffs on China, and 2. $100B of subsidies to chip makers and green tech... The reversal of Reaganomics we're living through will become permanent for at le…

>> "The reversal of Reaganomics" March 28, 1987: "President Reagan decided Friday to impose punitive 100% tariffs on a wide variety of goods produced by Japanese electronic giants in retaliation for Tokyo’s failure to abide by the semiconductor trade agreement between the two nations" -- https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-03-28-mn-698-st... That Reagan? 50% tariffs are rookie numbers.

Reagan also jacked up the national debt pumping $$$$ into defense technology and hardware development, but I suspect you know that neither tarriffs nor unrestricted government spending without an eye towards the debt is what "Reaganomics" is popularly remembered as.

Outside of the more immediately-public-facing stuff like tax cuts, Reagan's legacy is very much a "do what we say, not what we did" situation.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#37

Post by standardUser » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 7:58 PM UTC

nimish wrote: post #5

obblekk wrote: post #2

> The US has added around 800,000 jobs in manufacturing employment over the last two years, employing around 13 million workers It's too early to know, but if it turns out the solution to decades of economic misery for middle class blue collar workers was 1. 50% tariffs on China, and 2. $100B of subsidies to chip makers and green tech... The reversal of Reaganomics we're living through will become permanent for at le…

Bad free trade deals likely did more than Reaganomics here. NAFTA + China-WTO accession really did not help American manufacturing.

Reagan launched the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations that led to the creation of the WTO, which itself resulted from the Bretton Woods system and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (pre-cursor to WTO) that were established after WWII. The US had been on that trajectory for a long time before Bill Clinton put it into overdrive!

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#38

Post by mwbajor » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 7:58 PM UTC

nimish wrote: post #5

obblekk wrote: post #2

> The US has added around 800,000 jobs in manufacturing employment over the last two years, employing around 13 million workers It's too early to know, but if it turns out the solution to decades of economic misery for middle class blue collar workers was 1. 50% tariffs on China, and 2. $100B of subsidies to chip makers and green tech... The reversal of Reaganomics we're living through will become permanent for at le…

Bad free trade deals likely did more than Reaganomics here. NAFTA + China-WTO accession really did not help American manufacturing.

Boomers saying: "I don't want my kid to go to machineshop in HS, he'll turn out to be a plumber" is what did it too.

Building things has been looked down upon for 40 years because boomers thought it was a step backwards since their parents worked on the assembly line.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#39

Post by kcb » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 7:58 PM UTC

Xcelerate wrote: post #15

Perhaps I'm just bad at economics, but it always seemed to me that the countries making all the stuff would eventually hold all the power (and I say this as someone working in tech who produces nothing tangible). The fact that it costs exorbitant amounts to construct new buildings, railways, etc. in the U.S. and how our cities almost look antiquated or frozen in time compared to Asian cities shows that we missed a ge…

It always seemed to me that the country buying all the stuff holds the real power. It just feels far more possible to find alternative manufacturers than it is to find alternative markets.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#40

Post by csomar » Thu, Jun 08, 2023, 7:59 PM UTC

obblekk wrote: post #2

> The US has added around 800,000 jobs in manufacturing employment over the last two years, employing around 13 million workers It's too early to know, but if it turns out the solution to decades of economic misery for middle class blue collar workers was 1. 50% tariffs on China, and 2. $100B of subsidies to chip makers and green tech... The reversal of Reaganomics we're living through will become permanent for at le…

> Maybe a good time to start a company selling to the government.

Why do you think this sudden rise in industrial investment? The US didn't turn attractive overnight. This is the "economy" selling to the government their $280Bn CHIPS package.

> It's too early to know, but if it turns out the solution to decades of economic misery for middle class blue collar workers was

A 50% tariff does not affect attractiveness. You did not address the core issues, as the tariff will hide it. What will happen is free market economy at play: As the issues are hidden behind tariffs/protectionism, the US will keep falling behind China until you are significantly behind that you can't catch up. Then you become a real third-world country.