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The US is building factories at a fast rate

businessinsider.com

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Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#81

Post by monero-xmr »

epistasis wrote: post #28
monero-xmr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is the first time I've seen a non-politically motivated accusation that cutting off money had anything at all to do with their failure. The tech reason was that they had a way to make thin film panels which was super promising for driving down costs due to a silicon shortage. But then Diamond based silicon tech emerged, eliminating the silicon shortage and reducing input materials, which outcompeted thin film on…

Of course. But maybe the government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers, and gambling with my tax dollars.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#82

Post by mwbajor »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #72
mwbajor wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. No, it was looked down upon because the pay to quality of life ratio was much better in white collar careers. It probably still is for the most part. Wake me up when the same people are deciding between becoming plumbers or electricians rather than lawyers or doctor…

Well then wake up because most of those parents didn't send their kids to school for those careers.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#83

Post by bsder »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #47
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #34

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.

Didn't TSMC say that its new US factory would be 30% more expensive. US labor being the problem.

A mere 30% more so that job is here instead of China is a bargain--especially for something that has loads of national security implications.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#84

Post by pirate787 »

standardUser wrote: post #37
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.

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!

Reagan also laid out the vision for NAFTA and signed the Canada-US FTA in 1988

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#85

Post by bsder »

FpUser wrote: post #51
mwbajor wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to make sure americans have the first shot at the job but I also want to make sure that the USA does brain drain the rest of the world so that there is absolutely no way to compete with us. I am all for immigration reform as long as it prioritizes americans heavily. This means no H1B abuse but with congress getting massive subsidies from H1B mills, I don't think this will happen.

>"I also want to make sure that the USA does brain drain the rest of the world so that there is absolutely no way to compete with us." "The rest of the world" might have a little problem with that.

> "The rest of the world" might have a little problem with that.

Good. Smart people having more leverage will topple places with shitty governments faster or consign those countries to the dustbin.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#86

Post by User23 »

wefarrell wrote: post #80
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…

I doubt these are the stable union jobs with decent benefits from 50 years ago. If we really want to reverse Reaganomics we need to increase taxes on corporate profits, capital gains, and inheritance.

How do you see that working? I mean what’s the operational mechanism that drives union jobs from wealth taxes?

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#87

Post by sh34r »

deeg wrote: post #60
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…

My guess is that the increase in tariffs had little, if anything, to do with it; the article doesn't mention it but does cite CHIPS and the IRA. If anything the tariffs were one of the causes of our recent spike of inflation. My own opinion is that 40 years of globalization have lifted a billion people out of poverty and now the global pay scales aren't so vastly different. It is becoming more economically viable to…

CHIPS/IRA was the carrot. The tariffs, sanctions, rampant IP theft, supply chain shocks, Chinese lockdown labor shortages, specter of global conflict, energy shortages, etc were the stick. I suspect the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Organizations are not rational robots that weight every factor and risk optimally. The conversation is probably more just wild gesturing at everything while cargo cult mentality takes over in the dozen boardrooms that control a majority of economic activity.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#88

Post by wizofaus »

kelipso wrote: post #74
ako wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These agreements are not the only cause, if everyone would have kept on buying locally produced products, the jobs would have remained. Problem is that we bought the cheaper products, making it impossible for companies producing locally to stay profitable. We want our cake and eat it too.

That doesn't really make sense. In no universe can you expect people to buy more expensive products. Government intervention (tarrifs, taxes, regulations, whatever) or some other measure is needed to protect local companies.

I don't think GP was implying we should expect it. But it's fair to point out that there's a certain hypocrisy in complaining about jobs being lost to overseas while simultaneously buying goods made offshore in preference to those made locally. Note that I certainly accept on average this has been a beneficial arrangement for both sides, but it's the unevenness of how the wealth has been spread around that strikes me as the real issue.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#89

Post by kneebonian »

wizofaus wrote: post #78
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The factories follow the Cheap Labor. From US to China, then it was China to Thailand/SKorea, then from Thailand to India. Probably don't have chain correct, and it is different for different industries. But there was definitely a progression of 'local salary goes up', 'time to move to next cheapest country'.

Surely though there's still plenty of places in the world that, on the basis of labour costs, it would be vastly cheaper to operate than in the US. On that basis I'm not convinced wage growth in SE Asia is the primary reason the US manufacturing industry is deciding to reshore. Is the same phenomenon occurring in other wealthy countries that haven't put in place taxpayer funded incentives to do so?

> there's still plenty of places in the world that, on the basis of labour costs, it would be vastly cheaper to operate than in the US.

Keep in mind costs aren't just what you have to pay people but also things like regional security, the risk of the government nationalizing your company and assets, ability to get skilled/capable/honest people.

Basically there has to be a degree of stability, including a centralized government that can provide a certain level of law and order in order to attract capital. Otherwise you have to price in the costs of missing a day of work because the factory is being shelled by government/anti-government groups, etc.

Corruption is fine, bribes are fine, because they can be priced in and managed, what can't be managed, planned for and predicted is instability.

For the record my bet on where the next big booms will be is Indonesia, Mexico and to a lesser extant west Africa.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#90

Post by wizofaus »

edgyquant wrote: post #73
FpUser wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem with this policy is that it will prevent poor countries from ever getting up the ladder. It also ignores the fact that many advanced human right respecting countries got there not without plundering less fortunate for generations.

The plundering argument doesn’t hold up. The empires of Europe were a net economic loss for their metropoles.

Source for that claim?
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