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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

#141

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

mgr86 wrote: post #8
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 if only I knew what the government wanted to buy. Besides weaponry that is.

"All you young fellas building tech companies that aren't making any money, meanwhile Town Hall has a contract out for $100k/year to clean the floors and no one's bidding on it."

--Some old dude about 15 years ago.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#142

Post by FrustratedMonky »

edgyquant wrote: post #136
wizofaus wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They’re deciding to restore because the US population has made it clear on both sides of aisle that they want these companies to be employing Americans to start reversing the economic rot we’ve left outside a small number of tech hubs. It has nothing to do wages or even economics for the most part. It’s policy to rebuild once wealthy areas of America that also happens to be good for the defense sector so.

Well. The reasoning is still valid. The corporations will follow cheap labor (or total cheapest cost, which labor is big variable).

What you are saying is that both sides have agreed to put policies in place to make foreign goods more expense, to the point that domestic labor can be competitive, and corporations will move manufacturing back to the US.

But as others have posted as questions. Is this sustainable? If the US is not competitive unless barriers are put in place, can that be done indefinably, or will this naturally reverse again when the US Gov can no longer afford to prop up a more expensive and inefficient workforce.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#143

Post by quickthrowman »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #138
wizofaus wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Folks bring factories back to the US once they scale to the point that automation can be afforded. It has a high buyin, so volume has a threshold where the marginal cost is justfied. In all those cases, there's little or no job growth. Just a couple administrators and engineers. Nobody on the line, because there is no line, just robots and conveyors.

> In all those cases, there's little or no job growth. Just a couple administrators and engineers. Nobody on the line, because there is no line, just robots and conveyors.

Someone has to maintain the robots and conveyors, unless you’re assuming that has also been automated. I suppose this could also be contracted out if it hasn’t been automated.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#145

Post by golemiprague »

mrangle wrote: post #137

This isn't necessarily the win that some people think that it is. Do you like your standard of living? For most, you should when compared. That comes from one type of economy. This is another type, incoming. And there are no guarantees as to what your change in standard will be. One rhetorical question might be: is your standard of living better or worse than in China, which is replete with factories? Neither does Ba…

[dead]

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#146

Post by vel0city »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #127
wizofaus wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only half, over 50 years? That would imply less than 1.5% productivity growth rate on average, pretty sure it's been higher than that!

To be fair, I'm having trouble thinking of many examples of factories that might even be comparable. Auto and auto parts, obviously, are still big. But then I can't come in and say "tires" (included in the previous). What's even left?

There's a number of factories around me. They make things like:

Semiconductors

Telecommunications equipment

Elevator/Lift equipment

Agricultural equipment/trailers

Aeronautical parts (both mechanical and electronic/sensor)

Planes

Helicopters

Printing services

Nutrition supplements

Cars

Just a few off the top of my head.

These all seem to be growing a lot, as I see a lot of new buildings all the time. Many of these are definitely for domestic consumption, I'll grant you that.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#147

Post by quickthrowman »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #100
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, so many people don't read history and realize all this WTO and Globalization the US population hates, was created by the US, on purpose.

Why the downvotes? The US totally was the driving force around creating and growing globalization. How is this not known to be true, its history at this point.

I think your comment would be received better if you rewrote it without the part about ‘so many people don’t read history’. For what it’s worth, I upvoted that comment before reading the one I am responding to.

This community can be picky about tone and phrasing (which I believe keeps things mostly civil), don’t take the downvotes personally. Some users may have felt the ‘not reading history’ part was targeted at them, even though you were speaking generally.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#148

Post by tut-urut-utut »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #49
enraged_camel wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I suspect it has been way more beneficial to Europe than the US. The US could already defend itself, the smaller countries in Europe not as much.

No. NATO is a terrorist organisation that bombed an European country just to show it could do or unpunished.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#149

Post by JoeAltmaier »

quickthrowman wrote: post #143
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks bring factories back to the US once they scale to the point that automation can be afforded. It has a high buyin, so volume has a threshold where the marginal cost is justfied. In all those cases, there's little or no job growth. Just a couple administrators and engineers. Nobody on the line, because there is no line, just robots and conveyors.

> In all those cases, there's little or no job growth. Just a couple administrators and engineers. Nobody on the line, because there is no line, just robots and conveyors. Someone has to maintain the robots and conveyors, unless you’re assuming that has also been automated. I suppose this could also be contracted out if it hasn’t been automated.

Yes that's often mentioned. But the human cost is a percent of what old-style factories employed

Sure factories employ skilled labor. But very few. And what are unskilled laborers supposed to do?

American has 30M folks who's employment has descended to service industry (teller, cashier, food service). They can't all be retrained as Engineers, even if we needed 30M more Engineers which we don't.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#150

Post by nosefrog »

no_wizard wrote: post #116
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 had a professor remark once (this is circa 2009) that we should all learn a highly skilled trade around advanced manufacturing because eventually offshoring will reverse itself and by your early 30s you'll be in a prime position to profit immensely off the re-shoring of advanced manufacturing equipment and processes Maybe he was right. I'm in my early 30s now, and I don't regret becoming a software engineer, but al…

FWIW, re: comparing to "elite SV company" compensation, it doesn't really make sense to discount stock, since stock at the "elite" SV companies is effectively cash, because they're public. Unless you mean that your friend is also making a significant amount of stock, but since you can't value it (e.g. the company is private), it's harder to compare to the "elite" SV companies.

I know Google was handing out $385k total compensation offers ($200k salary, $150k stock, $35k annual bonus) in 2020 to senior software engineers, and Google's 401k matching is 50%.

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