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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

#161

Post by pphysch »

marianatom wrote: post #11

Meanwhile in China: - exports plunge by 7.5% in May, far more than expected https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/07/chinas-exports-plunge-by-7po... - profit tumbles 18% in April https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-industrial-profits... - chip progress stagnating. Oppo chip design unit completely shut down https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/12/oppo-chip-disbands-phone-c... . Japan stops shipping semiconductor equipments to…

Despite all these cherry-picked numbers, China's economy will grow by 4-6% this year vs. USA's 0-2%.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/us-growth-gdp-china-economy...

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#162

Post by gumballindie »

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…

> the highly skilled tradesmen I've met in the last 5 years make at least what I do, often more, and have the benefit of actually owning their own businesses or real, meaningful slices of other ones.

_This_. A lot of software developers think they are the only high earners out there. Skilled tradesmen are making a killing in europe as well. And unlike software engineers, the path to starting an actual business is much shorter and the growth potential much higher.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#163

Post by pphysch »

kcb wrote: post #39
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.

This argument, on an international scale, has never made sense to me. Have its proponents never been poor?

If US-China trade were to stop tomorrow, US would suffer 100x more than China due to lack of critical goods. China would have a dearth of greenbacks.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#164

Post by gumballindie »

jl6 wrote: post #122
bsder wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

If all the smart people leave, are the remainder really going to be more effective at toppling shitty governments?

I dont think smart people ever toppled a government. Dictatorships usually rely on many, many, not smart people. They collapse when these people became hungry and desperate. If they are well fed and entertained they will happily “eat” the smart people.

So if you want dictatorships to collapse it’s best to let the smart people leave, so no one can run the country, and the not smart people get angry at their government.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#165

Post by UncleOxidant »

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.

Yep, this is why re-shoring manufacturing to the US is (and will be) inflationary. For about 30 years we were exporting inflation to places like China.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#166

Post by obblekk »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #159
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 suspect that the reliance on China for manufacturing combined with what sort of sanctions would be enacted when they attempt to invade Taiwan, would encourage the US and its European allies to insure they had a good manufacturing base to rely on. We have seen a number of things from the war in Ukraine but two that I think have been really impactful were the challenges of ramping up munition production in the US and…

Not blaming Reagan specifically, but the consensus that emerged in the early 80s was that all GDP growth was good, even if it skewed away from manufacturing toward finance, etc.

This basic belief allowed us to write trade deals that reduced manufacturing capacity relative to non-manufacturing.

Totally agree with you the Ukraine war has been incredibly important in previewing what would have been much worse in a Taiwan war.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#168

Post by User23 »

eppp wrote: post #105
User23 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you increased tax receipts you could justify more government building and partnerships or grants. Make those grants pay union scale or require union contracts.

US federal government spending obviously isn’t constrained by tax receipts. You’d think that would be clear in this day and age of consistent trillion dollar annual deficits. Thus spending programs should be judged based on outcomes and not nominal cost.

I’m all for a strong middle class. However, I don’t see how an inheritance tax that forces children to sell their parents farm or business to pay estate taxes is supposed to accomplish that though. If I wanted a large permanent asset-free working class I’d definitely aggressively tax intergenerational wealth accumulation, resting assured that the upper classes would easily dodge it with trusts, corporations, expatriation, or some other tax avoidance strategy. That sounds like an excellent strategy to crush the remaining middle class.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#169

Post by UncleOxidant »

activiation wrote: post #114
jakearmitage wrote: post #7

OK, now we need immigration reform to actually get enough people to work on everything.

I worked for a while at a farm processing potatoes ... Let me tell you that they aren't lacking Mexicans (most people didn't speak English and this was in Florida)

TIL that there are potatoes grown in FL.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#170

Post by treis »

wizofaus wrote: post #157
bobthepanda wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan and Korea have plenty of domestic manufacturing. Europe also has some off shoring into the peripheral countries into its customs union. The issues are generally that in the next largest potential cheap manufacturing sources (South Asia, SE Asia, Africa) they’re either not big enough or have extremely poor logistics and red tape. A big part of the East Asian miracles have been extensive infrastructure and bureau…

How is south Asia possibly not "big enough - it's literally based around the most populous country in the world! But yes, obviously logistics and friendly regulatory regimes are a big part of it. (FWIW I was including China/Japan/Korea in "SE Asia" in my post. Obviously all three have now developed beyond the good sources of cheap labour that they had started out as in the last 50 or so years. But there are still oth…

They said "either"
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