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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

#281

Post by KptMarchewa »

no_wizard wrote: post #209
atleastoptimal wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter. In 5-10 years all those jobs will be entirely automated by autonomous robotics.

These are jobs that either aren't even yet on the spectrum of automation (carpentry, plumbers, industrial HVAC & electricians) or as I referenced in more detail, folks who work on the robotics that "replace the jobs" or are otherwise augmenting the spectrum (in the outlier instance, its medical industrial systems stuff. I think they make surgical robots) Unless the robots are either going to become good at swinging h…

Plumbers and electricians will be absolutely last jobs that are automated. We'll automate CEOs long before them.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#282

Post by jwar767 »

nojvek wrote: post #123
no_wizard wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I really envy anyone working in Industrial Robotics. It's such a fascinating field. Automating physical things is so much more rewarding than automating digital things.

It’s fun when you’re working for the robot manufacturers but traditional software engineering is a lot funner to me. Robots are either programmed with a proprietary language that abstracts anything interesting away or with a joystick. PLC programming is funner but the tooling is still garbage and most of the fun things are also abstracted away unless you are doing servo motion. Things like ROS are typically used in industry. Worked in factory automation for a few years until I realized that software paid better and had better tools.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#283

Post by mistrial9 »

gumballindie wrote: post #162
no_wizard wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 muc…

skilled tradesmen are on skid row here in California.. no building, race to the bottom hiring practices when building happens. Unions filled with red-tape rules and "hurry up and wait" situations. really distressing and sad to hear unrealistic enthusiasm from people in completely different cost of living and hiring environments.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#284

Post by jjk166 »

simonsarris wrote: post #190
jjk166 wrote: post #153

Manufacturing employment is roughly at the same place now that it was in 2020, and still substantially lower than where it would have been had the pre-pandemic trend continued, and even that was nowhere near returning the US to pre-2008 levels. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP Construction spending is a terrible proxy for manufacturing - both because the size of a building you need isn't pegged to the value…

But also looking at FRED data we see that manufacturing sector productivity has doubled since ~1990, so it's not clear that headcount is the best proxy either. And if we look at industrial production or sector output we're still near (plateauing) all time highs https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IPMAN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS But not everything is a plateau. Fabricated metal reached an all time high p…

If you want to see a renaissance of manufacturing employment, then headcount is clearly the metric that matters.

The fact is that offshoring of manufacturing was a myth - the jobs never left, the industries just transformed in such a way that old, labor intensive processes were eliminated. Those jobs, and the economic prosperity they brought, are never coming back. It's merely a coincidence that at around the same time US manufacturers were computerizing their operations China was building 1920s level industrial facilities.

Certainly none of the data is indicative of a sudden boom in US manufacturing in the past 2 years which could be attributable to any recent decisions or events.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#285

Post by pphysch »

marianatom wrote: post #266
pas wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unfortunately far-right populist illiberalism is on the rise globally. (and also far-left populist demagoguery too, maybe unsurprisingly.) although, hopefully, that'll pass as the current median voter gets a grasp of reality (and get inoculated against social media fueled craziness at least a bit)

here's the thing, humanity got lucky. there was a nonzero chance that china and the dictatorships could have triumphed. if China didn't botch the chance to overtake US in 2008 with a capable dictator. if China got its hands on many advanced US military technologies. if Russia didn't botch the Ukraine invasion. if covid didn't have a vaccine, except one that China developed. I'm sure most of us are aware of the gulags…

are you affiliated with any anti-CCP activism groups and how can I get involved?

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#286

Post by quickthrowman »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #154
quickthrowman wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

Thank You. Yes, No need for me to be pre-emptively snarky.

No problem, you’re welcome :) I’ve made the same mistake and it was dang who told me to calm down, so I understand.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#287

Post by g9yuayon »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #275
g9yuayon wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe fewer jobs per square feet, but it's the natural evolution of manufacturing. What matters is we need engineers and workers on the floor so we can innovate and develop more senior talent.

And to hell with those not rated 'senior talent' I guess.

Why? More jobs are still more jobs, no? In addition, each factories may hire fewer people than 50 years ago, but I hope we have a lot more factories. Having more skillful talent does not contradict my hoping that more Americans will have chance to get a decent job.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#288

Post by NLPaep »

pphysch wrote: post #201
marianatom wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One government sponsored number, vs multiple numbers pointing to China's economic decline, which multinationals check in order to gauge the real health of China's economy. Multinationals know the real numbers, which is why they're all leaving. What other numbers don't lie? 20.4% youth unemployment rate https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/29/record-youth-unemployment-st... . 22% drop in daily home sales in 2023 vs 2022 https…

Those numbers are from the IMF and CBO, not CCP.

Where? The first link leads to here, and the second link is behind a paywall.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-q1-gdp-grew-45-yy-...

>On a quarter-by-quarter basis, GDP grew 2.2% in January-March, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed, compared with expectations for a 2.2% increase and a revised 0.6% rise in the previous quarter.

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#289

Post by JoeAltmaier »

g9yuayon wrote: post #287
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And to hell with those not rated 'senior talent' I guess.

Why? More jobs are still more jobs, no? In addition, each factories may hire fewer people than 50 years ago, but I hope we have a lot more factories. Having more skillful talent does not contradict my hoping that more Americans will have chance to get a decent job.

It's just so immaterial to US job health.

We have around the same factory employment today as in 1945. Despite growing population by more than 2X. 13M mostly non-skilled. Maybe 5%

Re: The US is building factories at a fast rate

#290

Post by HDThoreaun »

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…

Economic power is held by those that are difficult to replace. THe US gave up on manufacturing because it's low skill work that is easy to replace, just follow the lowest labor cost. Generally I believe that the countries with educated workers and capital will eventually hold all the power.
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