41–50 of 469 posts
H I Sutton's recent video on China's new invasion barges was very interesting so not really HN material, but there he talked about how all of Chinas ferries are designed to also move tanks if they have to - https://youtu.be/Klkpk_hO4FQ?t=268 You go to South Korea or Taiwan and all their subways are also bomb shelters, but something like The Boring Company, environmentally amazing, strategically amazing and everyone t…
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- high wages are not evenly spread geographically in the USA - high wages are not evenly spread demographically in the USA - the wage distribution seems to me to be unusual in that it has a very long fat tail whereas the UK's is very clustered (I've forgotten the right term) on the median. - modern industry can be highly automated - modern logistics mean that industry can be decentralised I believe that the last two…
> the UK's is very clustered (I've forgotten the right term) on the median. Normal (Gaussian) distribution?
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> It's a requirement that vessels which operate between US ports must be made in the US, crewed by the US, and flagged to the US. The everything-bagel approach. One of those requirements incentivises US shipbuilding, the other two incentivise other things. Seems like the net effect was less US shipbuilding and a smaller US-flagged fleet. Given those effects, it doesn't seem likely to have increased the number of US m…
I don't see much reason to believe that any ship built because of the Jones Act would've been built in the US in absence of the Jones Act. So, you really need to show that without the Jones Act that more ships would've been built in the US as opposed to showing that shipbuilding in the US has decreased. It's like betting on Black for a roulette wheel versus betting on a specific number. You're still going to lose mon…
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Honest question, is it at all possible for us to have an industrial revitalization given that we have the highest average wages in the world?
Sure. We do not need to rely on foreign labor which is a tiny fraction of American labor to maintain our quality of life. Lots of things need to be reorganized to make this work and some people with a lot of wealth will have a lot less certainly. But foreign manufacturing of nearly everything is relatively new, you have to remember. America was plenty prosperous not so long ago before we started exporting so many job…
I mean, this alone makes whatever you are proposing a non-starter in America, surely you realize that
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Honest question, is it at all possible for us to have an industrial revitalization given that we have the highest average wages in the world?
Probably. The original industrial revolutions were happening in nations that quickly became wealthy, and the US was doing pretty well with high wages vs. Asia for most of its industrial period. Higher wages in theory should be linked to higher productivity and output per worker in the US due to deep skillsets - otherwise where do the high wages come from? But something might have broken that link. The issue looks fro…
This will never succeed because the economies of scale are nonexistent without dominance in the commercial shipbuilding market. War planners should have pushed to repeal the Jones Act decades ago, but now Chinese shipbuilding capacity is over 230 times greater than ours because of their success in civilian shipbuilding. The proposed measures in this aricle are too little too late. The only logical course of action at…
Huh? The Jones Act was supposed to help American shipbuilding. It's a requirement that vessels which operate between US ports must be made in the US, crewed by the US, and flagged to the US. It didn't help much, but that was the plan. China's shipbuilding industry is so big that their aircraft carriers are being constructed by shipyards that make large cargo ships. Aerial photos show shipyards with drydocks full of c…
Yes
And this is what happens. Naive protectionism 101
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> This will never succeed because the economies of scale are nonexistent without dominance in the commercial shipbuilding market. This is what politicians just don’t seem to realise about industry and engineering. People get good at things by doing them repeatedly and optimising. That’s the only proven way. So of course if we build a couple of naval ships every decade, maybe a giant train line every 30 years or simil…
> If we ever did get in a war with them is that normal to think like this? do most americans think like this?
South Korea can train the US navy. Teach them how to build again: https://www.voanews.com/a/us-navy-looking-to-s-korean-japane... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJkyurhnAQo
The nation doesn’t just need a shipbuilding revolution—it needs a broader industrial revitalization. Strengthening semiconductor manufacturing, modernizing military and civilian aviation, reinvigorating automotive innovation, and more are all critical. Tackling this alone would be overwhelming, but collaboration with trusted neighbors and reliable allies could make these ambitions achievable. Luckily we have a real b…
Honest question, is it at all possible for us to have an industrial revitalization given that we have the highest average wages in the world?
Regardless of their specific needs, this situation has resulted in a unique exchange mechanism: developing countries must offer their best products in exchange for goods from developed countries. As a result, people in developing countries are unable to enjoy the finest products produced in their own countries, and sometimes not even second-tier products, as these are reserved for foreign consumers.
The U.S. market features products from various countries and regions, including China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Jamaica, and Mexico. The world's finest products flow into the U.S. market in exchange for U.S. dollars. As everyone competes to obtain dollars, competition intensifies, leading to high product quality and low prices. This has created unprecedented prosperity in the U.S. market. This outcome is a result of market mechanisms and the benefits that the U.S. has gained from the global status of the dollar, established by the Bretton Woods Conference after World War II.
However, the massive influx of foreign products into the U.S. has also impacted its domestic industries, causing factory closures and rising unemployment. This issue cannot be ignored, which is why the forces of free trade and protectionism in the U.S. have been in constant conflict.
— Wang Huning, America Against America