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America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

molsonhart.com

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Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#111

Post by fullshark »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #38

This pretty much mirrors what a friend of mine said (he is a recently-retired Co-CEO of a medium-sized manufacturing business). He's been telling me this, for years. It's not a secret. The information has been out there, for ages. I'm surprised that the administration didn't understand this.

Some did understand it I think (maybe not Trump), but were tired of hearing it couldn't be done and decided to try. A large % of Americans are happy at least someone is trying, and at the very least perhaps some lessons will be learned, and the parties will recalibrate their policy platforms to actually accomplish reshoring.

That's the optimistic POV at least imo.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#112

Post by cogs »

vFunct wrote: post #7

Our economy was designed to NOT have citizens work at factories. We pay thousands of dollars a year in our public schools to teach each of our citizens calculus, literature, world history, and physics, so that they DON'T have to work at a factory, or perform manual labor like picking strawberries or driving trucks or cleaning toilets. Why would anyone want to go back to an economy that can be run by a third worlders?…

But how many citizens know calculus, literature and physics? Certainly not enough know history - or US democracy wouldn't be facing the threat it does now.

The poorly educated need a livelihood too. If the economy is healthier for global trade (I think it is), then some way must be found of destributing its benefits to the demographics who got hit. Otherwise you get revolution or populism.

Telling an unemployed factory worker to send their kids to college doesn't help. Doesn't help the factory worker, and doesn't help kids who see education and middle class jobs as about as unreal as the idea of becoming a famous influencer or kingpin drug dealer.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#113

Post by Workaccount2 »

> It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has.

Sounds more like China has an exploited educated class/lack of oppurtunity than America has bad education.

Plenty of American workers can multiply in their heads and diligently perform there work. These people work in white collar jobs though, not in factories snapping together phone cases for 12 hours a day.

The author isn't totally wrong here, Americas bottom tier labor pool sucks, but they miss the bigger picture when comparing Chinese and American workers. China has skilled workers doing unskilled work. That's why they are so good. That's also why bringing manufacturing to the US will be so hard. Ain't nobody wanna get a degree so they can work a hot factory floor all day.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#114

Post by dashundchen »

tbirdny wrote: post #71

America doesn't underestimate it, its president does.

I saw a chart passing around from this Cato Institute survey (Cato is a right wing think tank) [0]. It made me laugh.

> America would be better off if more Americans works in manufacturing than they do today. Agree 80%/Disagree 20%

> I would be better off if I worked in a factory instead of my current field of work. Agree 25%/Disagree 73%

[0] https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2024-08/Globalizat...

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#115

Post by pjc50 »

imbusy111 wrote: post #48
mppm wrote: post #34

Jonathan Blow's "Preventing the collapse of civilization" [1] makes a similar point. It is easy to assume that, if we can build EUV machines and space telescopes, then processing stainless steel and manufacturing PCBs is baby stuff, and is just waiting for the proper incentives to spring up again. Unfortunately that is not the case -- reality has a surprising amount of detail [2] and even medium-level technology take…

But the important question is - is it worth it? Should we be doing something more valuable instead?

People seem to want jobs with the macho kudos of manual labour, but with the physical comfort and salaries of email jobs, and I have some very bad news about that combination.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#116

Post by mclau157 »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #9

Its the integration and overall combined effect of the entire industrial pipeline that makes China so incredible. It processes all the raw materials and the recycling/reuse of off cuts through every possible way to turn those raw materials into components and then into goods with very little need for import from other countries. Its the complete system for a huge variety of goods. To compete with that the entire pipe…

Even getting workers to the factory is a concerted effort of trains and public transport, Americans would quickly clog the highways with millions of single occupant large vehicles without first investing in more efficient ways to move people

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#117

Post by jghn »

The other day I saw the results of a poll [1] where 80% of Americans thought the *country* would be better off if more Americans worked in factories. However, only 20% of Americans thought that *they* would be better off if more Americans worked in factories. It was surprisingly bipartisan.

In other words, people like the idea of this, but no one actually wants this.

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/845917ed-41a5-449f-946f-70263adba...

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#118

Post by gowings97 »

vFunct wrote: post #80
gowings97 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you cannot hide the imbalance of disconnecting yourself from the material reality that's involved with making your lifestyle possible by outsourcing to other human beings, over multiple decades, without it coming back to bite you in one form or another. See the hundreds of thousands of people in US that have died from opioid overdoses. 50% of the US population, specifically those living outside major metro ar…

You didn't explain exactly why we need that physical connection. You just broadly complained. Every one of your statements could be refuted by globalists saying its perfectly fine for foreigners to perform our manual labor for us instead.

Because in the absence of that physical connection you begin to accumulate a social and economic debt that will eventually come due, because sooner or later that 80% working in the service economy will come for the remaining 15-20%. Domestic manufacturing made possible by some degree of anti-dumping/tariffs would at least create a more balanced distribution of this wealth.

Globalist trade promoters are just short-term wishful / magical thinkers. It's magical thinking that you can create this social and economic imbalance via outsourcing it to the other side of the globe, without consequences over the long run. It's wishful thinking that there are enough upper middle class jobs / lifestyle for everyone that took Calculus.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#119

Post by fromMars »

The world is an interdependent eco- system these days. The idea that a country can isolate itself an reproduce expertise that has flourished elsewhere is a bit silly and tilting at windmills.

Globalization is a fact of the world today and the best path to better lives for everyone is through mutual cooperation and policies that lift all boats.

Trump's goals and attempts to change this are foolhardy.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#120

Post by numbers_guy »

lenerdenator wrote: post #51

America? No. The shareholder class underestimates it. A lot of Americans realize that it's going to be hard, which is why we should have made an example out of the first guy to profit off of sending manufacturing off to the shores of a geopolitical rival.

Question: if the jobs were off shored, but the resulting profits were shared more equally, would Americans still complain?
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