131–140 of 1001 posts
Doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.
What if a war erupts? Suddenly the US cannot produce a lot of essential stuff - I think Covid was a good example of that happening.
Of course the question is can this be done and what will be the price if so.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Americans also have more free time and disposable income because of that decision, among others. Why would you want them to struggle more?
The people in the areas where things used to be made certainly have more free time, but they don't have disposable income. Unless we're just here to repeat canards from the 1990s given by financiers which explained why it was good to shut down the main employers for entire towns.
There are localized problems - and it's all very similar to the post-Thatcher UK - but you cannot be serious in imagining that employment would magically return to the exact spots it left. In fact that's one of the sub-problems OP talks about: so you want a US Shenzen. Where are you going to put it?
(UK equivalent: we're discussing keeping Scunthorpe blast furnaces open, so that we can have a "secure" supply of "domestic" steel .. made entirely from imported ingredients. Because the mines the plant was built to refine are empty)
There are plenty of people saying these tariffs will not work. But a person used to be able to graduate high school and get a job that could support a house with a yard, a car, a non-working spouse and children. How we get that level of prosperity back? That's the people really want. Tariffs are simply a means to that end. I wish people would stop writing articles about 100% criticizing tariffs and instead write arti…
> There are plenty of people saying these tariffs will not work. Work to do what? > But a person used to be able to graduate high school and get a job that could support a house with a yard, a car, a non-working spouse and children. Why do you think this has anything to do with tariffs or manufacturing? > How do we get that level of prosperity back? Better pay for the jobs people actually work. Reducing inequality by…
Bring back manufacturing, and make the US economy work better for workers.
> Why do you think this has anything to do with tariffs or manufacturing?
Because usually the best-paying jobs were in factories, especially if you didn't have a college degree. A lot of towns in the Rust Belt were economically dependent on a local factory -- think cars or steelmaking. Often, part of the reason these factories were so high paying is because the jobs were unionized.
Companies moved overseas to save money on that expensive labor.
Now, companies have all the negotiation leverage. "If you unionize / demand higher pay, we'll move operations overseas" is a real and credible threat, as countless companies have already done it.
Tariffs are supposed to make operating overseas more expensive. Undo the economic justification for moving the jobs overseas and they will come back.
This takes away the companies' negotiation leverage. The "If you unionize / demand higher pay, we'll move operations overseas" threat isn't credible if everyone knows overseas manufacturing is super expensive due to tariffs.
I grew up in the Rust Belt and I'm old enough to properly remember when some of those factories were still operating. I saw with my own eyes what used to be a respectable blue-collar community decay into an economic wasteland. The drugs are getting bad. A lot of people have lost hope. Young ambitious folks see no reason to stay here.
The problem and its underlying factors are so obvious to me that I'm constantly amazed to see well-informed, intelligent people who don't seem to understand it.
I had to stop reading at the Michael Jordan baseball part. Everything after that wasn't believable anymore. He wasn't that bad at baseball[1]. 1. https://vendettasportsmedia.com/michael-jordan-wasnt-that-ba...
> China generates over twice as much electricity per person today as the United States. Why? This appears to be completely wrong? All the stats I can find say that the US has about 4x the per capita electricity generation of China. Other than that it seems to be mostly good points, especially the overall one: you cannot do this overnight. > If you’re building a new factory in the United States, your investment will a…
I believe the comparison is absolute production, not per person. Anything else would be odd. Considering China has 4x the capita of US it would mean that in absolute terms China is producing 8x the energy of the US. In reality it seems to be roughly 2x (although both sources are a bit outdated):
US 2023: 4.18 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity from utility-scale generators. Additionally, small-scale solar photovoltaic systems contributed around 73.62 billion kWh 1.
China 2021: 8.53 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity
--
But the staggering difference is how much of the electricity is attributed to the Industrial sector:
China: 70% (~6 trillion kWh)
US: 26% (~1 trillion kWh)
So overall China allocates 6x the electricity to production compared to US...
America doesn't underestimate it, its president does.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely. Canada for example should not be shipping lumber and oil to the United States for further refinement. It should be processed domestically.
Why would that be better? Comparative advantage is real.
2. Profits.
3. Refined products can be exported to countries that don't have refinement capabilities. Not just the US and China. This gives Canada better trade leverage.
4. Security. A big one that's emerged in the last few weeks.
I don't see either Poilievre or Carney talking about this which is disappointing but not unexpected.
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.
A genuine question, presuming no correct answer: what is to be done about it? China is reportedly on track to run more than 50% of global manufacturing by 2030, if the World Bank is correct. What would you do to act against this? Is doing nothing acceptable?
By acting against China that means I applaud moving manufacturing to Vietnam. I want to help Botswana grow - and I wish there were more countries in Africa I could name that seem to be on a good path (I cannot name the majority of countries in Africa, the ones I can are because they are in the news for bad things happening. I'm not even sure Botswana - I mostly know about them because last time I brought up Africa someone from there said their country was an exception).
Overall the world is better off with a lot of trade. Comparative advantage is real. There are things I can do that I don't want to become good at. However we also need to be aware that not everyone in the world is the friend of freedom and some must be cut off lest they grow. Nobody is perfect though, so you can't cut off everyone.