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I don't know the latest, but as of like 6-8 mo ago. India hasn't been able to produce much (anything?), despite having millions of dollars of Chinese equipment ready to be put into use.
Where do you get your information from?
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I don't know the latest, but as of like 6-8 mo ago. India hasn't been able to produce much (anything?), despite having millions of dollars of Chinese equipment ready to be put into use.
$2.6B Foxconn factory in India is coming online in the next few days: https://www.ndtvprofit.com/technology/tata-plant-begins-ipho...
Could someone explain to an idiot like me what the benefit of this is to the americans?
What the actual motivation is, you'd have to ask Trump in a setting where he'd tell you the truth rather than putting on a show for the public.
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So you want a worse floodlight at a higher price because of government protection?
If it employs an American and helps recreate our middle class... Yes I do. First they came for the floodlight maker's job. Next they will come for yours.
These tariffs are probably the worst way to try to do that. America had its best “middle class” when companies and CEOs were heavily taxed and when unions were thriving. The politicians ranting about “bringing jobs back to America” are the same ones that dismantled the things that actually _made America great_, and if they actually cared about the quality of living for most Americans they would do actual work to get there instead of alienating our economy to benefit themselves and their rich friends.
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> This theme is common among people who don’t understand how manufacturing works right now: They don’t realize that a product like this has many different parts from different places, down to the dozens of little SMT capacitors. You can’t just move the factory and avoid tariffs because the parts still come from other places. This argument doesn't make a lot of sense. Suppose your company only does final assembly. The…
So moving one factory helps reduce the impact of tariffs on the final product from 145% to 135%, and to reduce it to zero you would have to move hundreds of factories, with tiny gains at each step. I think the original argument makes a lot of sense, and yours does not. "Just move two hundred factories on a different continent" might as well be "just invent a time machine".
This is ignoring two things. First, for the earlier components in the supply chain, it isn't a reduction from 145% to 135%. It's a reduction to 0%, because the inputs are fungible commodity raw materials made in dozens of different countries, so moving the factory removes the entire tariff for the company selling that input to some other company. Which is what the manufacturer (i.e. the component seller) cares about, and they're the one who would be moving the factory.
And second, the later stages of the supply chain tend to contribute the most value. Suppose you haven't moved the factory that makes the capacitors, but you move the factory that makes the phones. The phone costs $500 retail, how much of the contribution was the wholesale price of the capacitors? A dollar? 145% of So you both have a large incentive to move the early stages, because the tariff you avoid is on ~100% of the selling price from the perspective of the company making it, and a large incentive to move the later stages, because the later stages are the largest share of the final price.
> "Just move two hundred factories on a different continent" might as well be "just invent a time machine".
Why is moving 200 factories harder than moving one factory, when there are also 200 companies and they each only have to move one factory?
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This is a known issue with tariffs, so "governments" are on the lookout for it. It's risky, and there are consequences if you get caught. There were however reports of Chinese companies actually setting up production in e.g. Thailand. The products are more expensive then, so it doesn't actually change anything - at least it was like this before the introduction of the one billion gagillion tariffs.
> This is a known issue with tariffs, so "governments" are on the lookout for it. not just an issue with tariffs, but with sanctions. Guess how many companies suddenly popped up in places like kazakhstan importing electronic components and other us-sanctioned products, and then selling it to russia.
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> Next they will come for yours. Like "they" came for middle-class Americans in stable US government jobs? If they cared about re-creating a middle class with jobs, they wouldn't have started with wantonly eliminating so many of them using a method similar to checking if the packaged spaghetti is cooked. Toss it randomly at the wall and see what sticks.
Is that your vision for middle class jobs? Government? And who will pay for these... The "rich"?
You and I both want an employed middle class. Why are you okay with "them" coming for the middle class as long as it Government jobs? These magic employment factories are not going to spring up overnight. So in the mean time why not care about the families and lives being rocked for having the audacity to get what was a stable job that could provide security for their middle class family with the added benefit for those that value their work in civil service over joining the Ferengi?
> And who will pay for these... The "rich"?
Me for one (Im not rich), I recognize what this county provides and the opportunities available. Why be against helping that which helped you? If some people dont want to that, okay, renounce citizenship, leave the country. They can be free of a government taxing the people who benefited the most from the previous generations taxes that paid for the collective government effort providing the conditions the newly wealthy, and the much wealthier now benefited from. Musk immigrated to this country because he wasn't going to have the same opportunity to turn the money he had into the fortune it is by staying in South Africa. Yet instead of using the opportunity his American created money bought him and carefully pruning the weary looking government tree so it could grow back stronger and healthier, he took a chainsaw to it. There's more money to be made at his stage of wealth with an even weaker government; that path has greater profit and simultaneously, the chance to pull up the ladder he climbed on the backs of the middle class. So should the "rich" pay their dues? Yes, just as I do and for the same reason. Otherwise, it's the "rich" who are the freeloaders.
Is that your vision for middle class jobs? Wait til the "rich" buys whats left of the country's economy at discount, then graciously allow the masses to work in their floodlight factory for scraps 6 days a week in a new private owned unregulated job economy with no oversight for worker protections?