America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it • Hacker News Board

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#151

Post by Terr_ » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 7:31 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #79

CPLX wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the closest thing to an answer. The economy has essentially been ruined by looting. People finding ways to strip out assets from companies. Variations on this include private equity racking up debt and bankrupting companies. Executives doing stock buybacks to boost their options while hollowing out the company's resources. Hedge fund management fees. It's everywhere.

> People finding ways to strip out assets from companies. If those people don't own the company, what is the owner doing by allowing this to happen? If those people _are_ the owners, then there shouldn't be a problem, since it's their own company, and they ought to be allowed to do anything they wish. Including short term reward for long term loss (if it is worth it in their eyes). So i dont think it's "looting" (imp…

Trying to introspect the "That's Wrong" feeling... I think it happens when people feel that employees/founders have some kind of vested interest in the company's persistence that is being violated... But that thingamajig is something our legal and financial systems do not adequately capture and model, or else it could be but people aren't aware/proactive about it.

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#152

Post by adwn » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 7:39 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #91

dwallin wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because a behavior may end up profitable for its owners doesn’t mean we should be just accepting it as a society. Also viewing a company as just a collection of assets owned by capital can be somewhat limiting. Companies are generally made up of human employees, and many schools of thought treat employees as one of several stakeholders in a company and assign various rights to them and various responsibilities t…

> we should be just accepting it as a society. This problem is solved using the court system, and then legislation system. Things which _should_ be unacceptable needs to be made illegal. And over time, this has indeed been the case. Things like environmental regulations etc are the examples. > various responsibilities to the company for them i think the employees are reading too much into this responsibility, because…

> Longevity of the job, social responsibilities (such as improving the community etc), are all secondary to the financial success for the shareholders.

I think you're describing the way things are, while dwalling is talking about how things ought to be. There's no law of nature saying that companies can't or shouldn't behave socially responsibly.

Edit: I'm not advocating for socialism, not at all. There's a wide spectrum between pure laissez-faire capitalism and nationalization of all private property.

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#153

Post by csomar » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 7:41 AM UTC

> Currency manipulation by the Japanese government further aided its exports, and the oil shock of 1973 was helpful to Japanese automakers given that they specialized in smaller, more efficient cars while the United States produced gas-guzzlers. Japan’s exports to the United States soared. U.S. automakers, in contrast, took too long to understand and then adjust their manufacturing technologies and techniques to the quality revolution.

This ushered the era of Japan (where Japan almost "overtook" the US as the first economy). You can draw lots of parallels to what's happening with China now.

I am afraid, given the size of China, that it'll not "just" reach US GDP but will skyrocket beyond it to the stars. The era of Western/US dominance might be over and it's inevitable.

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#154

Post by bandrami » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 7:56 AM UTC

The authors state that the US "is not a global leader in the advanced manufacturing of the twenty-first century" but don't actually support that claim; we're kind of supposed to take it for granted.

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#155

Post by MoreSEMI » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 7:57 AM UTC

avs733 wrote: post #90

twoodfin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry a colorful example seems to have gone over your head: A financial transaction tax dulls the market response to new information. The primary purpose of markets is to translate information into prices. Markets that are less efficient in that task hurt long-term retirement investors and day-traders alike.

I would caution you against assuming disagreement is misunderstanding, A spring only suspension system responds quickly to a bump in the road. If that’s your only metric, it’s good. But a car without a damper is going to be hella uncomfortable. The shock makes it respond slower - it doesn’t mean it doesn’t respond.

Uuuu, While the analogy is nice, I doubt that taxes are decided upon like an engineer deciding on damping coefficients. An engineer has a specification and tries to hit that spec. I have a hard time believing that’s how taxes are set. I would like carbon taxs/credits to be decided upon that way. But if you look at the real systems it’s obvious they weren’t designed that way. Finally, you are correct that you need to be careful in choosing the metric. I think I would also question the desirability of dampinh, which it seems like the other poster was trying to say. The market being dumber is a slower response in your analogy. They want a sports car, not a rolls.

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#156

Post by dalbasal » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 7:58 AM UTC

>>The Department of Defense’s (DoD) mission has traditionally been one of military security rather than economic security and assuring a strong American industrial base. Yet economic security and military security are now inseparable.

I think a big, poorly understood part of these stories is "advanced games" or "long term degeneration."

Take government procurement, like fighter jets or new hospitals. Post-war, the way this worked was "cost-plus." Companies accounted for their costs and were promised a fixed profit. The obvious flaw is that companies lose interest in efficiency. But... it did work during the war and resulted in more tanks, ships and jets than anyone thought possible. It also worked post war.

But, such games mature. Under "cost-plus" a company increases profits by spending. That's an incentive that will bite eventually. So... they move to competitive bidding. This degenerates into a lawyers-only game, etc.

That's the administrative layer, but game maturation also exists at the political layer. Rooseveltism was a thing for a while, and then anti-rooseveltism became it's competition. During the neoliberal era, industrial policy was the devil. Half the international institutions (trade deals, imf, wb) exist mostly to enforce bans and limits on industrial policy.

During this era, when governments' job was to "get out of the way," the alternative to (now evil) industrial policy was either big trade deals, or tax policies. Tax breaks and tax complexity counted as "getting out of the way" while trade deals structured markets (eg auto-manufacturing) with more detailed rules than a Soviet five year plan.

Anyway.... the statement about making economics a defence job... it feels like an attempt to declare bankruptcy on the "trade-deals and tax breaks" era, and move to an weirder and more awkward model. A bad idea that hasn't played out might be better than a better one that has.

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#157

Post by reducesuffering » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 8:03 AM UTC

edrxty wrote: post #105

aphyt wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building a subway is infrastructure, not manufacturing. Elon recently said the sheet metal in the cyber truck needed to be machined to the precision of a red blood cell. This is not somebody who understands manufacturing.

The Elon stans need to read up on his history. He claims to have significant engineering experience but in reality he does not, he mostly got lucky a couple times early on and hired well. There are millions of people much more capable than him but will never have their chance because they don't have the resources to make their ideas actionable.

I'm no Elon stan, but I think telling others to "read up" is ironic.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-elon-musk#%C2%A...

Feel free to point me to people actually around him that thinks he doesn't know physics or engineering.

"What's really remarkable to me is the breadth of his knowledge. I mean I've met a lot of super super smart people but they're usually super super smart on one thing and he's able to have conversations with our top engineers about the software, and the most arcane aspects of that and then he'll turn to our manufacturing engineers and have discussions about some really esoteric welding process for some crazy alloy and he'll just go back and forth and his ability to do that across the different technologies that go into rockets cars and everything else he does." - Garret Reisman, former SpaceX director and USC Professor

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#158

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 8:04 AM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #148

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As GGP mentioned, the necessity of keeping stock prices (and property values, and anything else securitized) high so as to not impoverish pension funds, 401Ks, IRAs, etc., is real. I'm confused about how your model of the economy works. It sounds like you believe CEOs are selfish and greedy when it comes to workers, but when it comes to pension funds, they keep stock prices high out of the goodness of their hearts?…

CEOs are employed by the board, the board is made of major stockholders, those are pensions funds and other investors mainly interested in stock prices. No need for conspiracy theories or pitchfork waving, it's just all working exactly how it's openly designed to.

If you were a major shareholder in a company, would you favor a CEO who ran it into the ground?

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#159

Post by ramraj07 » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 8:05 AM UTC

Qwertious wrote: post #142

neither_color wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. I just sped through his new bio and while the author seemed overly-apologetic about his assholish tendencies(like in the Thai cave diving incident), his ability to inspire his engineers and get things built is undeniable.

>his ability to inspire his engineers and get things built is undeniable. I deny this. He provides money and hype, and hires the best engineers in the industry who then get results. In some cases things gets things built, but that doesn't mean Elon Musk was personally useful to any given project besides providing hype and money.

“All he does is organize everything and choose what he focuses on” sounds like you say this is easy and simple. I really don’t want to be a Musk defender so I’m gonna stop here.

Re: America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

#160

Post by bboygravity » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 8:07 AM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #47

liquidpele wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that’s only half right… the financialization is driven via a priority of short term profits that are incentivized by the market to executives. They play the BS game to just get rich and then dip, company be damned in the long run.

This is the closest thing to an answer. The economy has essentially been ruined by looting. People finding ways to strip out assets from companies. Variations on this include private equity racking up debt and bankrupting companies. Executives doing stock buybacks to boost their options while hollowing out the company's resources. Hedge fund management fees. It's everywhere.

It's way worse than that: there's also deliberate cellar boxing (bankrupting) of companies on a large scale.

Hedge funds working with consultant buddies (BCG) to take over the board/leadership of a victim company.

The consultants then deliberately destroy the company from the inside while their hedge-fund buddies (naked) short it into literal bankruptcy.

It's a very easy game, it's tax-free (because the short position is technically never closed? or something) and it only very very rarely fails and backfires (GME).