Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 166 posts

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#151

Post by iamnothere »

reactordev wrote: post #130
quotemstr wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish it were so. It's not. For an object-level example, look at the difficulties the Russians had reconstituting their industrial base in the post-apocalyptic wasteland they found themselves after the 90s. It took them a decade to figure out how to restart production of the Tu-160M bomber, and they had all the original blueprints! Likewise, for a while, we forgot how to make this "FOGBANK" substance that's somehow…

And then you pick it back up. Yes, you will get rusty or need to train up but that’s better than lacking the technological capability.

The main thing is to ensure you can continue to produce the machine tools, electronic components, and precision equipment needed to service each major industry. And the domestic engineering talent to run them. This allows you to add capacity quickly if self-sufficiency is needed.

Oh, and you also need to secure stable supply chains.

(We may be in trouble here)

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#152

Post by natbennett »

Illniyar wrote: post #48

The article headline makes it seem like the factories couldn't make the gloves. But further down it says that the cost was double and factories couldn't get buyers. These are very different failure modes, and speak to very different solutions.

Headlines and articles are typically written by different people with different goals.

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#153

Post by reactordev »

shimman wrote: post #111
SanjayMehta wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once the epidemic was over, stakeholders forgot about the original motives.

Good thing the country isn't run by shareholders. Note that a federal jobs program has something like 60-80% support by voters across all political spectrums in the USA.

oh but it is... oh but it is.

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#154

Post by zbentley »

croes wrote: post #150
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or free enough. All that civil engineering, permitting, compliance checkbox BS has to be amortized over the stuff the factory makes.

Foreign made medical gloves have the same compliance to fulfill

They really, really don’t. I’m sympathetic to the goal of moving manufacturing stateside, but fixing regulatory hurdles needs to happen first.

Just because a foreign glove manufacturer has to comply with the same safety/quality standards for their product only scratches the surface. Domestic companies also have to operate compliant with regulations regarding hiring, real estate, safety, finance, and many more.

To be clear, a lot of those regulations (most of them!) achieve good things and should be preserved! Working/environmental/low-corruption conditions in the US (though they could be better) are often superior to those same conditions in the places we import from precisely because of those regulations. But not all regulations (even those with good goals) are effective, others are not worth the burden, and all of them in aggregate do directly contribute to domestic manufacturing loss. It’s a hard problem that others (e.g. Pahlka) have written about much more wisely than I can.

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#155

Post by fooo1882992 »

michaelmrose wrote: post #94
b112 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stockpiles of masks and gloves where maintained in Canada, and I believe the US after SARS. But a year before COVID, these warehouses were shut down, as the stockpiles were old, and needed a refresh, and politicians didnt see the need to spend tens of millions on new stockpiles. The has happened several times over the last 100 years.

Republicans didn't see the need to be precise

In California they were set up by Schwarzenegger and dismantled by Jerry Brown in 2011 to save 1.7 million per year.

“When the Department of Finance was looking at this, they asked a question: ‘How many times have the mobile field hospitals been used since we bought them?’ ” he said. “That was the same question they asked (the Public Health Department). ‘You’re not using it, why do we have it?’ ”

https://revealnews.org/article/california-created-a-massive-...

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#156

Post by matchbok3 »

vrganj wrote: post #74
matchbok3 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is quite sad how doomerism has taken so many people. Our planet cannot "die", it is not a person. Take a deep breath!

Sure, the planet can't die. But the people and animals on it can. But I have a feeling you knew what I meant and are just being deliberately obtuse.

Nope. Just opposed to climate alarmism that has simple not worked over the past 20 years. In fact it's done more harm than good.

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#157

Post by brynnbee »

probably_wrong wrote: post #80
brynnbee wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claim he failed seems like hyperbole. He couldn't find an existing manufacturer for chainmail in the US but this is a fairly trivial and niche thing to create, and is more a reflection of how uncommon it is for people to need that specific type and size of chain mail than it is that the US is incapable of making it. The other part is from Costa Rica only bc he hasn't yet made the injection mold for it, like he di…

I disagree with that conclusion: even if the chainmail were indeed very uncommon (no idea), getting it from China was so easy that he even got it when actively trying to avoid it. And since the chainmail is the revolutionary part of the idea (and the most expensive part) it might as well be the product. He set out to get "100% made in the USA", settled for "no part made in China", and couldn't even get that. That def…

An industrial jumpring making machine is currently on ebay for $2500. I don't think a problem that can be solved so cheaply can be classified as a failure of an industry.

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#158

Post by dude187 »

michaelmrose wrote: post #149
dude187 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems the decision to deprioritize n95s was done by the Obama administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_National_Stockpile

This is a congressional decision not a presidential obe and it was done after the dems lost the majority because of the incllination towards austerity that always develops when a dem is president. Would you like to go over exactly what republican votes led to this?

Yes, please do so. Because there's plenty of Democrat majority Congresses in that time range that chose to not renew the supply

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#159

Post by michaelmrose »

dude187 wrote: post #158
michaelmrose wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a congressional decision not a presidential obe and it was done after the dems lost the majority because of the incllination towards austerity that always develops when a dem is president. Would you like to go over exactly what republican votes led to this?

Yes, please do so. Because there's plenty of Democrat majority Congresses in that time range that chose to not renew the supply

Let's party like its 2009 We're dealing with the aftermath of the morgage crisis due in no small part to the legal and regulatory environment of 2001-2007 under George Bush. We are also dealing with the swine flu pandemic which is what actually depletes our strategic supplies in the first place.

By Mid 2010 we pass with great contention and argument both Dodd Frank and the ACA. By August we could finally declare the swine flu pandemic over and congress is worrying about their campaigns and the 2011 budget.

This would have been a good time to get the job done and indeed this was tried. They couldn't get the 60 needed to pass the senate in order to pass the 2011 budget and indeed no budget was passed we instead relies on continuing resolutions to fund the government at current levels which left no funds for the mission and no real time for some standalone effort. Fortunately we have 9 more years before this becomes a crisis.

2011-2018 Republicans controlled congress. In 2017,2018 Republicans controlled congress AND the presidency. In 2019 dems finally got congress back but couldn't do shit by virtue of Trump.

It's weird that you put this on the Dems when it is so so clearly a Republican fumble like the entire rest of the pandemic.

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#160

Post by jerlam »

michaelmrose wrote: post #145
hypeatei wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing basic math makes someone a "spreadsheet head"? If the "actual world" wanted American-made gloves then this cash injection from the government would've resulted in a boom in glove manufacturing here, no? I always see catastrophizing and autarkist-coded takes like this which imply the US is a house of cards because we don't manufacture everything under the sun at all times. You have to realize that preparing for…

There are examples of species encountering such species decimating pathogens and we are in a worse position than 2020. Any investment in such is likely to pay dividends in much less dramatic ordinary catastrophes which have occurred repeatedly and constantly. It's probably a better investment than our military.

Funny that you mention the military, as the US military is required by law to buy domestic to ensure some sort of domestic supply chains. Even for trivial things like t-shirts and gloves.

Berry Amendment-compliant work gloves, cost more than 4x more than the imported equivalent: https://www.mechanix.com/us-en/all-work-gloves/GVMP-B55.html

Post reply on HN