America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back • Hacker News Board

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#171

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 2:40 PM UTC

csense wrote: post #46

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…

> 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.

When was that last really true? 1971?

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#172

Post by vFunct » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 2:40 PM UTC

jballer wrote: post #107

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?…

To the contrary, they think of manual and “low-skill” labor as an essential undertaking that no person or society is above. You are the one who thinks of the work as below you, that it should be moved out of sight so we can stop caring and make it someone else’s problem.

Everyone wants to think they're the most valuable thing in the world, but economics doesn't care about how much people value themselves. It only cares about when both buyer and seller agrees to the value of their work.

You may think a farm worker deserves $500,000,000 a year, but that won't matter until someone else decides to pay them that.

Ultimately, it's OK to say some things are more valuable than others, including the value of your labor.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#173

Post by Herring » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 2:41 PM UTC

wormlord wrote: post #150

I think the collapse of the American Empire is no more preventible than the collapse of the British, Spanish, or Roman empires. The issues with the US being the reserve currency has been known for a while now (and was even predicted by Keynes before the Bretton-Woods summit): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma Any discussion of "bringing back manufacturing" that doesn't mention government spending or socia…

Empires come and go, that's just a fact of life. The question was whether they'd fall back relatively gracefully like (Western) Europe, now with multiple countries ranking at the top of "World's Happiest Countries", or whether they'll become Russia 2.0 with the biggest guns, richest oligarchs, and the worst quality of life.

It's still far from played out, but right now they're solidly on the road to Russia 2.0, with decades-long trends pointing that way.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#174

Post by digianarchist » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 2:41 PM UTC

franktankbank wrote: post #152

digianarchist wrote: post #49

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.

Canada and the US are long time allies and should be able to benefit from eachother without much hesitation. China is an adversary, big difference in posture.

Security allies? Sure. Economic allies? I don't think that has been the case for a long time. Even before Trump's second term.

Canada and the US have been to court multiple times over NAFTA violations (sometimes Canada is at fault admittedly).

https://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-com...

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#175

Post by ZeroGravitas » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 2:41 PM UTC

rickdeckard wrote: post #137

pjc50 wrote: post #35

> 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…

> 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. 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 prod…

China is also more electrified generally than the US. They only just pulled ahead but the rate of change is startling.

Since 2000 they've gone from 10% of final energy being electricity to nearly 26% while the US has been basically flat around 23% and they are both predicted to grow (or not grow) at roughly the same in the next few years.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#176

Post by pokot0 » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 2:41 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #35

> 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…

Can someone explain to me why EU VAT is considered a tariff, while US sales taxes are not? They both seem a sale tax to me.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#177

Post by esafak » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 2:41 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #61

imbusy111 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Define "more valuable."

Leading to higher profits, jobs people want, and security, for starters.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#178

Post by potato3732842 » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 2:42 PM UTC

numbers_guy wrote: post #120

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?

I wouldn't expect "now that you've caught us we'll pay you to shut up" to go over well.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#179

Post by xbmcuser » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 2:42 PM UTC

rickdeckard wrote: post #137

pjc50 wrote: post #35

> 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…

> 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. 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 prod…

China electricity consumption is growing by 6-8% a year and is likely to hit 10500 trillion kilowatt-hours in 2025. Which at $0.10/kwh the avg is a $1 trillion dollars. Though from what I understand in China home users are charged about $0.07 and industry $0.08 so $7-800 billion a year on electricity alone.

They are rapidly moving to renewable with grid scale BESS auctions avg $66-68/kw they are likely to have electricity prices at $0.01-0.02 over the next few years. I think it will be extremely tough to compete with China in manufacturing unless there is huge investment in renewable and storage systems to keep electricity prices competitive with China who are going to move on from coal over the next decade.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#180

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 2:42 PM UTC

itake wrote: post #81

imbusy111 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

IMHO, with the Big Tech boom winding down, what is more valuable for us to do? Manufacturing could prepare us for the next wave, whatever that might be.

> IMHO, with the Big Tech boom winding down, what is more valuable for us to do?

Tech isn't winding down; tech, as the sector that draws the most investment based on long-term development, had the biggest response to tight monetary policy designed to slow the entire economy down, but that response demonstrates that tech is where most of the marginal dollar goes.

> Manufacturing could prepare us for the next wave, whatever that might be.

Trying to work our way down the raw materials -> manufacturing -> finance/services ladder that countries usually try to work their way up for maximum prosperity in globalized trade isn't going to prepare us for anything other than lasting economic decline. And why would “manufacturing”—which you can't build generically, but only by specific, usually impossible to reallocate to a different use that isn't closely similar without sacrificing most of the value, major capital investments in particular subareas of manufacturing, prepare us for anything else even ignoring that we’d have to regress to do it?