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

America's advanced manufacturing problem and how to fix it

americanaffairsjournal.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 313 posts

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

#191

Post by rcme »

twoodfin wrote: post #46
Animats wrote: post #12

Note the absence of tax policy changes that favor manufacturing. Here are a few: * A tax on financial transactions. This is sometimes called a "Tobin tax". The US financial services sector has doubled in size as a fraction of the economy. It's currently around 12%. That's an overhead cost, and a big one. Could be half that. * A tax on advertising. The tax deductiblity of advertising as a business expense should be li…

A financial transaction tax is a terrible idea. I own a 100 shares of Apple. Tim Cook goes on CNBC and says he’s all in on printers. So I want to sell my Apple shares and buy Microsoft, where Satya Nadella is pushing Cloud and AI. I’m being a smart investor, moving a small bit of capital allocation intelligently. Taxing this decision discourages making it—even if only marginally—and makes capital markets dumber and l…

You already are taxed for this decision via capital gains taxes.

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

#192

Post by SyzygistSix »

mdorazio wrote: post #59
nibab wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Which company is private investment going to fund - the SaaS co. with 40% margins and rapid growth or the manufacturing co. scraping 10% margins and 5% CAGR?” 2 of the most valuable companies started in the last 20 years in the US are SpaceX and Tesla. You can still build a huge amount of value with non-SaaS margins. I think part of the problem here is how structurally unfit VCs are to fund such companies (ie invest…

These are great examples. SpaceX is an aerospace company and Tesla's price and hype are based on not being a manufacturing company (Elon touted it as a transportation tech company and not a car company from the beginning). If either were valued as manufacturing companies, their valuations would be in line with traditional peers. My point is, if you want manufacturing to return, we need American FoxConns, and that mea…

The price and hype are based in part on not being a manufacturing company but the business model is certainly based on being a manufacturing company. And the manufacturing segment of both that is expanding. Just because the stock price is ridiculous does not mean the business models are unsound. They are a great example of bringing manufacturing and vertical integration back. They have made their factories work in California, Beijing, and Berlin.

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

#193

Post by layer8 »

madengr wrote: post #82
yterdy wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite. 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. That is, if you care about Silent, Boomer, and Gen X retirees - who invested , but didn't save - being able to cover their myriad outlays. Millennials and younger need not apply, of course; we're just never going to be able to r…

Saving is futile with a 3% loss on your money each year. Unless you invest it you are losing it.

Investments come with risks. The trade-off of cash losing its value over time is that it’s relatively less risky. You split your assets into cash and investments to achieve an overall combined risk profile. In that sense, cash is just another investment with a certain risk-return ratio (even when the return is negative).

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

#194

Post by SyzygistSix »

edrxty wrote: post #161
reducesuffering wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's a "rationalist" blog, an inherently unreliable source in this area, and they're literally only quoting people who have a relationship with him and stand to gain financially from his success. Objectively, at present he's stoking a fire comprised of $44 billion dollars, committing anti trust crimes, and endangering a besieged foreign nation. Judge him by his actions, not by what his blowhards say about him.

There are similar reports from people like Jim Cantrell, Robert Meuller, and Jim Keller. They aren't blowhards and don't need to kiss anyone's ass.

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

#195

Post by aa_is_op »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #4

I work in one of the last remaining large industrial manufacturing labs in the US. Some of my colleagues worked at Bell before that was shuttered. My sense from talking to the previous generation is that financialization of the US has started (finally) failing the American people. The previous generation cashed in on major profits by off shoring (Kodak), but we overdid it. In a round about way our company is run by p…

Correct. The problem with "America's manufacturating problem" is it's oligarchic class rise. The rich control the US through favorable laws and protection. You need to remove the scabs at the top to have a healthy economic comeback.

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

#197

Post by SyzygistSix »

narrator wrote: post #73

Has anyone asked Elon how to fix manufacturing in the U.S? Has he given anyone any ideas. The guy probably does as good or better job at manufacturing in the U.S than anyone else, and he has plenty of plants in foreign countries, so he can compare and contrast. Alas, the current administration hates the guy, and you can't have a guy who's clearly on the wrong team get to take credit for anything these days. Edit: He…

For the most part Musk (and his businesses) and the administration, as well as US auto manufacturers, are playing nice now and realize they need to work together. The sniping between them has decreased a lot and is mostly coming from elsewhere while their collaboration has increased. Mostly because the economics of EVs have shown resistance is futile and SpaceX' capabilities are so useful.

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

#198

Post by SyzygistSix »

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.

Are you saying Jeff Bezos and Boeing/ULA had less resources than Elon did? They had far more resources. And SpaceX hires from the same pool of talent as they do.

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

#199

Post by RandomLensman »

stouset wrote: post #140
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.

> Markets that are less efficient in that task hurt long-term retirement investors and day-traders alike. On some level this is true, but the insane quantities being siphoned out of the economy through the financial system is wildly disproportionate to the increasingly-infinitesimal gains in “price efficiency”. As a long-term investor in the market as a whole, whether Apple’s true per-share value today is 175.01 and…

The money is not siphoned out of the economy (unless it all leaves the US/World). The money made in finance is just as any other money, i.e., it is used to consume, invest, save etc.

Btw., no-one is forced to trade incessantly, either.

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

#200

Post by SyzygistSix »

dalbasal wrote: post #163
bandrami wrote: post #154

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.

I don't think this is a problem. A piece like this is not a self contained textbook. It's a hot topic with 100 years of history near the centre of political and economic discourse. Contentious claims are inevitable. The reverse claim also gets made, and whether or not the claim is "supported," it's never sufficiently supported. The reality is that there's a whole debate with vountermoves behind either claim. One side…

I think the more objective measure might be the holes in the domestic supply chain that represent vulnerability and a lack of robustness.
Post reply on HN