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China is the manufacturing superpower

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Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#21

Post by danans »

ipnon wrote: post #14
advael wrote: post #3

Huh. For all the claims that US manufacturing is down, it does seem that if we adjusted per-capita it's on par with China based on the figures presented here, which I really didn't expect to see I'm no expert and of course I have no clue if it even makes sense to measure per-capita manufacturing share, and also assume a lot of other factors matter here - what kinds of things we're manufacturing, how much those produc…

You might be surprised to learn that manufacturing is larger industry in the US than our tech industry, or that our domestic oil industry is even larger. America produces more oil than any other country. America was the world's factory for over a century. This dominance only ended around 2010, when China took the lead. It was our advantage to lose, and it was the result of deliberate political action. We offshored ma…

> All the while Beijing did everything in its power to enrich the Chinese worker, no matter the cost to outsiders. The results speak for themselves.

In fairness, during this period, the US did everything it could to suppress the wages and benefits of its own manufacturing workers.

Recall that the first rounds of manufacturing outsourcing were to US states with non-existent labor protections, mostly in the South.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#22

Post by klipklop »

echelon wrote: post #15
_1tem wrote: post #11

> The US is the world’s sole military superpower. It spends more on its military than the ten next highest spending countries combined. Dubious claim. Military power is not measured in “spending”. Manufacturing is in fact a basis for modern military power, as it was the basis for US military power in WW2. The fact that China can produce 10k+ precisely controlled drone swarms in massive quantities and produces more hy…

It won't take long for China to catch up. And in a hot war, they're the ones who can rapidly rebuild. Lots of reports say that Chinese military spending has exceeded our own if you account for their cheaper cost of labor and material goods. China also recently (just days ago) flew two new sixth gen fighters. The US has yet to demonstrate one. The tactical move for the West to counter is to move as much manufacturing…

The irony is in a world war China would likely take over the manufacturing plants the west built in places like Thailand and Vietnam to assist China in the war effort. Further bolstering their war time production.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#23

Post by [deleted] »

ipnon wrote: post #14
advael wrote: post #3

Huh. For all the claims that US manufacturing is down, it does seem that if we adjusted per-capita it's on par with China based on the figures presented here, which I really didn't expect to see I'm no expert and of course I have no clue if it even makes sense to measure per-capita manufacturing share, and also assume a lot of other factors matter here - what kinds of things we're manufacturing, how much those produc…

You might be surprised to learn that manufacturing is larger industry in the US than our tech industry, or that our domestic oil industry is even larger. America produces more oil than any other country. America was the world's factory for over a century. This dominance only ended around 2010, when China took the lead. It was our advantage to lose, and it was the result of deliberate political action. We offshored ma…

[deleted]

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#24

Post by linotype »

Animats wrote: post #10

The US can't even make cell phones any more. What would it take to get that capability back?

It’s easy, just make Americans poor enough that it makes sense to manufacture them here. Given that no one wants to pay more taxes or (realistically) cut spending, we’re well on our way.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#25

Post by ignoredposter »

klipklop wrote: post #22
echelon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't take long for China to catch up. And in a hot war, they're the ones who can rapidly rebuild. Lots of reports say that Chinese military spending has exceeded our own if you account for their cheaper cost of labor and material goods. China also recently (just days ago) flew two new sixth gen fighters. The US has yet to demonstrate one. The tactical move for the West to counter is to move as much manufacturing…

The irony is in a world war China would likely take over the manufacturing plants the west built in places like Thailand and Vietnam to assist China in the war effort. Further bolstering their war time production.

[dead]

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#26

Post by wakawaka28 »

danans wrote: post #21
ipnon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be surprised to learn that manufacturing is larger industry in the US than our tech industry, or that our domestic oil industry is even larger. America produces more oil than any other country. America was the world's factory for over a century. This dominance only ended around 2010, when China took the lead. It was our advantage to lose, and it was the result of deliberate political action. We offshored ma…

> All the while Beijing did everything in its power to enrich the Chinese worker, no matter the cost to outsiders. The results speak for themselves. In fairness, during this period, the US did everything it could to suppress the wages and benefits of its own manufacturing workers. Recall that the first rounds of manufacturing outsourcing were to US states with non-existent labor protections, mostly in the South.

The only way to protect wages in the face of competition that works for 1/10 to 1/3 the rate is to institute protectionist policies. That has also been unpopular because there's money to be made in offshoring as well. Americans are getting the worst at both ends, and only experiencing short-term benefits of having cheaper goods.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#27

Post by wakawaka28 »

_1tem wrote: post #11

> The US is the world’s sole military superpower. It spends more on its military than the ten next highest spending countries combined. Dubious claim. Military power is not measured in “spending”. Manufacturing is in fact a basis for modern military power, as it was the basis for US military power in WW2. The fact that China can produce 10k+ precisely controlled drone swarms in massive quantities and produces more hy…

Indeed, we spend more than anyone else but also get less for our money than anyone else. It would likely be an underestimate to say that our gear and labor costs double that of any of our competition.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#28

Post by seanmcdirmid »

defrost wrote: post #20
anovikov wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not surprising: everyone is using the same manufacturing equipment now, due to free markets and trade. So it's only about numbers of workers.

Port capacity and equipment scale, willingness to engage in toxic processing, etc carry far more weight, IMHO. China has a lock on various electronic production streams by having a lock on most of the rare earth processing and dealing with the low level radioactive waste by products. One billion tonnes of raw iron ore per year flows from my state of Western Australia to China for steel production - the machinery, dig…

> China didn't just fall into peak manufacturing capacity by a happy accident of many workers, they (for better or worse) made long term plans and stuck at them - including the reduction in poulation growth known as the one child policy.

I don’t think China planned to intentionally fall off of a demographic cliff. But they are already planning for that cliff by making very aggressive investments in AI and automation. If you see how effective their plans from 10-20 years ago turned out today, wait another 10-20 years and…I hope we have some kind of a plan…it isn’t what Trump has in mind for sure.

Ironically, Japan planned for the same cliff with aggressive investments in AI and automation in the 1980s, but the rise of China messed that up with cheap labor, and their AI play was misguided/probably too early.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#29

Post by Dalewyn »

dragonwriter wrote: post #17
Animats wrote: post #10

The US can't even make cell phones any more. What would it take to get that capability back?

The US can make cellphones, its just not efficient for the US to make cellphones because the US’s comparative advantage is elsewhere. What it would take for the US to make cellphones is direct subsidy to the (inefficient, and for that reason likely therefore doomed by the market without artificial support, since there is robust competition) US firms doing so. Of course, not only would this cost the amount of the subs…

>its just not efficient

The problem is we don't need efficiency, we need effectivity.

>The question then is why would you want to do this?

Because He Who Makes Leads The World. You can't and won't lead if you don't actually get your hands dirty and make shit. China is the world leading superpower now because they make everyone's shit, we are all beholden to them.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#30

Post by saturn8601 »

Animats wrote: post #10

The US can't even make cell phones any more. What would it take to get that capability back?

They are trying:

Purism is selling the Librem 5 USA at $1,600

From the site: "The Librem 5 USA has Made in USA Electronics with all fabrication and manufacturing done at the Purism facility. Individual components used in fabrication are sourced direct from chip makers and parts distributors. We use US companies with US fabrication whenever possible. Most distributors are based in the US with the exception of large integrated circuits that are made in a variety of countries where those companies do fabrication (US, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan); an example is the NXP CPU we use from their fabrication in South Korea. While we source chips that are made in the US whenever possible, chip country of origin is not nearly as meaningful as country of board fabrication, especially when all chips are verified hardware circuits that are driven by free software in the kernel."

[1]: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/#table-of-origin

If you look at the table on the site, its not 100% USA yet but they are getting close and thats a positive development.

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