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

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

#201

Post by Roark66 » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 11:35 AM UTC

krisoft wrote: post #169

Roark66 wrote: post #165

The article raises and goes fairly deep into explaining many important issues, but I find it's naive belief the numbers China presents quite surprising. Take this for example: >China dominates the production of full electric vehicles And put it in context with the recent revelations of hectares of abandoned new EVs rotting in many locations in China. Why? The financial policy gave incentives to making more EVs, some…

> Back then The West to the last moment had many prominent authors praising Soviet advancements in many fields until the very end and the collapse that was a complete surprise to many. I hear you. But I am not worried about whatever economic modellers say, or what prominent authors write. What I am worried is when huge companies, predominantly preceived as western ones, spread their arms and swear there is no way the…

>I hear you. But I am not worried about whatever economic modellers say, or what prominent authors write. What I am worried is when huge companies, predominantly preceived as western ones, spread their arms and swear there is no way they can make their gizmos in the USA.

Yes, you make a very valid point.

>Look at Apple for example, most valuable company on the whole world and 44-47% of their production sites is in china. Did we had anything like that in the Soviet block?

No, definitely not, there is a difference in how Soviets couldn't overtly accept western investments without it looking like a failure of their central planning. Also the relationship between both blocks(USSR vs the West) was much more openly antagonistic. China is different in these ways. One could write a book about the differences and similarities of both countries.

As for large companies doing that I blame the lawmakers (and people voting for them). A share based company is supposed to act in the best interest of shareholders. How long or short the time horizon to prioritise is decided by the shareholders when they hire the board of directors. It is not a surprise a bunch of shareholders will want to prioritize short term gains. It is the lawmakers job to ensure its citizens don't fund enemy regimes. That leads to another point, for a life of me I do not understand how the Chinese Communist Party regime is not officially considered an enemy of the USA and all other deocratic countries. For some countries with very corrupt political scene (like Germany, Austria etc) it is obvious why, but the US? Perhaps the political elite in US has awoken to the fact current China is their biggest enemy, they just don't see any benefit in communicating it clearly at this stage.

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

#202

Post by bitcurious » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 11:42 AM UTC

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.

>Objectively, at present he's stoking a fire comprised of $44 billion dollars, committing anti trust crimes, and endangering a besieged foreign nation.

What do any of those have to do with his engineering skills? Do you think good engineers can't make bad investments, or are inherently moral people incapable of antitrust violations?

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

#203

Post by SyzygistSix » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 11:47 AM UTC

bell-cot wrote: post #45

avs733 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe just treat blue collar workers better? And enshrine such treatment into law so this doesn’t happen again. That would seem to be simpler

While "treat blue collar workers better" sounds like a nice goal in itself...I fail to see how that would do anything at all to address the problem which the article is about. In other news - treating your oxen wonderfully will not transmute a wooden moldboard into an iron plow.

An anecdote I remember was that during the 2008 recession German precision manufacturers did not lay off their workers. They reduced hours, sent a bunch to continuing education programs, and retooled for even more high tech manufacturing. When the recession eventually ended, they had retooled foctories with highly trained workers while US companies had to rehire and retrain their work force. Which again brings the focus back to long term versus short term profits.

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

#204

Post by twoodfin » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 11:48 AM UTC

rcme wrote: post #191

twoodfin wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not really. I can make a million trades or one to gain $X and pay the same capital gains tax.

A financial transaction tax makes me much worse off in the former case. It disincentivizes trading volume by raising transaction costs, which have been on a long-term trend downward as markets have adopted technology and brokers have engaged in cutthroat competition. I believe that trend has been positive for markets, investors, and the economy as a whole.

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

#205

Post by p_l » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 12:01 PM UTC

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #158

sudosysgen wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If I am a faceless pension fund that is going to earn short term on this much better, and be free to walk away and do the same thing to another company?

Sure.

This is exactly the same playbook as with private equity - the point is to make the shareholders richer as fast as possible, and long-term strategies do not pay out as fast while possibly introducing longer term risks.

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

#206

Post by p_l » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 12:02 PM UTC

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #122

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…

>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?…

Institutional shareholders with large portfolios care about stock performance for their market plays, not about the company.

And they happen to have large influence on choice of CEO and who said CEO is going to try to please.

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

#207

Post by rorroe53 » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 12:07 PM UTC

SyzygistSix wrote: post #185

wisty wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think China deciding to dig itself out of poverty is a big factor with both good and bad effects (and absolutely staggeringly big effects).

Can you imagine the magnitude of the humanitarian and environmental crisis China would be if they had not industrialized and joined the global market? A country that size full of uneducated farmers and first generation coal power plants would be a nightmare for everyone, not just China.

Well, the planet would be better off without Chinese middle class and elite flying around and buying stuff. Countries that are full of poor "uneducated farmers" tend to have much lower carbon footprint than richer ones, even with the higher birth rates. Despite its admirable investments in reneweable tech, China still keeps building new coal plants as well.

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

#208

Post by segfaultex » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 12:10 PM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #14

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…

Yeah, "financialization" is absolutely the answer and the articles' claim of lack institutional integration (or whatever) seems wrong. You can look at how Boeing gutted it's highly skilled Pacific North West operations to move lower skilled, lower paid areas elsewhere and generalize this to a multitude of similar industries.

Yep. This started when “elite” schools started validating guys like Jack Welch.

Prioritizing next quarter’s growth at all costs really did a number on our long-term stability

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

#209

Post by kranke155 » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 12:12 PM UTC

SyzygistSix wrote: post #190

kranke155 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that’s also fairly accurate. I always had a weird feeling on how the Scandinavian countries were in close contact with the Soviet Union and that might have influenced them to follow a more hybrid societal model than other Western countries. I haven’t done enough research to explain it either way. I do think physical capitalism exhausted itself, but it was more in the 90s and 00s that we see more psychological…

It is fairly typical for poor, undeveloped countries to use a more centrally planned economy. The sheer lack of capital, as well as business and industrial know-how dictates that. Socialism and Communist parties were relevant in the 70s and 80s in Western Europe but later on were rejected as they were no longer relevant to their developed economies. It makes me recall one of my favorite cars that was never built, the…

Yes. Economics being at least partially directed by the state is actually a fairly sustainable route to parity with other rich countries (maybe the only one, according to the book How Asia Works).

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

#210

Post by doubloon » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 12:19 PM UTC

avs733 wrote: post #62

bell-cot wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While "treat blue collar workers better" sounds like a nice goal in itself...I fail to see how that would do anything at all to address the problem which the article is about. In other news - treating your oxen wonderfully will not transmute a wooden moldboard into an iron plow.

because what they are talking about is the workforce. Treat your workforce like cogs, like oxen, and guess what thats what you get even when you find out quite some time later that you actually need something else. The contrast of these two quotes in the article makes the point > "Mass production technologies and the division of labor created a workforce consisting of relatively unskilled employees on the line combin…

I would like to apologize on behalf of other ycombo users for your top comment being downvoted, and also for people calling workers "oxen".

I feel I seldom hear in tech circles (on the internet at least) the empirical evidence around the Toyota Production System. Maybe I didn't either until I read "The machine that changed the world" by Womack, Jones, and Roos.

It is a historical fact that Toyota produced higher quality with lower cost all through the 1980s vs their American competitors. In the same era at General Motors, CEO Roger Smith said he would build a lights-out factory 100% run by robots. It never worked and they had to abandoned the concept.

When I listen to those Toyota people talk about their system, the concept of mutual respect is the basic foundation. The engineers at Toyota have to spend time working on the line. Exactly what you are describing, partnership vs Taylorization.

Sometimes I feel like this explains Tesla quality issues. When I look at how some people at Tesla think about line workers, they literally call them "Button Pushers" or even use racial slurs. Elon when he described the "machine that makes the machine" was echoing what Roger Smith said in the 80s about a "lights out factory". And here we are ten years later and Tesla does not have a lights out factory and their quality is still very low.

Where I work in the US, it is a service business but some of the concepts still apply. Some of our tools and processes were built from the top down with little user input. It is a struggle to do Poke Yoke or Kaizen, and part of that I think may be the grapevine knowledge to "keep your head down and your mouth shut".