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America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

molsonhart.com

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Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#341

Post by constantcrying »

cratermoon wrote: post #257
pjc50 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're going to end up with some sort of corvee forced labour scheme enforced by ICE, the logical conclusion of " other people should go work in the factories".

We already have that, it's called prison labor. The current regime will certainly ramp that up and throw even more people into forced labor camps.[1] BTW we don't talk enough about the gigantic loophole in the thirteenth amendment: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted , shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to…

That is not a loophole. Also prison labor tends to be "unskilled", so useless and even counterproductive in manufacturing roles the US would need if they were to compete with China.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#342

Post by Workaccount2 »

numbers_guy wrote: post #332
Workaccount2 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, definitely yes. America suffers from a flattened income curve. There are many many more people earning $100k+ today than in 1960 (inflation adjusted). America has an envy problem first, equality problem second, spoiled child problem third.

I would not necessarily say that the envy is unjustified. If you live in a rich country you ideally want all citizens to become wealthy. Else, irrespective of income, you will be lorded over by those who are magnitudes richer than you.

I'm not talking about billionairs or the ultra wealthy. I am talking about the 60-90% top earners category.

You can cut out the top 10% of earners in the country and it still wouldn't do much to change the situation for those in the To put it short; the reason you cannot afford a home isn't because of Bezos, Musk, and Blakrock. It's because the other bidders have STEM masters degrees and dual income high paying jobs, and probably a few hints of financial literacy thrown in too.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#343

Post by casey2 »

All of these points are overstated or just flat out wrong. For example the price of cheap manufacturing labor in America isn't higher than it looks, it's much lower, because there are an extremely large number of NEET men.

The iphone, while impressive, is not the end all be all of American manufacturing. The major goal is to bring back tool makers and increase industrial density.

>Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better.

>In China, there are no people who are too fat to work.

This is obviously just dumb anti-american propaganda. Since this article isn't written in good faith it's not worth my time to debunk point by point.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#344

Post by 9dev »

presto8 wrote: post #330
pjc50 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the US charge sales tax on B2B transactions? Really? Well no wonder you have problems with domestic manufacturing.

Many B2B transactions are tax-exempt but it's complicated. And gets really complicated once international transactions are considered. And also whether the company has a physical nexus in the place the product is being purchased. All in all, I think it would be simpler if the US adopted VAT. But that seems very unlikely.

Unlikely, given that the current administration seems incapable of understanding what VAT is in the first place…

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#345

Post by jonathanstrange »

viraptor wrote: post #72
jonathanstrange wrote: post #6

It's easy to bring manufacturing back, just give it a decade or two, but impossible to make it internationally competitive without large-scale market regulation such as tariffs or handing out government subsidies.

This view is too trivial. You could also stimulate manufacturing by promising tariffs increasing over the next X years, while not taxing the imported building materials and machines for longer. Or you could use tariffs to both break trade and make the environment too expensive and uncertain to invest in large construction - and delay the process by a few extra years.

I don't see how this is a reply to my point. Building up manufacturing takes a decade or longer (putting the problem aside that there aren't going to be enough workers). Tariffs are heavy market regulation. Even if manufacturing was brought back successfully, the production costs would be too high without such heavy market regulation.

You seem to assume that once manufacturing has been brought back it would somehow be internationally competitive. I don't see how that's possible.

Maybe I didn't get your point.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#346

Post by constantcrying »

pjc50 wrote: post #340
constantcrying wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many additional hours are Americans going to work? What pay cuts will they take? How many years later du they want to retire? These are the questions people need to ask themselves. We both know what the answer is.

Americans need to take pay cuts so we can bring back high-paying manufacturing jobs! /sarcasm, or summary of other discourse in this thread?

High paying manufacturing jobs seems entirely delusional. If you want to compete with China your workers must be as efficient as Chinese workers, so US manufacturing workers can't be better paid and doing less hours. That can not possibly work.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#347

Post by _t9ow »

gambiting wrote: post #106
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if China invades Taiwan, which they have said for decades they will do (we just don’t like to believe them), what then? Do we sacrifice a democracy for the dollar? If not, is our economy annihilated? We have no credible alternative to reshoring for this reason alone.

>>Do we sacrifice a democracy for the dollar? What democracy? Whose democracy? Trump just blamed Zelensky for the war in Ukraine again. The entire administration keeps saying they will make Canada the 51st state and "destroy canada economically". They want to take Greenland by force. I don't think America cares much about democracy anymore, only dollars. China will take Taiwan and US will will keep buying chips like…

> cares much about democracy anymore

Anymore? Arguably, the US never did. Ask, for example, the people living in Caribbean or Latin American countries what happened when they elected leaders that the US disliked.

Or Iran. Or Italy. Or Congo. And so on.

Or ask the Indonesians about the mass killings in their country in 1965-1966, supported by the US. Around 500,000 people died, though some estimates put the number of deaths at 1,000,000. Ask the Filipinos about how the US propped up their military dictatorship back in the 1970s-1980s.

I could keep going, but I think you get the point. The US has never been sincerely interested in democracy -- only strategically. The illusion that the US cared about democracy was a primarily Western luxury.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#348

Post by ZeroGravitas »

lenerdenator wrote: post #101
knowaveragejoe wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans also have more free time and disposable income because of that decision, among others. Why would you want them to struggle more?

The people in the areas where things used to be made certainly have more free time, but they don't have disposable income. Unless we're just here to repeat canards from the 1990s given by financiers which explained why it was good to shut down the main employers for entire towns.

It's odd how little factories moving from union areas to red states gets mentioned in this context.

Areas gutted, jobs lost and some lesser number of jobs with less benefits and pay created elsewhere.

So many political ideas seem to only be allowed to be discussed if you can add a garnish of racism or xenophobia to them.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#349

Post by wormlord »

Herring wrote: post #333
adamrezich wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is explicitly referenced in “A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System”, written November 2024 by Stephen Miran—current Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers of United States—which outlines the general ideology and strategies behind the current tariff situation. https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/rese...

I'd believe that article more if Trump hadn't called on congress to eliminate the CHIPS act, or if tariffs+Musk hadn't undermined it, or if republicans were for the Green New Deal, etc. If you're interested in onshoring, the smart thing would be to work on a targeted approach in high-value areas. It's a really complicated manoeuvre even if you're not actively trying to shoot yourself in the foot. Eg Domestic factors…

My pet theory is that he was in his 30s when the Plaza Accords happened and they really imprinted on him. If the rising Japanese economy could be brought to heel then so could the Chinese (ignore the fact that Japan was under the US security umbrella). It's no more rational than the fondness you might have for the first car you drove.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#350

Post by like_any_other »

pjc50 wrote: post #338
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the part that is so frustrating to me, and not just with regards to tariffs. It's that I see the extremes being so laughably bad (though not necessarily equally - I'm not "both sides"-ing this), and more ludicrously bad is that I've seen positions that don't follow these extremes as being derided now as "centrism". E.g. before the administration's attack on higher education, I do believe a lot of elite univer…

> making logical arguments in this environment feels almost pointless. Unfortunately this is the culmination of social media as a controversy machine, that promotes the worst arguments. > ideological purity tests like required DEI statements Example? There's a controversy industry that cherry picks the worst examples of student-politics excess in these regards and then carefully conflates it with university policy. A…

> Example?

Diversity Statements Required for One-Fifth of Academic Jobs - https://www.schoolinfosystem.org/2021/11/11/study-diversity-...

More examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43692945

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