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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

#371
These are all good points, but I’ll add a different take here.

The points are correct but rather than bring “all manufacturing back”, the goal should be to aim for an 80:20 or 70:30. And it will still take decades, but at least with a far better chance of success.

For companies that rely on a global supply chain, manufacturing and even raw materials should aim for mostly global but a guaranteed 20 to 30% local.

It’s one way to offset a real market problem, where unchecked market forces drives all production offshore or “nearshore; leaving the nation vulnerable to supply chain disruptions.

For essentials like grains, I’d even argue that the nation should opt for an 70:30. It’d be insane for us to offshore the majority of production.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#372
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like the kind of thing where 3d printing is probably good enough quality wise. Of course, the 3d printers themselves are probably being made in China.

3D printing absolutely sucks for production runs of more than a few dozen, and it produces finishes nowhere near as good as injection moulding.

Is that still the case? Even for a simple (presumably) board game piece?

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure. The tariffs most certainly will dissipate but we can't discount the chance that they may be replaced with actual written in law voted on by congress and signed by the president taxes that have similar but much more durable effects. Manufacturing and heavy industry really hates off-shoring. They only do it because the sum total of other policy makes it the only viable option. I can see them taking a d…

I have a suspicion that the coming tax cuts will be extreme, and the gaps in critical funding will be covered with tariff income. This will essentially make tariffs a cornerstone for government finances. Political suicide to roll back tax breaks if they are primarily for the <$150k earners, like trump wants.

> Political suicide to roll back tax breaks if they are primarily for the What tax breaks has he aimed at these people beyond some of the overtime and tipping (which is expected to only equate to about $2K)?

Instead:

>The largest tax cuts would accrue to the highest-income families, the Treasury said.

> Household in the top 5% — who earn more than $450,000 a year, roughly — are the “biggest winners,” according to a July 2024 analysis by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. They’d get over 45% of the benefits of extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it said.

> A Penn Wharton Budget Model analysis on the impacts of the broad Republican tax plan had a similar finding.

> The bottom 80% of income earners would get 29% of the total value of proposed tax cuts in 2026, according to the Wharton analysis, issued Thursday. The top 10% would get 56% of the value, it said.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about when you say the United Kingdom came really close to not existing. Battle of Britain, Battle of France? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_France >They all most definitely did not stop existing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German-occupied_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territories_acquired_b... Yo…

I did. Austria, Belgium, France etc all existed during WW2. They were occupied, but they existed. Also lots of countries you listed definitely don't meet any sort of reasonable definition of "hegemon". To pick another example, Singapore was a crown colony before the war, then they were occupied by Japan during WW2, then they were a single nation with what is now Malaysia, then in the 1960s they two countries became i…

>They were occupied, but they existed.

So what's your criteria for existing, dirt in the same place? Their governments were dissolved. That means they don't exist anymore. Does the confederacy exist since the boarders are the same and the dirt is in the same place? I would argue not.

>Also lots of countries you listed definitely don't meet any sort of reasonable definition of "hegemon".

I agree, just pointing out countries that no longer existed.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#375
post #39

Missing reason #15: commercial lenders with a brain realize that these tariffs and this self-imposed domestic crisis will dissipate in the next ~6 years. Nobody's going to lend in this market to try to spin up a new greenfield project in the US that will take years to get operational when they can sit and ride it out - ESPECIALLY at these interest rates.

The government could make loans directly and guarantee purchase prices, but it's also stopped making payments congress committed it to, so you'd be crazy to trust any promises from the administration.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/unskilled-labor.asp

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#377
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…

People literally do just that today in the midwest. The coastal housing imbalance is just that a housing imbalance and not reflective of a lack of buying power today. Also consider that americans back then outside of the car and home had no other large purchases. No computer, no $1k phone on a $1k/yr plan, no big tv. People weren’t even eating out or flying back then when they could afford a family vacation.

> americans back then outside of the car and home had no other large purchases. No computer, no $1k phone on a $1k/yr plan, no big tv. People weren’t even eating out or flying back then when they could afford a family vacation.

Back then cars and homes and essentials were relatively cheap and TVs and flying were expensive. Today it's flipped. TVs are cheap, phones are cheap. Essentials, like housing, are expensive.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/en_VpZtUFcE

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> To put it short; the reason you cannot afford a home isn't because of Bezos, Musk, and Blakrock. When one person holds the wealth equivalent to the total yearly economic output of a mid-sized American metropolitan area, yes, it's going to introduce distortions, even if only because the people who actually do the labor under those people are being paid less in order to better fund the equities that make up the wealt…

>who actually do the labor under those people are being paid less

No, that's where you have it backwards they are being paid more. That's the exact reason why they are buying that house when you say "who the fuck can afford that".

Ironically, they are also the ones being exploited the most by the top 1%.

An amazon warehouse sorter will never create or do anything that makes amazon much more money than what they are paid. They get $18/hr for producing $21/hr of value, doing the same static task all day everyday. Amazons "profit margin" on these workers is almost nothing.

The lead cloud architect though gets paid $350k/yr, but can design a single change that will make amazon $30-40 million/yr. The profit margin on them is insane. And they are the ones outbidding everyday people on things, driving up costs.

Back 60 years ago, everyone was much more clumped around the same (lower) income, so the houses where smaller and the prices more amenable to more people.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#379
post #242
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Westerners have had too good of a life and you cannot compete with an asian who is told every day if he doesn't perform he will be homeless. You just cannot compete.

> Westerners have had too good of a life You're not going to sell the electorate on ".. and so we're going to make your life worse to compete with China", though.

Just talking about the reality we face

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a suspicion that the coming tax cuts will be extreme, and the gaps in critical funding will be covered with tariff income. This will essentially make tariffs a cornerstone for government finances. Political suicide to roll back tax breaks if they are primarily for the <$150k earners, like trump wants.

> Political suicide to roll back tax breaks if they are primarily for the What tax breaks has he aimed at these people beyond some of the overtime and tipping (which is expected to only equate to about $2K)? Instead: >The largest tax cuts would accrue to the highest-income families, the Treasury said. > Household in the top 5% — who earn more than $450,000 a year, roughly — are the “biggest winners,” according to a J…

I don't know what tax plan that is an analysis of, but Trump has stated he wants to eliminate income tax for those under $150k.

I don't know what news source you trust, but if you google it, he stated it back in March.

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