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

America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

molsonhart.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 1001 posts

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#381

Post by hintymad »

The mainstream assessment is deindustrialization is inevitable in the western world because all kinds of legitimate reasons: the cost is too high. The talent pool is too small. We are left behind and lack critical IPs and infrastructures. People are too lazy/stupid/uneducated/self righteous/. We can hang on to our high-value service industry.

What I don't understand is, why would people even want the US dollar and its service industry if we can't produce sufficiently any more? And what about future conflicts in the world? The US can't even produce enough saline solution or disinfectant wipes, let along active pharmaceutical ingredients? Did people see what China goods we tariff on? We tariff China for advanced materials, electronics, machineries, and etc, yet China tariffs on our raw materials and agricultural goods. And we think the US can maintain its wealth by behaving like a colony of China? When there's a conflict between us and China, what do we do? Beg them for the life essentials? And we keep yelling to punish Russia and help Ukraine to win the war and we should, but with what? We can't even out produce artillery shells faster and cheaper than Russia, or drones faster and cheaper than China. Admiral Yamamoto used to say that he saw so many factories and chimneys in Philadelphia that he knew that those industries could turn into efficient war machines if Japan ever declared war on the US. Would he be able to say the same today?

As for what we can, wasn't the US a manufacturing powerhouse until early 2000s? BTW, the US is still a manufacturing powerhouse in some sectors, but we just can't make things cheap enough with good quality because we pretty much destroyed our light industry. Didn't China have nothing and it was heavy investment from the western world that helped China grow so fast and so rapidly? Then, why can't we shift investment back to the US and bring our key industries back? We kept talking about technical difficulties, yet we ignore the necessity of the matter.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#382

Post by acyou »

mindtricks wrote: post #287
acyou wrote: post #265

This article seems to be full of propaganda and downright lies. For instance, there are plenty of tool and die makers left in the USA, plenty of injection molding machines. I have personally seen them and met the tool and die makers as well as the machines making the molds. It's difficult to address the giant article full of misrepresentations point by point. It's tough to see it up at the top of HN. Wish that I coul…

If you feel there are misrepresentations, then just pick one point and discuss that. I've worked in manufacturing-dependent companies and industries, and lived in China for years. His observations don't feel entirely off-base to me and fit much of what I've observed. So if there is something wrong here, help us clarify one part of it.

"To make Brain Flakes, you melt plastic and force it into shaped metal molds. Were we to import the machines and molds needed to do this, it would work for a little while, but as soon as one of those molds broke, we’d be in trouble, because there are almost no moldmakers left in the United States. The people who knew how to build and repair molds have either passed away or are long retired. In the event of a problem, we’d have to order a new mold from China or send ours back, shutting down production for months."

This is what I have the most problem with. As I said above:

"For instance, there are plenty of tool and die makers left in the USA, plenty of injection molding machines. I have personally seen them and met the tool and die makers as well as the machines making the molds.".

The reality is that there are many injection molding machines in the USA making weapons, medical devices, electronics enclosures and connectors, car and airplane parts, and other high margin products, not kids toys. And it's a lie to say that tooling, molds, and tool and die makers and shops aren't widely available in the States. They just don't want to pay more for them, and are therefore disseminating propaganda to the contrary.

And, I have also spent time in China, I have toured the factories there, I know what I am talking about as well.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#383

Post by danaris »

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…

> I don't think America cares much about democracy anymore, only dollars.

I don't think it's a good idea to assign Trump's beliefs, or those of his administration, to America as a whole. Any more, frankly, than it's a good idea to assign those of his opposition to the country as a whole.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#384

Post by FireBeyond »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #380
FireBeyond wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I admit I had not heard this one. But the first thing I saw on it said:

> According to Lutnick’s interview with CBS News, Trump’s tax policy goal is to remove federal income taxes for individuals earning under $150,000 annually.

(omitted some of the other bullet points around tariff funding and tip exemption)

> While Lutnick later walked back the certainty of these plans, he clarified that the proposal is aspirational and depends on the ability to balance the federal budget.

I have serious doubts about the likelihood of a Trump proposal that even his Commerce Secretary says are "aspirational". Then again, the other part of Trump is that sometimes he does whatever he wants, regardless of what his Secretaries have said or known (witness the tariffs being paused mid hearing, leading to a Republican politician frantically swiping at his iPad in the middle of his testimony about the value of keeping the tariffs despite widespread market uncertainty).

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#385

Post by soco »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #243
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The kind of slow and steady protection and promotion of home-grown industry that China and most of Asia so successfully used to grow their economies was completely absent as even a talking point The slow and steady way that post-WW2 Korea and Japan did needs a unanimously agreed 10-20 year long game plan between industry and government, which is incompatible with democracies who change colors and strategies every 4…

There's various forms of democracy and many are not as chaotic as the US kind in regards to long term plans. A good example is the general global approach to Net Zero. It's slow, methodical, science based, negotiated. But if anyone brings up planning for 2050 it's usually in the context of "It's all bullshit, politicians are crap, they're just lying to you and kicking the can down the road till they retire" (and if y…

What makes the US more chaotic (and UK to some extent and probably more) is the political system first-past-the-post which does nothing to promote collaboration. Quite the contrary the winner does its best to crush every sprout of the loser to make his future win more likely. Now if you had a few parties which would be forced to forge alliances to govern, they would probably govern in alliances in the following terms as well so some of the politics for sure get carried over. But, such ideas help now nobody, the current system is how it is.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#386

Post by Manuel_D »

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…

At UC Berkeley, over 75% of faculty applicants were rejected solely based on reviewing their diversity statements: https://thehill.com/opinion/education/480603-what-is-uc-davi... Rather conspicuously, Asians had the highest rate of rejection, followed by whites. Latin applicants had the second highest pass rate, Black applicants had the highest. The diversity statements were not anonymized (as in, the reviewers could see the ethnicity of each applicant when reviewing their diversity statement).

Diversity statements were widely suspected of being a smokescreen for racial preferences. Much like the "personality score" Harvard used to curate its desired racial makeup in its student admissions.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#387

Post by gambiting »

danaris wrote: post #383
gambiting wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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…

> I don't think America cares much about democracy anymore, only dollars. I don't think it's a good idea to assign Trump's beliefs, or those of his administration, to America as a whole. Any more, frankly, than it's a good idea to assign those of his opposition to the country as a whole.

Well of course, but right now they represent the country.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#388

Post by Workaccount2 »

FireBeyond wrote: post #384
Workaccount2 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I admit I had not heard this one. But the first thing I saw on it said: > According to Lutnick’s interview with CBS News, Trump’s tax policy goal is to remove federal income taxes for individuals earning under $150,000 annually. (omitted some of the other bullet points around tariff funding and tip exemption) > While Lutnick later walked back the certainty of these plans, he clarified that the proposal is aspirationa…

Trump is a populist president. He is the right wing Bernie Sanders. Eliminating income tax for those making under $150k is right wing version of a "Billionaire Stipend" for everyone under $150k. Of course the republican guard is going to downplay the insanity he spews, but here we are with blanket tariffs and China virtually cut off.

Trump and Sanders aren't opposites, they're next door neighbors with a common goal and mostly superficial disagreements like whether tax cuts or stimulus checks are better hand out approaches. They both want to trash trade deals and both want tariffs. If you are perplexed as many where why so many Bernie bros voted Trump over Hillary in 2016, this is the answer.

They are both blue-collar presidents, and both want to inflict damage onto the elite. The problem is that the elite are the system, their health is a function of the economies health, so it's a "buckle-in" moment when someone comes in who wants to rough up the elite.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#389

Post by danaris »

gambiting wrote: post #387
danaris wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think America cares much about democracy anymore, only dollars. I don't think it's a good idea to assign Trump's beliefs, or those of his administration, to America as a whole. Any more, frankly, than it's a good idea to assign those of his opposition to the country as a whole.

Well of course, but right now they represent the country.

The country contains all of us, all the time.

The leadership is not the country.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#390

Post by cutemonster »

like_any_other wrote: post #320
taylodl wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is, manufacturing in America is up. The 2008 crises dealt a blow, but manufacturing has been building-back. I don't think people realize how many high-value items are made in the United States. Let the East Asians make our mass-consumer junk while we focus on the high-value stuff. Just goes to show the administration isn't working with facts and doing the hard-nosed analysis required to drive effective policy.…

> Thing is, manufacturing in America is up. I'm looking at the first chart, "Manufacturing Sector: Real Sectoral Output for All Workers" [1]. It grew until Q2 2000, when it was at 97.2. In Q4 2024 it was at 98.6. And let's not ignore how almost all leading semiconductor manufacturing (which are in and required for nearly everything) has moved to East Asia. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS

This one also bad, stagnant last 15 years:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OPHMFG

Labor Productivity (Output per Hour) for All Workers

Post reply on HN