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

421–430 of 1001 posts

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#421

Post by insane_dreamer »

taylodl wrote: post #289
like_any_other wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Other than that it seems to be mostly good points, especially the overall one: you cannot do this overnight. It's annoying Americans were given only two choices - offshoring is great and let's keep doing it, and, as you say, the opposite, meth-fueled let's bring back manufacturing overnight. The kind of slow and steady protection and promotion of home-grown industry that China and most of Asia so successfully used…

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.…

> we focus on the high-value stuff.

agreed but Trump just gutted the CHIPS act for no other reason than because it was enacted by Biden (the typical "undo everything the last prez did" just like Trump 1.0).

You can argue that Intel is a badly run company, not worth saving etc etc, but if want to save US manufacturing, then Intel, and its ecosystem, would be the first place to start. Otherwise, TSMC, Samsung and China (still playing second-fiddle but investing billions to catch up) will dominate. Certainly better than trying to keep coal plants open.

Ideology aside it's really hard to find _any_ rational thought behind these moves.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#422

Post by Teever »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #415
Teever wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really straight forward -- Do you consider things like liberal democracy, property rights, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of association, due process, and the rule of law to be essential features of society? If you don't -- Chinese hegemony and the path it will lead the world down is the one for you. If you do -- Then American hegemony with all its flaws is something worth fighting for.

People value freedom in different ways. Personally, I would ally myself with tomorrow’s bully, rather than today’s. I understand the implications, but it looks like most of nations are shifting in the same manner. One note, some of the things you’ve listed has been proven as “mostly on paper, once people get their way, mental gymnastics will overcome the reason” in the past month. For a bastion of “freedom and democr…

It's easier to fix a broken democracy than to turn an authoritarian state into a democratic one.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#423

Post by kelipso »

jghn wrote: post #323
like_any_other wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because vibes, basically This may be more accurate than you realize. Both Democrat and old Republican party rhetoric and policies were pro-globalization/offshoring, with the occasional exception such as CHIPS (and corn subsidies). It's not surprising nobody believed they were changing direction, if for every "we're bringing semiconductors back", they heard ten "your car is German your phone is Chinese your tacos ar…

Also one can't ignore that the GOP managed to remarked the CHIPS act as a key source of inflation, which they also managed to pin on "Bidenomics". Which was another source of "vibes, basically"

Weren't we hearing for years about how it went to waste because Intel did stock buybacks or whatever using the CHIPS money. Now we are supposed to believe it's critical?

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#424

Post by itake »

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #200
itake wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO, with the Big Tech boom winding down, what is more valuable for us to do? Manufacturing could prepare us for the next wave, whatever that might be.

The big tech boom is winding down? Just because we ended the era of cheap money to try and stop runaway inflation doesn't mean the tech boom is winding down. Look at everything that's happening with gene editing, in physics, with the jwst, with LLMs and robotics and computer vision, with alt energy sources, batteries, in material sciences, etc. I mean this is such a myopic take. We are in just now in an era where peo…

> gene editing, in physics, with the jwst, with LLMs and robotics and computer vision, with alt energy sources, batteries, in material sciences, etc.

These are tidal waves compared to the tech boom tsunami we experienced in the last 25+ years: enabling rapid communication of every human on the planet and democratizing access (anyone can create a app/website/etc to enable other people to communicate/make money/etc).

> where people are now capable of finding needles in needlestacks

Yes, exactly. all that is left is going after hard problems that impact the long tail.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#425

Post by beeflet »

imbusy111 wrote: post #48
mppm wrote: post #34

Jonathan Blow's "Preventing the collapse of civilization" [1] makes a similar point. It is easy to assume that, if we can build EUV machines and space telescopes, then processing stainless steel and manufacturing PCBs is baby stuff, and is just waiting for the proper incentives to spring up again. Unfortunately that is not the case -- reality has a surprising amount of detail [2] and even medium-level technology take…

But the important question is - is it worth it? Should we be doing something more valuable instead?

yes it's worth it, no we should not be doing something more valuable

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#427

Post by bluGill »

constantcrying wrote: post #404
bluGill wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vietnam is making moves in directions I want to encourage. Only God knows the future and he isn't talking. (there are some who will disagree with various parts of that statement, but they have offered no evidence that they get useful information on the future. Vietnam has been at war with China in the recent past. Today China is claiming seas that the US and internal law both call Vietnam's territorial waters - thoug…

>Vietnam is making moves in directions I want to encourage. Just like China did? They had a whole phase of economic liberalization and opening trade. >Nothing prevents anyone from making moves 20 years from now that are bad. Vietnam is literally another communist pseudo-dictatorship. Their place in the world is obviously far more ambiguous than that of e.g. England. The idea of shifting manufacturing to Vietnam becau…

20 years ago China looked to be going in the right direction. However things change. If they get rid of their dictator I might again support them - depending of course on how they change.

we should of course support most of europe which usualy has better government. Likewise the other countries in America - both north and south. And so on for anywhere else we can find friends. I an not a Trump fan even if once in a while he does something I support

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#428

Post by smcl »

bluGill wrote: post #398
smcl wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean if you want to compare the US to Angola, Yemen etc then hell yeah it's "great" and you can sorta kid yourself you're up there with the best of the bunch. But as a wealthy nation that is a pretty low bar and really shouldn't be what you're aiming for. Perhaps I didn't word that very well - you're having some of the worst healthcare outcomes among all of the planets developed nations despite spending the most on…

Those plots are meaningless because countries measure things differently. Many countries for example don't count anyone before they are a year old while the US does. The US shows up very well for life expectancy, yes it costs a lot more to get there the outcomes of the US healthcare system are very good according to your own data (which as I said isn't good data, but it is data)

Honestly this has been extensively studied and the "the US gets shocking value for money and poor health outcomes" is the consensus. You can either take that as a personal insult, dig your heels in and say "the data is wrong" or "they're lying", blame immigrants or other things I've seen some Americans do when their "we're #1" belief is challenged ... or you can take notice and demand better from your country.

It is really of no consequence to me which you choose, I don't live there and it's looking likely I'll probably skip even visiting let alone consider moving there in future.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#429

Post by Cthulhu_ »

kotaKat wrote: 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.

Not only will it take years to get operational, there is no way it would ever reach the scale and reach of Chinese manufacturing, not in six years, not in sixty. Even if they throw trillions of investor money at it.

China and others are clearly demonstrating the power of capitalism with state support. The US is too busy infighting and keeping capitalism and politics separate (small government, let the market decide etc). You wouldn't find enough employees that want to work in manufacturing; you'd need millions to even try and get close to what China is doing.

Now I'm not actually OK with what China is doing, the paragraphs about worker conditions were quite telling. But I will recognize that it gives them the upper hand in manufacturing that the US hasn't had since the 50's.

(meta: I'm gonna have to specify "the 1950's soon" don't I?)

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#430

Post by constantcrying »

bluGill wrote: post #427
constantcrying wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Vietnam is making moves in directions I want to encourage. Just like China did? They had a whole phase of economic liberalization and opening trade. >Nothing prevents anyone from making moves 20 years from now that are bad. Vietnam is literally another communist pseudo-dictatorship. Their place in the world is obviously far more ambiguous than that of e.g. England. The idea of shifting manufacturing to Vietnam becau…

20 years ago China looked to be going in the right direction. However things change. If they get rid of their dictator I might again support them - depending of course on how they change. we should of course support most of europe which usualy has better government. Likewise the other countries in America - both north and south. And so on for anywhere else we can find friends. I an not a Trump fan even if once in a w…

What does support mean? Ship most of our manufacturing there or politely meet their political leadership once a year?
Post reply on HN