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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

#441

Post by vixen99 »

486sx33 wrote: post #408
digikata wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the mistake here is the model of low-skill/high-skill labor is not a useful distinction. Manufacturing is high skill period, however there are low-infrastructure and high-infrastructure products and factories. The labor wages themselves are a factor, but an increasingly minor factor in product costs. By bypassing investment in US manufacturing skills and infra, the US sat itself on the sidelines for the abili…

Actually I think it’s variation of this. Tariffs can protect high skill jobs with high value product output. They can also force the Chinese to make cheap stuff even cheaper ( back down below $1 goods plus tariffs ). We don’t want the Chinese making high value goods at slightly lower prices. We want Americans making high value goods and we want to push cheap stuff as cheap as possible. Next step is enforcing environm…

Yes, they could make more use of the Uyghurs. https://www.state.gov/forced-labor-in-chinas-xinjiang-region... not to mention other slaves. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#442

Post by SecretDreams »

like_any_other wrote: post #163
pjc50 wrote: post #35

> China generates over twice as much electricity per person today as the United States. Why? This appears to be completely wrong? All the stats I can find say that the US has about 4x the per capita electricity generation of China. Other than that it seems to be mostly good points, especially the overall one: you cannot do this overnight. > If you’re building a new factory in the United States, your investment will a…

> 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…

It turns out good policy takes a long time to play out and isn't well suited for the current destabilized US political system where nothing good gets done and the rare things that do get reversed within four years.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#444

Post by dynm »

jghn wrote: post #117

The other day I saw the results of a poll [1] where 80% of Americans thought the *country* would be better off if more Americans worked in factories. However, only 20% of Americans thought that *they* would be better off if more Americans worked in factories. It was surprisingly bipartisan. In other words, people like the idea of this, but no one actually wants this. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/845917ed-41a5-449f-…

There's absolutely no contradiction here.

Currently less than 20% of Americans work in factories. All those 80% need to want is that the 20% of people who want to work in factories can do so.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#445

Post by roenxi »

digikata wrote: post #334
rickdeckard wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not disagreeing with you, but isn't the issue that the US stopped investing in the skills and infra which made mass-production low-skill in the first place? Instead, the offshore-destinations kept offering more and more services in the value-chain, until the entire skillset to actually create the low-skill labor processes to offshore was replaced with "let the offshore company manage".

Yes climbing the value chain was a necessity for nations like China. But in the US popularized in the 90's, was a business strategy trend that strongly discounted the value of long term capital investments - particularly for this discussion, investment in factories. They do require extra management attention and they do tie companies to strategies in longer time frames at lower margins - but they deliver long term va…

You make that sound like it was emanating from the business community - the US has had a pretty significant period in there of 0% interest rates determined by a central committee. Return on capital doesn't really matter in a low interest rate environment, the important thing is access to the lending markets. Investors making sensible investments would have been eaten alive by those focusing on companies that were living off credit in ill-advised ways.

Uber still hasn't managed to make a net profit over its lifetime as a company, by the way.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#446

Post by paulcole »

jghn wrote: post #117

The other day I saw the results of a poll [1] where 80% of Americans thought the *country* would be better off if more Americans worked in factories. However, only 20% of Americans thought that *they* would be better off if more Americans worked in factories. It was surprisingly bipartisan. In other words, people like the idea of this, but no one actually wants this. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/845917ed-41a5-449f-…

It’s the same as every tech bro on here who says, “Go join the trades!”

People want to be sure that their success is protected and they love telling other people what they should do.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#448

Post by HPsquared »

mapt wrote: post #228
pjc50 wrote: post #35

> China generates over twice as much electricity per person today as the United States. Why? This appears to be completely wrong? All the stats I can find say that the US has about 4x the per capita electricity generation of China. Other than that it seems to be mostly good points, especially the overall one: you cannot do this overnight. > If you’re building a new factory in the United States, your investment will a…

When I visited China, the expats told me that recreational drug supplychains were strictly compartmentalized. There was the supply of illicit drugs for Westerners (imported by the sons of Nigerian businessmen, the cliche went), the supply of illicit drugs for Chinese people (who only dealt with Chinese people), and then there were the vast array of drugs that are completely legal to get over the counter in China with…

That's an interesting subject. Are there any books about it?

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#449

Post by skywhopper »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #301
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…

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…

You’ve been conned if you think overactive DEI was anything more than a minor annoyance in 99% of American universities. Did some people overdo it in a destructive way? Of course. But it wasn’t anything that was going to lead to major problems. The problems come from the folks who can’t just roll their eyes and move on but instead feel personally attacked and hold a permanent grudge instead of realizing that they themselves probably weren’t all that special.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#450

Post by Moto7451 »

pjc50 wrote: post #35

> China generates over twice as much electricity per person today as the United States. Why? This appears to be completely wrong? All the stats I can find say that the US has about 4x the per capita electricity generation of China. Other than that it seems to be mostly good points, especially the overall one: you cannot do this overnight. > If you’re building a new factory in the United States, your investment will a…

Regarding the potential to annoy small businesses, it’s actually pretty easy to hire a firm to represent you in the EU. You’ll need a lawyer at some point anyway so it’s often the same firm.

If we had the same requirements here in the US it would likely become the same.

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