America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back • Hacker News Board

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#481

Post by ninetyninenine » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 12:55 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #286

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…

The solution is to pay everyone a living wage, regardless of job, and disconnect healthcare from employment. Lots of inertia against those ideas though. So, instead, "good manufacturing jobs" is the parroted point. Any job is a good job if you can live off of it. (tariffs do nothing to address labor shortages in healthcare, teaching, and other domestic service based sectors, for example)

That’s a solution of human rights and is orthogonal to becoming competitive to China. No question human rights needs to be fulfilled and we need to pay people living wages.

But the conversation here has he orthogonal goal of being competitive with China as well. I can assure you just paying everyone living wages is one of the main reasons why we are not competitive with China. It’s the main reason why China is beating us today.

So paying everyone living wages doesn’t really do anything to solve the problem because the products created by people who are paid living wages are by definition more expensive due to labor costs.

What tariffs do is they allow us to pay people living wages and sell expensive products and still be competitive because products from China are tariffed to be the same price.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#482

Post by seanmcdirmid » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 12:59 PM UTC

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…

Intel never outsourced its production, and it turned out to be the wrong call for it. They just made losing tech bets, while they kept investing in manufacturing.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#483

Post by zepolen » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 12:59 PM UTC

elbasti wrote: post #224

asdajksah2123 wrote: post #109

America does need to bring back manufacturing. Not because a manufacturing job that pays $25/hr is somehow better than a service job that pays $25/hr. The US needs to bring back manufacturing for strategic reasons and in strategic areas. And it needs to have the capability to scale up manufacturing in response to emergencies. But also, importantly, the US doesn't need to do this by onshoring all manufacturing. Near s…

A skilled assembly worker makes closer to $30 or $40 an hour than $25. And that doesn't account for overtime. A skilled tradesman can make $40+. Manufacturing is skilled, well-paid labor that requires commitment, attention, and care. That is why there's a shortage of labor--not because of wages.

Manufacturing can be automated, and that's what should be done.

Chinese finds it cheaper to pay people to do it.

America will find it cheaper to build robots to do it.

Then when no one has a job America will revert back to paying people to do it.

Life will always find a way to balance everything out.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#484

Post by palmotea » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 12:59 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #480

thctphr wrote: post #474

I don't think it's realistic to bring manufacturing back, so to speak. Are the words being taken literally here? Does this truly mean Orange Man wants to bring all manufacturing back to the United States, or do we want to weaken our largest competitor and buy those cheap products in other countries who are less of a threat, speaking in terms of their technological advancement and economical trajectory?

China has been moving cheap product production to SEA for awhile now, what the USA wants is countries like Vietnam to make cheap products without Chinese involvement in the manufacturing tech and supply chains…which is pretty much impossible.

> China has been moving cheap product production to SEA for awhile now, what the USA wants is countries like Vietnam to make cheap products without Chinese involvement in the manufacturing tech and supply chains…which is pretty much impossible.

Not too long ago it was "common knowledge" that the Chinese couldn't do advanced stuff, now it's "common knowledge" you can't do advanced stuff without the Chinese.

Nothing is impossible (at least in this area). If someone says it's impossible, they're really saying "I don't wanna do it."

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#485

Post by ziml77 » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 1:00 PM UTC

csense wrote: 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…

> How we get that level of prosperity back? That's the people really want.

And something they're not going to get. Manufacturing is going to be heavily automated. The money is going to continue to funnel into a small portion of the population.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#486

Post by ninetyninenine » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 1:00 PM UTC

Kbelicius wrote: post #458

vixen99 wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Your second links puts the number of slaves in China at 4 per 1000. The USA is at 3.3 per 1000. Why not mention that the USA could make more use of their slaves?

Because patriotism demands that we never look at ourselves in the mirror.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#487

Post by seanmcdirmid » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 1:02 PM UTC

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…

America already makes high value goods in China and takes most of the value from them since they did the IP and the software for those products. China desperately wants in on that, they are no longer happy making the product while America takes most of the profit! They would swap places with America in a heartbeat if that’s what Trump is offering.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#488

Post by myrmidon » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 1:04 PM UTC

iteratethis wrote: post #395

myrmidon wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that global hegemony by force is long-term (centuries) sustainable at all? What makes you confident that this could ever work on a longer term? The US is only ~5% of people globally, and I would expect any industrial/technological lead to melt over the years unless there is a monumental, continuous difference in spending (like what the US military did since WW2). But I see no indication that you can keep…

Global hegemony of the US is based not on 5% of people, rather the US sphere of influence. US, Canada, EU, Japan, Australia, South Korea, etc. The combination is immensely rich, powerful and advanced. Even more so when you keep India on board as well. It at least stands a fighting chance if it wasn't the case that this alliance is being destroyed before our eyes. I will admit that even an integrated alliance cannot p…

I can see your point, but I disagree on this.

It is specifically "US hegemony" and not "western democracy hegemony" because the US is so extraordinarily powerful in economy and military.

Interests/culture with other democracies aligns well enough (and the power differential is large enough!) that US leadership is tolerated/supported.

But Canada, EU, Australia, Japan are NOT vasall states: If interests would clash and/or the US lose a lot of its relative power, those would cease being majority supporters and push for domestic interests instead.

Calling them "fairweather friends" might be too cynical but I think it's much more accurate than considering them integral parts of the US hegemony.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#489

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 1:04 PM UTC

digikata wrote: post #283

rickdeckard wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The weird part for me is this: While the economy was evolving, Production was offshored from US for cost-reasons, but also in part to focus on higher-skill labor in US, delegating the low-skill mass-production to China. Over time, China also developed mid/high level skills, complemented their low-skill production offering with it and now competes in new industries, new tech, etc. So...to compete with China, the count…

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…

[deleted]

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#490

Post by seanmcdirmid » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 1:04 PM UTC

Delphiza wrote: post #364

rickdeckard wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The weird part for me is this: While the economy was evolving, Production was offshored from US for cost-reasons, but also in part to focus on higher-skill labor in US, delegating the low-skill mass-production to China. Over time, China also developed mid/high level skills, complemented their low-skill production offering with it and now competes in new industries, new tech, etc. So...to compete with China, the count…

Moving the low-cost jobs offshore was fine until automation filled a lot of those jobs. Now the high skilled automation skills and infrastructure (production lines and robots) are also offshore. I have done my fair share of western factory tours and the number of people on the factory floor is soberingly low... they are simply not needed, as they line runs like a vast, complicated machine.

Japan led in automation in the 90s before the rise of China put a stop to those investments paying off. Now China is making those same investments at a time when the tech is much better. America could solve its manufacturing problem in the future just by importing China automation tech.