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

521–530 of 1001 posts

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#521

Post by xienze »

stetrain wrote: post #508
xienze wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is why Democrats lost. Why admit and address that perhaps they ran a candidate that was deeply unpopular, even within her own party, when they could just instead blame the “misogynistic Republican” boogeyman.

> And this is why Democrats lost. What do Democrats have to do with Republican candidates in a Republican primary?

Ah my mistake, I missed that this was referencing the Republican primaries here. Forgive me, the whole "Harris wasn't elected because Americans are misogynists" trope has been repeated so often I had that burned into my brain.

Addressing the primaries, no one was beating Trump, it has nothing to do with his closest but still far distant challenger being a woman.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#522

Post by RajT88 »

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…

> and more ludicrously bad is that I've seen positions that don't follow these extremes as being derided now as "centrism".

You can't stake out a position without getting called some name somebody invented to denigrate that position. Welcome to modern politics on the internet.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#523

Post by maxglute »

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-…

Let's me real... 80% of the hard shit in US factories will be ran by mexican migrant labourers like in agriculture. And maybe that's enough of a "win" for US interests.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#524

Post by pixl97 »

deadfoxygrandpa wrote: post #433
_bin_ wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump et al. really run a motte-and-bailey argument here. They woo reasonable people who agree that critical industries: food, energy, defense-adjacent, metals, etc. - must have substantial capacity on-shore or at least very near. They then flip to what amounts to massive handouts for his rust belt base, basically saying we should make everything here. The obvious answer is this: 1. it doesn't matter if our t-shirts…

china isnt an enemy nation unless we decide we want to fight them

Or, if they decided to take lands belonging to allies.

Though after this administration I'm not sure we'll have any allies left.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#525

Post by nottorp »

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…

> To sell in Europe, we must register for their tax system and nominate a legal representative.

American companies? Register for EU tax system?

I can buy from anyone in the US and worldwide for that matter, and as long as they're willing to figure out shipping they don't need to register anywhere, I can handle taxes myself when receiving.

What "AI" did they use to write this?

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#526

Post by phendrenad2 »

zero_k wrote: post #87

America is not a country, it's a continent. I know, Canada will be a province, and soon Panama of course, but in the meanwhile, it's a continent, not a country.

If you search a dictionary for "America", the first result will likely be "The United States of America".

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/america

It doesn't make you wrong, but you're also not right.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#527

Post by ImJamal »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #420
like_any_other wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Example? Diversity Statements Required for One-Fifth of Academic Jobs - https://www.schoolinfosystem.org/2021/11/11/study-diversity-... More examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43692945

20% isn't so bad; the way it's usually portrayed in the media it sounds more like 90% of posts require such statements

If a college allocated a minimum of 20% of their jobs to whites, would you still say it wasn't too bad?

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#528

Post by Teever »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #455
iteratethis wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yeah, but look at what GP is responding to: > America needs to increase manufacturing capacity if it wants to maintain hegemony and possibly world peace. That does not make sense. Low value manufacturing has been disappearing from the US for decades and arguably the US -- up until the recent turmoil -- has continued to maintain its hegemony.

Yes America needs to do this because the manufacturing capacity of allies in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan is under threat by China.

America is the only country with the military capacity to take on China, and Europe isn't going to get up to speed in time to defend Taiwan.

It must be America out of necessity not preference.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#529

Post by seanmcdirmid »

nottorp wrote: post #525
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…

> To sell in Europe, we must register for their tax system and nominate a legal representative. American companies? Register for EU tax system? I can buy from anyone in the US and worldwide for that matter, and as long as they're willing to figure out shipping they don't need to register anywhere, I can handle taxes myself when receiving. What "AI" did they use to write this?

You can’t handle VAT rebates on your own, but America lacking a VAT system itself can’t really take advantage of that.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#530

Post by andsoitis »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #269
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Countries change policies all the time based on the whishes of industry lobby groups or voters, not just the US. People focusing exclusively on what Trump is doing are myopic or arguing in bad faith. And the global approach to net zero is not global, nor is it binding, it's more of a gentlemen's agreement bet which is basically worthless. Ideologically it sounds good, the issues are always when the tires hit the road…

> Countries change policies all the time based on the whishes of industry lobby groups or voters, not just the US.

It is irrelevant what other countries do.

What matters is whether or not other countries and industries trust that a country has sufficient stability to do business in and with. If there are actual or perceived signals that suggest chaos, rational people will not be interested to be tethered to that dispensation.

Post reply on HN