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America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

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Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#561

Post by aredox »

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'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.

Excuse me, but I am old enough to remember Biden's program such as CHIPS, a slow and steady protection and promotion of home-grown industry.

America had the choice. It chose wrong. Are Americans going to assume the consequences of their choices or are they going to lie to themselves they weren't given the choice? That last option would fit more with the "character" of the America nowadays, the one who voted Trump: make mistakes and blame someone else for it.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#562

Post by Arkhadia »

bananalychee wrote: post #545
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…

Tangential comment, but I now see people adding disclaimers reiterating their political affiliation to their posts regularly and I want to say that you shouldn't have to justify bilateral criticism. It doesn't imply equal magnitude, and it's only taken that way by bullies in dogmatic bubbles.

Your rationality here will surely be flagged. Over apologizing is the new norm to avoid being canceled for dissenting opinions.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#563

Post by CharlieDigital »

Teever wrote: post #528
CharlieDigital wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Great, but as I said, it does not make sense for the US to chase low value manufacturing.

Apparel, shoes, things you might find in a big box store -- zero sense. Low value manufacturing - leave it to China, Vietnam, India.

Jet engines? Advanced polymer materials? Batteries? All make sense! CHIPS act was intended to accelerate US IC R&D and manufacturing...which was cancelled.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#564

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

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-…

> people like the idea of this, but no one actually wants this

As others have pointed out, this is not a contradiction. (Read their reply.)

However, the question of 'Do YOU want to work in a factory?' is heavily influenced by the fact that we don't see factory work as a high-paying career, or a career at all. Part of the solution to the factory problem is enhancing the value proposition for the employees.

I am ambivalent toward tariffs, but the idea is that if we make foreign products more expensive then the higher price of domestic goods becomes more palatable by comparison. If paying domestic workers more raises the price of domestic goods, and if people are willing to pay that price for whatever reason, you will start to see growth in manufacturing.

It's also silly to reject long-term goals simply because achieving them is difficult.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#565

Post by andsoitis »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #559
andsoitis wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Historical claims - the CCP views Taiwan as a breakaway province and considers unification important. After the Chinese Civil War ended in 1948, the defeated Republic of China (ROC) government fled to Taiwan while the CCP took control of China. 2) Political legitimacy - successful unification would be a nationalist victory for the CCP 3) Strategic importance - key geographic asset. It lies in the first island chai…

1-2 really just do not matter; I can't imagine anyone in the CCP views that as more important than their own internal matters. 3 as I said, they can just negotiate and throw money at the problem; it's cheaper than fighting a war. 4 they can already buy hardware from them and was doing so just fine before US stepped in. DeepSeek seemed to do fine and China may likely surpass Western AI development in the near future 5…

Just answering your question "What I still don't get is what could China possibly want with Taiwan?".

If you don't believe the rational I sketched, informed by analyses such as that by the Council of Foreign Relations[1], you can also learn more by reading directly from China's Mission in the EU about the China One principle: http://eu.china-mission.gov.cn/eng/more/20220812Taiwan/20220...

[1] https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-taiwan-relations-tens...

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#566

Post by daveguy »

qgin wrote: post #558

Given what’s likely to happen with with AI and robotics over the next 10 years, all this debate about bringing back manufacturing jobs is pretty silly

There is no technological path to AGI, much less intelligent robots, in the next 10 years. Everyone underestimates the massive amount of parallel processing going on in a single human brain. That doesn't even consider how massive the sensor array is. The doublings required for our artificial technology to catch up is about 25-35 years, maybe more depending on how much Moore's Law slows down.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#567

Post by DoneWithAllThat »

cratermoon wrote: post #218
pjc50 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People seem to want jobs with the macho kudos of manual labour, but with the physical comfort and salaries of email jobs, and I have some very bad news about that combination.

Those people need to watch a few episodes of Mike Rowe's "Dirty Jobs". Also people need to stop saying "unskilled labor". There is no such thing as labor without skills, outside a category in an archaic way of justifying low wages. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/unskilled-labor.asp

This is a pet peeve of mine: yes there are unskilled jobs. Lots of them. The term is maybe slightly misleading, but there absolutely is a class of jobs that any able-bodied person could perform given at most a few hours or a few days of training, and they are qualitatively distinct from jobs that require education, specialized training, and/or months or years of experience to be considered proficient and productive in them.

That doesn’t mean people who work jobs in the former category deserve ridicule or disrespect. But the distinction is important because finding workers to fill an unskilled role is just a matter of finding said able-bodied person, while for the latter you need some kind of system of education, training and/or apprenticeship (either explicitly or effectively) to be set up and functioning to even have an industry that depends on those jobs.

Not everything is some silly game of political fighting through language. Some things we actually need terms distinguishing “this” from “that” so we can have real world conversations about them.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#568

Post by Teever »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #563
Teever wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Great, but as I said, it does not make sense for the US to chase low value manufacturing. Apparel, shoes, things you might find in a big box store -- zero sense. Low value manufacturing - leave it to China, Vietnam, India. Jet engines? Advanced polymer materials? Batteries? All make sense! CHIPS act was intended to accelerate US IC R&D and manufacturing...which was cancelled.

In an impending war with China who will manufacture the ammunition needed to win the war?

And the boots, the uniforms, the helmets?

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#570

Post by thyristan »

Building a new factory needs a few years from idea to start of planning to production. 2 years if you are really really quick maybe, 4 to 6 years might be more realistic. The term for the current administration ends in 3.5 years and the next one probably won't be lead by Trump, so things will change.

This means that nobody will even start moving production back yet, they will pay lip-service, do the minimum to get along for this term, and hope for the best for the next one.

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