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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

#601

Post by rurp »

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…

I couldn't agree more and worry that even if the country makes it out of this period in one piece the well will have been poisoned on a lot of these topics. We should have big initiatives to make government more efficient, and reduce the national debt, and get back to merit-based processes. But after so much bloviating and fake initiatives that claim to do those things, but actually do the opposite, it's going to be a tough sell to make a real push in the foreseeable future.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#602

Post by s_dev »

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-…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belling_the_Cat

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#603

Post by hcknwscommenter »

_bin_ wrote: post #304
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…

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…

So basically, Biden's CHIPS act plus infrastructure (energy, roads, etc.) investments (e.g., solar and wind and battery part of Biden's IRA plus additional baseload). Yeah, we had all that going under the previous administration, and the current administration is distracting us from their dismantling of these sensible investments and incentives by strangling the entire global economy. Is it still "fringe" to think Trump is a foreign asset?

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#604

Post by mr_toad »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #531
pixl97 wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, if they decided to take lands belonging to allies. Though after this administration I'm not sure we'll have any allies left.

If Trump’s term ends with NATO still intact I’ll be surprised.

If the US left NATO the remaining members would have even more incentive to stick together.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#605

Post by rurp »

Manuel_D wrote: post #386
pjc50 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> making logical arguments in this environment feels almost pointless. Unfortunately this is the culmination of social media as a controversy machine, that promotes the worst arguments. > ideological purity tests like required DEI statements Example? There's a controversy industry that cherry picks the worst examples of student-politics excess in these regards and then carefully conflates it with university policy. A…

At UC Berkeley, over 75% of faculty applicants were rejected solely based on reviewing their diversity statements: https://thehill.com/opinion/education/480603-what-is-uc-davi... Rather conspicuously, Asians had the highest rate of rejection, followed by whites. Latin applicants had the second highest pass rate, Black applicants had the highest. The diversity statements were not anonymized (as in, the reviewers could…

On top of that even the official guidelines are ridiculous. Statements along the lines of saying that people should be treated equally regardless of skin color are officially grounds for rejection.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#606

Post by robertlagrant »

pphysch wrote: post #584
robertlagrant wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The kind of slow and steady protection and promotion of home-grown industry that China and most of Asia so successfully used to grow their economies was completely absent as even a talking point. I think this is because China is an autocracy, so they can make long-term plans. Democracies that swing as wildly as the US currently does is no place for that, and that's not limited to the new administration.

Did America stop being a democracy under FDR? Conflating specific term limits with autocracy/democracy is a bit dramatic. There isn't anything physically stopping America from doing what China is doing. We literally did it first (in modernity)! Albeit for too short a time before the robber barons and foreign interests retook control.

I think what I wrote here covers what you're saying:

> Democracies that swing as wildly as the US currently does

It's not "robber barons" etc. It's just two very different worldviews existing in one place that cause big swings in policy when the other one is elected.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#607

Post by testing22321 »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #168
npiano wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A genuine question, presuming no correct answer: what is to be done about it? China is reportedly on track to run more than 50% of global manufacturing by 2030, if the World Bank is correct. What would you do to act against this? Is doing nothing acceptable?

Start by realising this is going to take decades to reverse. Given the timescale any solution will require cooperation across political parties. You can’t start something that will get undone in four years. Then accept it won’t make much difference to the inhabitants of bumfuck USA. Automation is what took their jobs. Start at the top of the food chain and gradually work down. If America can make cars but not car tyr…

If it doesn’t make sense to make t-shirts, why does it make sense to make tires?

They’re an environmental nightmare and very, very thin margins.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#608

Post by nradov »

glitchc wrote: post #589
NoTeslaThrow wrote: post #581

We never stopped manufacturing, we just stopped employing people. > We don’t have the infrastructure to manufacture That's trivially false given we're the second-largest manufacturer in the world. We just don't want to employ people, hence why we can't make an iphone or refine raw materials. The actual issue is that our business culture is antithetical to a healthy society. The idea of employing Americans is anti-bus…

Concur, employee training and retention are at an all-time low. There are no positions available for junior employees, minimal onboarding and mentoring of new employees. Organizations have stopped planning people's careers. Used to be that the employee's career growth was their manager's problem, while the employee could focus on the work. Now the employee must market themselves as often, if not more often, than actu…

Employees have always been responsible for managing their own career growth and always will be. How can it be otherwise? It would be foolish for an employee to let someone else handle career growth for them as their interests aren't aligned (or even known). If you want help with career growth then find a mentor, don't rely on your manager.

Managers should facilitate training to improve employee productivity and help prepare them for a promotion. But that isn't really the same as career growth.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#609

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

moomin wrote: post #543
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Example? I literally linked an article in my comment that had an overview, but here is a more specific one that addresses diversity statements in particular: https://reason.com/2022/09/30/mandated-diversity-statement-d... > As well as the sad truth that as soon as you take away "DEI" requirements the segregationists come back and purge the library, delete all the black Medal of Honor recipients from the website, et…

So… an incident not involving a university in any way is your example of universities jumping the shark?

Fair enough, my bad. Here you go:

https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/fire-statement-use-di...

https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/05/07/massachusetts-institute...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/03/us/harvard-diversity-stat...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/us/diversity-statements-u...

https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/diversity-statements-are-g...

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#610

Post by epolanski »

NoTeslaThrow wrote: post #581

We never stopped manufacturing, we just stopped employing people. > We don’t have the infrastructure to manufacture That's trivially false given we're the second-largest manufacturer in the world. We just don't want to employ people, hence why we can't make an iphone or refine raw materials. The actual issue is that our business culture is antithetical to a healthy society. The idea of employing Americans is anti-bus…

> We just don't want to employ people

I don't think it's a matter of willingness, but simple global geo economics.

There's places where producing A, whatever A is, is economically more efficient for countless reasons (energy prices, logistics, talent, bureaucracy, cost of labor, etc).

That's not gonna change with whatever investment you want or tariff you put.

But the thing I find more absurd, of all, is that I'd expect HN users to be aware that USA has thrived in the sector economy while offloading things that made more sense to be done elsewhere.

I'd expect HN users to understand that the very positive trade balances like Japan's, Italy's or Germany's run are meaningless and don't make your country richer.

Yet I'm surrounded by users ideologically rushing into some delusional autarchic dystopia of fixing american manufacturing for the sake of it.

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