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Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

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Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#71

Post by matchbok3 »

vrganj wrote: post #62
matchbok3 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for the most part this is actually true. Taking care of the exceptions is the hard part. Also, "climate catastrophe" is not a thing.

>Also, "climate catastrophe" is not a thing. It takes a deep ideological commitment to close ones eyes to the reality in front of us. Our planet is literally dying. The oceans are boiling [0], marine life is dying [1]. Land close to the water will be land under water soon [2]. The ice caps are melting and setting free all sorts of diseases. [3] Large parts of our planet on fire all the time now, here's one from Austr…

It is quite sad how doomerism has taken so many people. Our planet cannot "die", it is not a person. Take a deep breath!

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#72

Post by lompad »

matchbok3 wrote: post #71
vrganj wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also, "climate catastrophe" is not a thing. It takes a deep ideological commitment to close ones eyes to the reality in front of us. Our planet is literally dying. The oceans are boiling [0], marine life is dying [1]. Land close to the water will be land under water soon [2]. The ice caps are melting and setting free all sorts of diseases. [3] Large parts of our planet on fire all the time now, here's one from Austr…

It is quite sad how doomerism has taken so many people. Our planet cannot "die", it is not a person. Take a deep breath!

This feels like deliberately misunderstanding.

Obviously the planet won't die. The current biodiversity and the civilization depending on it however might.

In my country, streets are literally melting now, because they were never built for temperatures this high. We had 5000 heat deaths within 2 weeks. Temperatures never seen before in almost 250 years of consistent measurements of weather and temperature.

It's bad. And the data is available for everybody, including you, to see.

E.g. here, they've got tons of raw data available too (german): https://www.dwd.de/DE/leistungen/zeitreihen/zeitreihen.html

Don't know what you see there - but it sure does look like an exponential curve, doesn't it?

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#73

Post by stingraycharles »

reactordev wrote: post #53
Illniyar wrote: post #48

The article headline makes it seem like the factories couldn't make the gloves. But further down it says that the cost was double and factories couldn't get buyers. These are very different failure modes, and speak to very different solutions.

One sounds incapable from a skill perspective, the other is incapable from a market perspective. I’ll take the later over the former any day.

The later form was part of the design from the beginning: relying on imports for something this critical in times of an epidemic was a supply chain risk. It was never intended to compete in terms of pricing.

It baffles me that this wasn’t made more explicit? That seems to be the root cause of the failure.

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#74

Post by vrganj »

matchbok3 wrote: post #71
vrganj wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also, "climate catastrophe" is not a thing. It takes a deep ideological commitment to close ones eyes to the reality in front of us. Our planet is literally dying. The oceans are boiling [0], marine life is dying [1]. Land close to the water will be land under water soon [2]. The ice caps are melting and setting free all sorts of diseases. [3] Large parts of our planet on fire all the time now, here's one from Austr…

It is quite sad how doomerism has taken so many people. Our planet cannot "die", it is not a person. Take a deep breath!

Sure, the planet can't die. But the people and animals on it can.

But I have a feeling you knew what I meant and are just being deliberately obtuse.

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#75

Post by brynnbee »

probably_wrong wrote: post #32
taneq wrote: post #9

Is this the new “China can’t manufacture a ball point pen”? (Which I strongly suspect they can do at this point. :)

More like the new "America can't manufacture a grill scrubber" [1]. For those who haven't seen the video, YouTuber Destin Sandlin ("Smarter every day") tried to build a grill scrubber using 100% materials from the US and failed. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZTGwcHQfLY

The claim he failed seems like hyperbole. He couldn't find an existing manufacturer for chainmail in the US but this is a fairly trivial and niche thing to create, and is more a reflection of how uncommon it is for people to need that specific type and size of chain mail than it is that the US is incapable of making it. The other part is from Costa Rica only bc he hasn't yet made the injection mold for it, like he did for the handle itself.

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#76

Post by gdhvkkk »

dmix wrote: post #44

The article mentions access to NBR latex being an issue, but doesn’t explain that this is less commonly produced in America because they produces much more shale gas these days which doesn’t result in enough butadiene needed. So the most important supply chain to build the product is mostly coming out of Asian and European crackers. Giving an advantage to the Malaysian factories on top of the other lower costs of bus…

Nice comment. And to me this just points out that due to specialization, you’re probably always going to be higher cost on something. But that’s not necessarily bad

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/040615/what-are-eco...

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#78

Post by brianwawok »

trebligdivad wrote: post #69
Illniyar wrote: post #48

The article headline makes it seem like the factories couldn't make the gloves. But further down it says that the cost was double and factories couldn't get buyers. These are very different failure modes, and speak to very different solutions.

That might have been a bargain if you could have done it during peak Covid. Having the capability to make them is worth a lot in resilience.

Who’s paying to bring online a factory that sites idle just in case? Are you also paying workers to sit there idle?

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#79

Post by marking-time »

fkdk wrote: post #33
cyberge99 wrote: post #30

Needs an orthogonal approach. Perhaps Elmer's glue that physician’s can dip their hands in and rinse off?

Some of my early research (elementary school) suggested that certain glues can form a peelable, skin-like layer. Maybe that could be a promising way forward?

:) Love the early research. It seems to me that your product could be useful, particularly since those gloves are hard to put on.

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#80

Post by probably_wrong »

brynnbee wrote: post #75
probably_wrong wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like the new "America can't manufacture a grill scrubber" [1]. For those who haven't seen the video, YouTuber Destin Sandlin ("Smarter every day") tried to build a grill scrubber using 100% materials from the US and failed. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZTGwcHQfLY

The claim he failed seems like hyperbole. He couldn't find an existing manufacturer for chainmail in the US but this is a fairly trivial and niche thing to create, and is more a reflection of how uncommon it is for people to need that specific type and size of chain mail than it is that the US is incapable of making it. The other part is from Costa Rica only bc he hasn't yet made the injection mold for it, like he di…

I disagree with that conclusion: even if the chainmail were indeed very uncommon (no idea), getting it from China was so easy that he even got it when actively trying to avoid it. And since the chainmail is the revolutionary part of the idea (and the most expensive part) it might as well be the product.

He set out to get "100% made in the USA", settled for "no part made in China", and couldn't even get that. That definitely feels like a failure of the US manufacturing industry.

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