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America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

molsonhart.com

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Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#791

Post by mlsu »

nitwit005 wrote: post #779
mlsu wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, China. The policy should be collaboration with China. 50/50 state subsidized joint ventures with Chinese corporations on EVs, raw materials refining, solar panels and batteries, etc. At the same time, a gradual and predictable tariff in those targeted areas. All of this, with the explicit consent and collaboration with the Chinese government. You could kill 2 birds with one stone and focus these policies on gree…

Or, Mexico, Vietnam, India, etc. Despite perception, they don't have all the world's manufacturing.

None of those places have manufacturing prowess in EVs, batteries, electronics, and solar, which is largely where China has comparative advantage over the US.

But yes in general, if we want to re-industrialize, we need to move the collaboration into the physical world and out of the financial world.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#792

Post by xethos »

LunaSea wrote: post #649
toomuchtodo wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

> Any job is a good job if you can live off of it. No, just no. There is a high variance in job qualities beyond pay. Work hours, over time, outside vs. office jobs, repetitive Vs. varied, physical and psychological impact, etc.

Those are preferences, and unique to each individual. I work in trades, I work the overnight shift, and I do 4 10's. I wouldn't want to change any of that. Someone else will feel more at home in an office, and that's okay.

The important part is having a job, that you enjoy, and that allows you to live comfortably while saving for the future. It can be in IT, sales, management, maintenance, whatever - but some people will rather leave a more tangible, visceral, and physical difference in their work at the end of the day, and their preference does not make it a worse job.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#793

Post by Manuel_D »

habinero wrote: post #783
Manuel_D wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, other University of California schools have published this information. In one recent search at UC Berkeley employing substantially similar evaluation techniques to those that UC Davis used, there were 893 qualified applicants who submitted complete applications that met the basic job requirements. Of those applicants, 679 were eliminated solely because their diversity statements were deemed inadequate. Do…

There's no facts to refute - he just states that this conclusion is true without evidence of how he knows that or what the criteria he's using is. That's the problem with all the DEI hysterics - it's never given any intellectual rigor. Instead, it's all profoundly mid men telling each other ghost stories.

There are two very specific facts to refute:

* UC Berkeley received 893 qualified applications

* Of those applicants, 679 were eliminated solely because their diversity statements were deemed inadequate.

If someone seeks to disprove the claim that 76% of applicants were rejected based on their diversity statements, they can find alternate figures for the numerator and denominator and offer reasons why their numbers are more authoritative.

> That's the problem with all the DEI hysterics - it's never given any intellectual rigor. Instead, it's all profoundly mid men telling each other ghost stories.

3 out of the four companies I've worked at engaged in explicit discrimination on the basis of gender. As in, alternate interview pipelines where women got multiple chances to pass coding interviews where men got one. And one company even augmented that approach with outright withholding a portion of headcount for "diverse" applicants (which was defined as women and URM men, and in practice women made up over 95% of "diverse" applicants).

If you haven't been witnessed to discriminatory DEI practices, that's fortunate for you. But that's not been the experience of many people. DEI is widely perceived as a dogwhistle for discrimination, because it often is used to refer to discriminatory hiring practices, and I don't think condescension is a way to convince people otherwise.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#794

Post by fromMars »

numbers_guy wrote: post #105

Isn't manufacturing mostly a red herring? Sure some select people who are currently in Washington might care about it from a geopolitical angle, but the electorate is not lamenting the lack of manufacturing jobs, but rather their decreased share of the proceeds of the no.1 national economy in the world. Even if you bring all manufacturing back, I doubt those same people will be happy working in those factories.

Exactly, especially in the conditions workers in other countries tolerate. It's the wrong solution to income inequity.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#795

Post by m463 »

saati wrote: post #409
mppm wrote: post #34

Jonathan Blow's "Preventing the collapse of civilization" [1] makes a similar point. It is easy to assume that, if we can build EUV machines and space telescopes, then processing stainless steel and manufacturing PCBs is baby stuff, and is just waiting for the proper incentives to spring up again. Unfortunately that is not the case -- reality has a surprising amount of detail [2] and even medium-level technology take…

The US can't even make EUV machines, just parts of it.

I thought one of our labs invented it. maybe we are already doing it.

EDIT: no sorry wasn't a secret project. it was a consortium

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

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#796

Post by realperspectde »

America does not have to bring manufacturing back. It has to devote resources to robotics and AI to replace workers to make products for itself and it's people.

The transition period is currently already underway due to the tariffs. An unintented consequences is that the big players in commerce(Nike, All Big brand names...) no longer have a monopoly due to China relaxing the regulation on it's factories to disclose for which brands they manufacture products.

Now that the everyday person knows that they can also buy products from the same factories at a fraction of what they used to pay. They will do that. So the middleman will slowly fade out unless they can compete with... Robotics and AI.

The other consequences of the shift in this consumption dynamic is that it behaves in a downward fashion on inflation. People's incomes did not increase but they can now purchase more with their incomes. Jackets that used to be advertised as 200/300/400 dollars now can be bought for $20/$30 directly from the middlemen in China and get shipped to the US since they are under the $800 dollar limit.

This is actually a win win for all US residents. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#797

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #509
gosub100 wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would consider factory work if it paid a liveable wage and I didn't have other options.

I started out asking myself, what would it take for American's to be okay with factory work. For example, my grandfather worked in a GM plant in Kansas City for most of his life. I mean he had started out wearing suits and doing books for a bank when he was young and fresh out of high school. And then I remembered, oh yeah, the Great Depression happened when he was young and he was let go from his bank job — the bank…

Yep, and that’s what they’re doing. They’re wrecking the economy so much that factory jobs might look desirable to some people.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#798

Post by xjlin0 »

paul7986 wrote: post #739
nneonneo wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Importing immigrants directly into the military sounds like a bad idea. I’m guessing many would be less likely to want to lay their lives down for the new country, so drafting them seems like a great way to end up with a bunch of disloyal troops.

How many wars has American been in within the past 40 to 50 years? You say it's a bad idea, so it's a bad idea for an American citizen to join the armed forces too?

The best army/weapon are those never needed to be utilized. Enemies won't pick up fights because your weapon/army are way stronger than theirs. Therefore we cannot regard army/weapon as "not used" or just wasted.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#799

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

fleek wrote: post #503
kamaal wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would interesting to know what percentage themselves or their own children wanted to work at a factory. Can tell with a huge degree of confidence for all practical purposes thats 0. Its always easy to expect other people to make sacrifices working these jobs, while imagining you and your kids working office desk jobs.

Is everyone on hacker news so entitled and privileged they cannot even imagine an American citizen wanting to work for a living? I absolutely would work a factory job if it paid 100k+ and meant owning a home someday. Instead I got 100k student loans and make 60k at a desk and I'll never have a life outside of work because I simply can't afford it. I'll be 35 this year after 12 years of working and just starting to ha…

Bringing back factory jobs isn’t bringing back the American dream. It’s just replacing the shitty gig work you have to do to barely get by with a shitty factory job that you have to do to barely get by. If they pay well, it’ll drive up the cost of goods a ton and still be unhelpful for people.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#800

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

mppm wrote: post #34

Jonathan Blow's "Preventing the collapse of civilization" [1] makes a similar point. It is easy to assume that, if we can build EUV machines and space telescopes, then processing stainless steel and manufacturing PCBs is baby stuff, and is just waiting for the proper incentives to spring up again. Unfortunately that is not the case -- reality has a surprising amount of detail [2] and even medium-level technology take…

Okay great, so ten to twenty years to onshore manufacturing. Why?
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