Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States • Hacker News Board

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#81

Post by mschuster91 » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 5:11 PM UTC

lesuorac wrote: post #71

bushbaba wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or schemes similar to agriculture where the government buys excess production for price stability. Which is good for consumers and businesses alike.

To be clear, "price stability" in this case means a higher price compared to absence of government intervention. I'm all for a country subsidizing food to ensure sufficient domestic production but I am not for pretending it's good for a "price stability" reason. We are also well beyond sufficient domestic production. Our population has doubled in the past 50 years [1] while food production has tripled. We do not need…

> I'm all for a country subsidizing food to ensure sufficient domestic production but I am not for pretending it's good for a "price stability" reason.

Price stability itself is a valid goal. Yes, consumers may pay a liiiitle more for their eggs, milk or bread, but the price of the good can be relied upon which is very important for low-income households and their financial planning.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#82

Post by blitzar » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 5:18 PM UTC

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #43

droopyEyelids wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its easy to throw around words like “stupid” on the internet, especially with hindsight, but how could it have been anything but a complex decision estimating values for many variables? Would they have been able to hit a competitive price while maintaining environmental regs and paying a domestic workforce, would china end up the only other supplier in the world? Can government subsidies be counted on to last multipl…

Strong disagree, this was obvious if not from the very start, then as soon as the first company that relocated manufacturing started making ridiculous profits. Keeping the retail prices the same whilst more-than-decimating the manufacturing cost? How could it not be obvious that anyone and everyone would follow once there was a proof of concept. When capitalism is measured on incredibly short term performance, with n…

> I've long been confused* to why there was no legislation to prevent "local" companies from giving away the keys to their kingdoms to foreign countries

Sounds like you dont want freedom and capitalism anymore.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#83

Post by lupusreal » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 5:27 PM UTC

corimaith wrote: post #58

michaelt wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've long been confused to why there was no legislation to prevent "local" companies from giving away the keys to their kingdoms to foreign countries. For a long time this seemed like an exceptionally good deal for the US. Other countries dig up their rare natural resources, send them to us, and in exchange we send them intangible products like Microsoft Office licenses? That's a great deal. You're literally gettin…

Well the idea was those manufacturing countries would also transition to consumption based economies, paving the way for the next generation of manufacturers to then rise up the value chain. Once everyone was rich then I guess we would start relying on automation. People forget that the flipside of keeping manufacturing in America is that it would have denied the ability for the global poor to rise up. And they shoul…

> What the neoliberals underestimated was the extent of how nationalistic these rising countries could become

Yeah that was totally unprecedented.. If you ignore examples of exactly that happening at other times in history, like Japan. They went from a very poor feudal society where most people lived as peasants society to an industrial society able to seriously challenge America in less than a century. Violent rabid nationalism came with and facilitated that transition.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#84

Post by Workaccount2 » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 6:09 PM UTC

pbmonster wrote: post #35

Zamiel_Snawley wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electromagnets for the rotor cause significantly more heating, exactly where it is hardest cool, and where the heat is most likely to seep into the load. For high torque density applications, heat dissipation is often the limiting factor on duty cycle. Also, the slip rings capable of passing high current to an electromagnet rotor are expensive and less robust than permanent magnets. Essentially: it’s possible but I h…

> Also, the slip rings capable of passing high current to an electromagnet rotor are expensive and less robust than permanent magnets. The new designs are all inductively coupled, i.e. they have a rotating transformer coil built into the shaft. No brushes, no slip rings.

Coupling without using a core (or using an air core) is gonna hit efficiency pretty badly though.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#85

Post by maxwell » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 6:12 PM UTC

jburbank wrote: post #74

dmoy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair, but it can be done in ways drastically different from the Jones Act. The Jones Act fails in large part because it is so indirect. If you instead e.g. buy surplus production (like say we do for farming today), it tends to not totally kill off the industry. If the Jones Act had worked it would have looked genius because it didn't require spending money by the government. It didn't work though.

Has there ever been something like the Jones act, that has worked? In any western democracy? Honest question. I wonder if the nature of international commerce and large nation domestic policy is too complex and chaotic.

Smoot-Hawley and the Buy American Act, which protected/enabled the Arsenal of Democracy to win the Second World War. Europe's Common Agricultural Policy. Voluntary Export Restraints. Steel and aluminum tariffs. Tech/IP restrictions from the U.S./EU on communist Chinese firms.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#86

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 6:14 PM UTC

freeone3000 wrote: post #77

lesuorac wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure it's a very obvious decision. Fire your unionized US workforce. Replace them a cheaper non-unionized workforce. Sell the goods at the same price. Increase your current profit margin while protecting future profit margins from unions. Like half the reason why people do manufacturing in China is because all the manufacturing is there. If you had a problem with the item after it's been molded you can go to t…

If the American workers aren’t paid better than the Chinese workers then why would they live in America instead of China? It won’t be for the cheap housing and cheap healthcare…

[deleted]

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#87

Post by londons_explore » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 6:15 PM UTC

> but rather in a unique process based on recycling the materials from discarded magnets.

Aka buying magnets from China, crushing them, then reforming them into "American made" magnets.

We've been doing the same with steel for over a decade now. It's a good way around tariffs and origin laws.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#88

Post by sandworm101 » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 6:21 PM UTC

freeone3000 wrote: post #77

lesuorac wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure it's a very obvious decision. Fire your unionized US workforce. Replace them a cheaper non-unionized workforce. Sell the goods at the same price. Increase your current profit margin while protecting future profit margins from unions. Like half the reason why people do manufacturing in China is because all the manufacturing is there. If you had a problem with the item after it's been molded you can go to t…

If the American workers aren’t paid better than the Chinese workers then why would they live in America instead of China? It won’t be for the cheap housing and cheap healthcare…

Because movement between countries is not possible for the vast magority of the workforce. An americqn steelworker cannot just up stakes and move to canada/china/europe. Such things take many years and, unless you are allowed to renouce your citizenship, you will still be talking to the IRS every year.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#89

Post by Ajedi32 » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 6:24 PM UTC

snakeyjake wrote: post #78

solatic wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot simply "ignore" market forces (you might as well propose to ignore the laws of gravity, it's basically the same, consumers will "gravitate" to the products they find most attractive). In a free market, the same product (produced abroad) is cheaper. Without restrictions, domestic consumers will buy the foreign product and drive the inefficient domestic producer out of business. National security considerati…

>You cannot simply "ignore" market forces Market forces aren't real. They are artificial arbitrary rules agreed upon by a majority of participants in a financial system. They are not natural laws like Newton's law of universal gravitation and the fact that even one person thinks they are is the greatest scam ever pulled on humanity. Humanity will never be free until it rids itself of economists and MBAs.

They're as real as any other aspect of human nature. There are no "artificial rules", just humans acting according to normal human behavior. Ignore that at your peril.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#90

Post by collinmcnulty » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 6:48 PM UTC

maxwell wrote: post #85

jburbank wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has there ever been something like the Jones act, that has worked? In any western democracy? Honest question. I wonder if the nature of international commerce and large nation domestic policy is too complex and chaotic.

Smoot-Hawley and the Buy American Act, which protected/enabled the Arsenal of Democracy to win the Second World War. Europe's Common Agricultural Policy. Voluntary Export Restraints. Steel and aluminum tariffs. Tech/IP restrictions from the U.S./EU on communist Chinese firms.

Smoot-Hawley was passed while America was a net exporter of industrial products and hurt American manufacturers. I don't see any way to skew it as having helped win WW2.