How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

> Bringing “manufacturing back to the US” is a fool’s errand. The future of manufacturing is automation, not jobs.

That’s probably correct. But the current trajectory means that China will have the robot-operated factories, not the US. What do you anticipate the US will do to obtain goods from those Chinese factories? Especially when AI stands poised to obsolete a lot of the white collar jobs where the US still retains a competitive edge?

You can’t treat the reserve dollar as something that will perpetually defy physics. The pound used to be the world’s reserve currency not too long ago. There’s no reason for the world to continue flocking to dollars when other economies surpass the US.

'The dollar might be weakened in the future so we must immediately blow it and our entire deeply thought out, researched, and supported policy since the 1940s up to now with no plan all based on a book the President read and hope things work out better than what might have happened sometime in the future (but that there were no signs was happening soon)'.

> China will have the robot-operated factories, not the US. What do you anticipate the US will do to obtain goods from those Chinese factories?

Why not let the market take care of it? It's cheaper to buy things from China then make them yourself. When that changes, production will naturally move to the next best place. I don't see the issue.

Because China doesn't share the same goals, desires, or policies we do. They will have the power and cards to dictate world policy if you roll over and let them dominate. Realpolitik matters here. You either dominate the future (or at least stay competitive) or you become a vassal state.

Because no economic theory proposes that the efficient outcome is one where the US retains its sovereignty and independence. Nations seek to create bubbles of local maximums, not in maximizing the economic efficiency of the world as a whole. A world where american kids have to learn chinese and fight to immigrate to China may well be an economically efficient outcome from the point of view of the markets. But American policy should fight very hard against that outcome.

Because I don't want the chinese to control the world.

The dollar will be weakened in the future. Is there any doubt about it? We cannot continue operating in this post-war regime when the conditions for the post-war regime have been dismantled.

I have rarely ever aligned with this president, but it is clear that we need to bring manufacturing home if we are going to have any future.

It's almost like the Biden CHIPS act was designed to do that in a non-stupid way.

I mean I approved of the CHIPS act at the time, but did it result in anything? It was also limited to the semiconductor industry.