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America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

(www.molsonhart.com)
842 points putzdown | 1 comments | 15 Apr 25 13:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.24s | source
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vFunct ◴[15 Apr 25 14:05 UTC] No.43692883[source]▶
Our economy was designed to NOT have citizens work at factories. We pay thousands of dollars a year in our public schools to teach each of our citizens calculus, literature, world history, and physics, so that they DON'T have to work at a factory, or perform manual labor like picking strawberries or driving trucks or cleaning toilets.

Why would anyone want to go back to an economy that can be run by a third worlders? What is our competitive advantage then?

Economics works when the people do the things they are most efficient at. If a person in China can make iPhones for cheaper than an American, LET THEM. Our citizens should be designing them instead, because that's what we train our citizens to do.

Trump and the Republicans really do think of our citizens as third worlders performing manual labor like we were oxen.

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1. cogs ◴[15 Apr 25 14:26 UTC] No.43693228[source]▶
But how many citizens know calculus, literature and physics? Certainly not enough know history - or US democracy wouldn't be facing the threat it does now.

The poorly educated need a livelihood too. If the economy is healthier for global trade (I think it is), then some way must be found of destributing its benefits to the demographics who got hit. Otherwise you get revolution or populism.

Telling an unemployed factory worker to send their kids to college doesn't help. Doesn't help the factory worker, and doesn't help kids who see education and middle class jobs as about as unreal as the idea of becoming a famous influencer or kingpin drug dealer.