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America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

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842 points putzdown | 3 comments | 15 Apr 25 13:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.56s | source
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ChrisMarshallNY ◴[15 Apr 25 14:13 UTC] No.43692996[source]▶
This pretty much mirrors what a friend of mine said (he is a recently-retired Co-CEO of a medium-sized manufacturing business).

He's been telling me this, for years. It's not a secret. The information has been out there, for ages. I'm surprised that the administration didn't understand this.

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npiano ◴[15 Apr 25 14:21 UTC] No.43693160[source]▶
A genuine question, presuming no correct answer: what is to be done about it? China is reportedly on track to run more than 50% of global manufacturing by 2030, if the World Bank is correct. What would you do to act against this? Is doing nothing acceptable?
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1. pjc50 ◴[15 Apr 25 14:34 UTC] No.43693348[source]▶
A great analyst once taught me the response question: "yes, and so what?" What's so magic about manufacturing as opposed to all the higher value work of the US economy? Have people not noticed that the average American is still richer than the average Chinese person by a long way, and (yes, painfully) more so than the average European?

If you're going to talk wars, then .. US military manufacturing is still the world leader yet again. Plus the nukes.

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2. XorNot ◴[15 Apr 25 15:12 UTC] No.43693954[source]▶
A lot of the war stuff gets framed in very odd terms. If you want a local defence industry then pay for it. Enforce component sovereignty requirements... Which everyone already does. Then actually react to reports which call out the gaps and pay to close them.

This bizzare "we'll bring back manufacturing and be ready all the time" thing seems to imagine you'll just turn the local widget maker over to knocking out high temperature stealth composites for hypersonic missiles real quick.

Which is of course the story of a lot of American manufacturing: it's hard to get a hobby run of PCBs because all the PCB makers are optimized for large orders for defence procurement (and the clearance, supply line and stuff requirements that brings).

3. bluGill ◴[15 Apr 25 21:12 UTC] No.43698446[source]▶
Here is a what: there are a lot of Americans (and similar for Europe) who did not go to college, and their kids are not going to college. Of they went to college but got a degree that doesn't have good job prospects. These people would be better off with manufacturing jobs than what they can find. This is probably a minority, but it is a large enough minority to swing elections and thus important.