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842 points putzdown | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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NoTeslaThrow ◴[] No.43706451[source]
We never stopped manufacturing, we just stopped employing people.

> We don’t have the infrastructure to manufacture

That's trivially false given we're the second-largest manufacturer in the world. We just don't want to employ people, hence why we can't make an iphone or refine raw materials.

The actual issue is that our business culture is antithetical to a healthy society. The idea of employing Americans is anti-business—there's no willingness to invest, or to train, or to support an employee seen as waste. Until business can find some sort of reason to care about the state of the country, this will continue.

Of course, the government could weigh in, could incentivize, could subsidize, could propagandize, etc, to encourage us to actually build domestic industries. But that would be a titantic course reversal that would take decades of cultural change.

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owlstuffing ◴[] No.43707987[source]
> We never stopped manufacturing, we just stopped employing people.

That’s a misleading oversimplification. While it’s true we haven’t stopped manufacturing, we did offshore a massive portion of it--especially after the Open Door Policy with China and subsequent free trade agreements. That shift didn’t just change where things are made; it fundamentally altered corporate incentives. Once production moved overseas, the need to invest in domestic labor--training, benefits, long-term employment--shrank accordingly.

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1. NoTeslaThrow ◴[] No.43708273[source]
Yes, I should have said "we just stopped employing americans".
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2. owlstuffing ◴[] No.43709552[source]
I suppose so, since your use of “we” includes both America and China et al.