[HN Gopher] The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Pr...
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The Decline of the U.S. Machine-Tool Industry and Prospects for
Recovery (1994)
Author : walterbell
Score : 100 points
Date : 2025-04-04 22:21 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.rand.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.rand.org)
| pinewurst wrote:
| Book recommendation: When the Machine Stopped, by Max Holland
| eth0up wrote:
| Can't find an old dogeared copy for under 40+ w/shipping, but
| this book is now at the top of my list.
| mikewarot wrote:
| On top of the issues highlighted, I think an overly cautious ITAR
| regime didn't help. The state of the art CNC machines all trip
| over this on a whim. North Korea responded by building their own
| CNC machine tool industry, for example.
| jackyinger wrote:
| How's basing the US economy on services looking now?
|
| My brother is an extremely skilled machinist, the sort who could
| build machine tools if he had the resources. And let me tell you
| there ain't many of them, especially not young ones. Why? Because
| the US has emphasized college as the only respectable education
| path, as well as the only path to well paid jobs. That's how you
| end up with a manufacturing industry full of lazy knuckleheads
| (and believe me I've got the stories to back this assertion).
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| I have plenty of stories of programmers being lazy
| knuckleheads. The industry is full of them.
| xigency wrote:
| Well, that's a bit different. Laziness is a virtue in our
| field in ways that it is not in other fields. Math is a good
| example. Mathematicians are even more lazy than programmers.
| That's how they end up with shorter proofs than our programs
| and end up able to work lying down as well as just sitting on
| a computer.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| This feels like cope; ignoring that there are multiple
| kinds of "lazy."
|
| There's the kind that focuses on simplicity and avoiding
| unnecessary work to achieve the same goal (the good kind);
| and there's the kind that just ignores necessary work and
| drags out the process delaying the goal (the bad kind).
|
| There are plenty of programmers, and machinists, in both
| camps. Many programmers actually are lazy knuckleheads in
| the worst sense of the word - and, according to recent
| researchers, 10% of programmers self-admit to doing
| _nothing_ at their jobs.
| turtlesdown11 wrote:
| > How's basing the US economy on services looking now?
|
| You mean the worlds strongest, most developed and most
| successful economy?
| franktankbank wrote:
| On paper. That's not to say we don't have the greatest
| potential for even greater prosperity but you can't eat
| stonks. Right now we are making good on promises to the
| boomer generation while absolutely dicking over the
| generations who are making good on the promises of old.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| The US has by far the world's strongest economy no matter
| how you measure it. We obviously can and do eat the fruits
| of our labor.
|
| In fact we (being Americans broadly) eat only a tiny, tiny,
| tiny fraction of the absolutely gargantuan amount of value
| we (being Americans broadly) create.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Wealth inequality seems like completely perpendicular
| subject. What does on shoring lower paying jobs and
| ballooning the cost of goods do to help that?
| jackyinger wrote:
| Reminds me of a friend's defense of the service focused
| economy: "I've got a PhD in economics".
|
| Sure services may be great when things are going well, but
| you can't ONLY have services, and then go and blow up
| international trade and expect to have a good time.
| nemomarx wrote:
| well why would you want to blow up international trade to
| begin with?
| didericis wrote:
| Because a rising power (China) backed a country (Russia)
| which didn't bow to the dominant power (USA) that enables
| international trade, and intentionally blowing up
| international trade agreements now allows the USA more
| time to rebuild strategic supply chains to counter
| further violations of the international order.
|
| If the USA doesn't have a secure industrial base and
| can't reliably enforce the international order then there
| is no international trade.
| turtlesdown11 wrote:
| > intentionally blowing up international trade agreements
| now allows the USA more time to rebuild strategic supply
| chains to counter further violations of the international
| order.
|
| Sources?
|
| >If the USA doesn't have a secure industrial base and
| can't reliably enforce the international order then there
| is no international trade.
|
| The US reliably enforces international order and global
| trade now. Source where this is an issue?
| didericis wrote:
| The current international situation as understood by a
| lot of people in republican circles is outline in detail
| here:
|
| https://youtu.be/vDBZeHhx3YE
|
| > The US reliably enforces international order and global
| trade now
|
| Yes, which is why many believe now is the time to revamp
| our industrial capacity while we still have strategic
| dominance.
|
| The war in Ukraine has illustrated the importance of mass
| drone production, and we currently lack a lot of the
| direct capacity to make them. A lot of our military
| supply chains are also based too heavily on components
| assembled and manufactured in China and in parts of east
| Asia that could easily be disrupted and cripple our
| ability to project power and play the role we currently
| play.
| jajko wrote:
| That's... not how things will roll out. Sure it looks
| nice on some paper diagram my 5 year old son could pop
| out, but reality is way, way more complex.
|
| Also, here its US who is doing massive 'violations of
| international order'. You know which order I talk about?
| WTO for example, US is founding member, an org
| specifically designed and accepted to handle this.
| Various international agreements between close allies.
| And so on, news are full of whims of one bipolar old man
| stomping left and right.
|
| What is actually and already happening is that US will
| lose a lot of customers world wide. That Amazon cloud or
| tesla car or weapons (machinists heh) or literally any
| other US product ain't so cool or even acceptable
| anymore. What will happen actually that rest of the world
| will replace US products. Not just government, but
| regular people. Nobody wants to drink US whiskey or wine
| anymore. Nobody wants any US product or service anymore.
|
| If you think 4% of global population (and just 26% of
| global GDP) can on whims dictate lives of 96% of mankind
| _by force_ , well, that's like your opinion man.
| didericis wrote:
| The USA already dictates the direction of much of the
| world economy through its position in the WTO, and you
| are correct that the tariffs will cause more independent
| production. That's part of the intention. Europe
| specifically is underproductive and the hope is that
| these tariffs and the change of tone for defense
| agreements will bolster Europes domestic industrial and
| defensive capabilities.
|
| I also realize how _incredibly_ complex modern supply
| chains are and how disruptive these tariffs are. While it
| seems clear to me the previous trade situation was
| unsustainable and going to break down without some sort
| of change of course, that doesn't mean I'm in favor of
| the blanket tariffs or the way this was executed, and I
| don't know whether it will work. I'm simply explaining
| the logic behind it, which is also more complex than just
| "a bipolar old man stomping left and right".
| histriosum wrote:
| Let me get this straight...
|
| > That's part of the intention. Europe specifically is
| underproductive and the hope is that these tariffs and
| the change of tone for defense agreements will bolster
| Europes domestic industrial and defensive capabilities
|
| So, rather than sell Europe weapons that we create in the
| United States, part of the "intention" of this policy is
| to cut off the European demand for our weapons systems
| and cause them to manufacture their own? How is that
| helpful to the United States and our bottom line? How is
| that at all in the US interests?
|
| I agree that's what is going to happen, but I see no
| evidence that it was part of the intention.
| turtlesdown11 wrote:
| Quit the hyperbole.
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IPMAN
|
| https://www.brookings.edu/articles/global-manufacturing-
| scor...
|
| > Manufacturing constitutes 27 percent of China's overall
| national output, which accounts for 20 percent of the
| world's manufacturing output. In the United States, it
| represents 12 percent of the nation's output and 18 percent
| of the world's capacity. In Japan, manufacturing is 19
| percent of the country's national output and 10 percent of
| the world total. Overall, China, the United States, and
| Japan comprise 48 percent of the world's manufacturing
| output.
| vpribish wrote:
| thank you. the catastrophizing that makes up so much of
| this site is such a dead-end. seems people rather engage
| in sensational fantasy instead of understanding. cheers
| jkubicek wrote:
| Where is the disconnect between the US being the #2
| manufacturer in the world and my sense of doom and gloom
| about Trumps trade-war attack on our trading partners?
|
| I suspect it's this:
|
| > Advanced manufacturing technology development can be
| found throughout the United States. In Indiana for
| example, Rolls Royce, which makes jet engines, employs
| thousands of engineers. Zimmer Biomet makes surgical
| products in Warsaw, Indiana, a city that has become a
| national hub for orthopedic products.
|
| So much of what I buy as an individual is imported. My
| fruit comes from South America, my electronics come from
| Asia, my outdoor equipment comes from Canada (and the raw
| fabrics probably sourced from China).
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Well, in a sane world we wouldn't have one man single-
| handedly blowing up international trade, and thus wouldn't
| be having this conversation.
|
| Any system will fail if you deliberately put it into it's
| failure mode...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| the US is the most diversified economy in the world, we do
| not only have services.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| We've been coasting on advances made many decades ago. Most
| developed, sure. Successful? By nearly any metric you can
| imagine or make up. Strongest? Our economy is eaten hollow by
| termites. A stiff wind would make it crumble. Worse, there
| doesn't appear to be any path to true recovery... we can't
| create the jobs that people need to prosper, but if we could
| somehow do that we no longer create the people who would grow
| up to fill those jobs. What industry is it exactly that you
| think the United States dominates in 2025? What vital, 21st
| century technology do we have a monopoly on, or at least some
| undeniable marketshare of? Do we build boats or planes or
| cars? Do we make computer chips or garments or appliances?
| Our only saving grace might be that we're self-sufficient
| agriculturally, without that we'd probably already have
| starved.
| turtlesdown11 wrote:
| Please provide real metrics to support what you've claimed
| above.
| yojo wrote:
| Tech is the obvious one, but there are lots of less obvious
| ones, like designing the things that are manufactured
| elsewhere.
|
| It turns out production of most goods is commoditized and a
| race to the bottom (assuming free trade), so if you want
| margins that can support high salaries, you have to move up
| the value chain (read: services).
|
| If we keep tariffs high enough for long enough, we will
| bring back manufacturing jobs. They will not be high paying
| unless unions artificially constrain labor supply. The cost
| of everything will be higher (relative to people's
| incomes), implying a lower standard of living.
|
| tl;dr: If we want to withdraw from the world economy we
| mostly can, but don't expect to have as nice of a life
| afterward.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| >It turns out production of most goods is commoditized
| and a race to the bottom (assuming free trade), so if you
| want margins that can support high salaries, you have to
| move up the value chain (read: services).
|
| I know, right? When you go home and sit down on your
| Oracle database to relax, then go to the kitchen to cook
| your evening meal in an AWS Lambda, then afterwards relax
| a little more by changing into some spreadsheets, it
| really puts it into perspective: everything a person
| needs is technology and software, and who wouldn't want
| to dominate that industrial sector?
|
| >If we keep tariffs high enough for long enough, we will
| bring back manufacturing jobs.
|
| Sure, but we don't have a commitment from Trump's
| eventual successors that they will continue, let alone
| from the opposition party. In other words, everyone knows
| that it will not continue long enough... the only real
| question is how do they best mitigate the pain while it
| does continue short-term? Trump could easily drop dead of
| a stroke or heart attack tomorrow, he is not a young man
| or in great health. But even should he survive the full
| term, the clock's already ticking. Why would anyone
| commit to an expensive long term investment today, when
| January of 2029 it will no longer be necessary?
|
| >They will not be high paying unless unions artificially
| constrain labor supply.
|
| The labor supply is already constrained... demographic
| implosion is well underway. The only way to unconstrain
| it would be to import millions of people from foreign
| countries.
|
| >If we want to withdraw from the world economy we mostly
| can,
|
| Why would this be withdrawing? Who do you think we'd want
| to sell the products to anyway? No, I believe we're
| talking about switching our role from consumer in the
| global economy to producer. What do you think the Chinese
| could even buy with all the trade deficit cash they're
| squirreling away, when we don't make anything? Some large
| chunk of it is buying up stock, real estate, etc. Give
| them something else to buy.
|
| >but don't expect to have as nice of a life afterward.
|
| I'm like a 8th class (or lower still) software engineer
| in a fly-over city, and even my salary's six figure. The
| rest of you I always figured were doing better still. So
| I can understand why you don't get that for most people
| in the United States, "nice of a life" hasn't been a
| thing for generations, it's mostly stories they tell each
| other that have been repeated since the 1960s that
| originated with their great-grandparents. I mean, I
| would've thought some of that leaked through reddit and
| other such forums, where they complain about working 3
| Uber-Eats-style jobs and never having a day off, only to
| be able to scrape by in some shit apartment while
| wondering how to keep their crappy used car from being
| repossessed.
|
| You swim in this little bubble of atypicality, never
| noticing that the cheap clothes on the Walmart shelf show
| up from the distribution center looking what we would've
| called threadbare just 30 years ago. That no one you know
| (even those earning like you do) owns real furniture even
| if they earn a salary like yours. Even the "fancy"
| McMansions that you see from time to time are garbage,
| constructed as if no one cares that they last longer than
| 20 years. How many of the consumer goods in your home can
| you lay hands on that aren't 50% plastic or more?
|
| Nice of a life. Haha.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > No, I believe we're talking about switching our role
| from consumer in the global economy to producer. What do
| you think the Chinese could even buy with all the trade
| deficit cash they're squirreling away, when we don't make
| anything? Some large chunk of it is buying up stock, real
| estate, etc. Give them something else to buy.
|
| Meanwhile over at the People's Daily, someone starts to
| type up "Why should we accept the Americans stealing good
| Chinese manufacturing jobs?"
|
| > for most people in the United States
|
| Now we start to talk about income inequality, and who
| exactly is having a nice life; but the minute you mention
| some of the policies of less unequal European countries,
| Americans go absolutely bananas and call you a communist.
| You might as well suggest doing something about the mass
| shootings, that's even more unpopular.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| It the *right wing* Americans who go bananas calling you
| a communist. The left by and large wants to implement
| more social programs to reduce inequality and allow the
| growth of a middle class in our existing economy. You
| could probably say this is the crux of the culture war.
| yojo wrote:
| To be clear, I'm not saying your or anyone else's life is
| "nice." I'm saying that however nice (or not) your life
| currently is, it will be worse. Those goods at Walmart
| will cost 30% more and still be equally threadbare.
| You're mixing two things together, the declining quality
| of goods, and the places those goods are made.
|
| Did you know you can buy premium clothes made in China?
| You can. Check out producers like Bob Dong or Bronson.
| Ironically, they make a lot of thick, quality clothes
| inspired by vintage US work-wear. The reason you probably
| never heard of them is buyers have to pay extra for that
| quality, and the appetite isn't there.
|
| The fact that everything you buy is cheaply constructed
| of cheap materials is entirely due to that _being what
| sells._ Most consumers won't pay a premium for quality,
| so you have to go out of your way to look for it. Moving
| mass-market garment manufacturing back to America won't
| change that.
|
| If you just want to pay fistfuls of dollars for quality
| American-made clothing, you can do that today. Go buy
| yourself a $70 t-shirt from Lady in White. I'm sure we'll
| be able to make shittier clothing cheaper, but it's still
| going to be a lot more than shoppers are used to paying.
| You're never going to get any American-made shirt for
| $4.98.
|
| As to why tariffs constitute withdrawing: other countries
| can and will retaliate. China is not going to buy our
| expensive American-made commodity products, especially
| when they've got a 55% import duty on them, when they can
| buy equal or better quality things made at home or in SE
| Asia for half the price.
|
| Even if successful, tariffs will make goods expensive.
| There's no way around that. There is 0 reason to believe
| they will make goods any better. With reduced competitive
| pressure, quality is more likely to drop, if anything.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| We can definitely do better than where we're at. But I'm
| not sure working in factories is so much better. I wonder
| whether people will like having things like steel
| furnaces and injection molders in their towns. Exporting
| the dirty, smelly, dangerous stuff to elsewhere is one of
| the most devious tricks we played.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Which people got the COVID vaccine first?
|
| Why is HN in English and always talking about FAANG?
|
| Why do kids all around the world play with Spiderman?
|
| Asking for "vital" and "21st century" is a paradox, so
| maybe it's not what you really meant. But the proof of our
| success is all around if you're willing to actually look.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| >Why do kids all around the world play with Spiderman?
|
| So we sell children's stories, in a world where
| technology makes it possible to copy not just any single
| story, but pretty much all of humanity's stories since
| time began onto a tiny little plastic doohickey that you
| can hang on a keychain. And then anyone in the world can
| also make up a new story with those same characters, or
| draw a picture, or whatever...
|
| That's our wealth? Wow. Even if I had stock in that
| intellectual property, it seems like it never really was
| property to begin with and that I'm heading for ruin.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Those three examples were a sketch of the picture being
| missed by the parent comment. We clearly export
| entertainment on a massive scale, regardless of one's
| personal judgment of it.
| simgt wrote:
| > But the proof of our success is all around if you're
| willing to actually look.
|
| Get a slice of humble pie.
|
| The proof of American failure is also all around if
| you're willing to actually look. Urbanism, health,
| environment, MAGA, Vietnam, Irak, Afghanistan. Easy to
| cherry pick, turns out many of us who have the luxury of
| being able to work in the US if they wanted to chose not
| to do so, maybe with good reasons? "Most successful" is
| very subjective. "Dominant", yeah, you are.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| I'm not saying there aren't grave problems with American
| empire. But the parents' take on this particular point is
| unsubstantiated.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| What makes urbanism bad?
| chgs wrote:
| > Which people got the COVID vaccine first?
|
| U.K. and Sweden followed closely by Germany?
| pjc50 wrote:
| > Do we build boats or planes or cars? Do we make computer
| chips or garments or appliances?
|
| I mean .. obviously yes? It's just that you don't make _all
| the chips and cars on the planet_. Or even all the locally
| used ones.
|
| The US is mostly an astonishingly wealthy country that has
| somehow convinced itself that it's in the middle of a
| decline, while simultaneously avoiding facing up to any of
| the QoL questions which people routinely fight over on HN
| where the US average or poorer citizen might actually be
| worse off.
| jackyinger wrote:
| And this isn't going to change overnight. You know what I'm
| talking about.
|
| Most of the good machinist knowledge in America has retired, if
| not already literally died.
|
| And mechanical engineers in the US largely don't have the hands
| on skill to really understand making these machines. Not that
| that can't gain it.
|
| But to achieve truly high precision (the pinnacle from which
| all other percussion is derived) is an extreme art form. CNC
| doesn't come close. The state of the art (and has been for
| eons) is hand scraping:
| https://www.krcmachinetoolsolutions.com/machine-tool-scrapin...
|
| Things used to be made better because people cared about making
| a good product and took pride in their work. This is especially
| true in the machine tool industry: don't try to make it in the
| field if you don't really legitimately care.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| things used to be made better because of baumol cost disease
| and far fewer people having those things.
| hwillis wrote:
| > The state of the art (and has been for eons) is hand
| scraping
|
| No, it absolutely is not. Optics machine tools make things
| flat and accurate within a few _atoms_. Cheap surface plates
| are more precise than any human could hope to achieve by
| hand.
|
| Hand scraping is remarkable- skill can get you ~micron
| cutting depth. It would be totally obsolete except that the
| rough crosshatch pattern it creates is useful for retaining
| oil. Modern tools, especially the most precise tools, are not
| hand scraped. Cheap clone knee mills are hand scraped.
| Single-point diamond cutters run on air bearings with no oil,
| because the oil gap in plain ways is too large.
|
| Hand scraping is thoroughly limited by the viscosity of the
| marking fluid. You identify high spots by painting a flat
| blue and rubbing it on another flat part. If the whole
| surface rubs off then you can't tell where to scrape. The
| fluid does not spread out in single atom thickness.
| morkalork wrote:
| Crushing unions is partly to blame here. I've got relatives
| whose families have been working in the mining industry for a
| few generations. They all lament the good old days that are
| long gone now.
| Galatians4_16 wrote:
| There was a related hashtag that was banned for hilarious
| reasons.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| how would increasing the cost of labor mean that we have more
| manufacturing jobs in the US today?
| whatshisface wrote:
| There are a lot of manufacturing jobs. In fact, the
| "Manufacturing" category is four times larger (12M vs 4M)
| in terms of employment than "Information." The primary
| interests of people working in manufacturing are higher pay
| and better working conditions.
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/release/tables?rid=50&eid=4881#
| s...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| right, but what i am missing is the connection to 'more
| machinist jobs'. unions pretty much necessarily trade off
| number of jobs with average pay for that job, it's the
| whole name of the game to restrict entry and wage
| negotiation.
| os2warpman wrote:
| Every single country on earth, except China, that has a
| more robust and profitable machine tool sector than the US
| has unions strong enough to make a social media libertarian
| shit their pants.
|
| Indeed, the three countries listed in the report as being
| better than the US all have EXTREMELY strong
| machinist/metalworking unions.
|
| Japan: JAM
|
| Italy: FIOM
|
| And Germany, with probably the most powerful union in the
| entire world: IGM
|
| The problem isn't unions.
|
| The problem is the parasite MBA class, shuffling memos and
| spreadsheets around to make it look like they're doing
| something.
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| The unions got crushed, when the sovyeet union caved in.
| There main negotation power was the threat of a takeover by a
| of a viable economical alternative. It was just a illusion
| though..
| franktankbank wrote:
| > How's basing the US economy on services looking now?
|
| It looks really hollow, like we will be over a barrel when we
| experience a real embargo. I wish your brother all the luck in
| the world, I think his time will come soon because at the very
| minimum having guys like him on our team keep us from getting
| gouged to death.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > Because the US has emphasized college as the only respectable
| education path, as well as the only path to well paid jobs.
|
| If I could make as a machinist what I make as a software
| monkey, all other things being equal, I'd go back in time and
| train to be a machinist. People will go where the money is.
| jackyinger wrote:
| Exactly. This is the problem with throwing all the money into
| "hot spots". Growing the heck out of a few hot industries
| virtually ensures established ones will decline.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The only way to "solve" this is to reduce US output of
| valuable goods so that people are attracted to jobs that pay
| less and make less valuable goods. I don't understand why
| everyone's so enamored with the prospect of making $50k
| working a lathe in a world where engineering jobs have been
| made rarer artificially. It won't even be a job in a factory
| that makes something cool like rockets or lithography
| machines, without the ability to buy stuff from overseas
| those people will all have to quit to work on final assembly
| for digital wristwatches.
|
| They're right that they've been alienated from labor, they're
| so alienated they don't know that Fred Flintstone spent all
| day scheming to get promoted into working behind a desk.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| To say nothing of the attacks on Unions and labor rights by
| the same people advocating for a return of American
| industry.
|
| Do we really yearn for the factories?
|
| Who here in this forum is volunteering to take a $50k/yr
| factory job (if that!) with no benefits, a boss that rides
| you every day and only got the job because he's the nephew
| of the factory owner, and grueling manual labor that breaks
| your body before 50.
|
| Is that what you dream of for your children?
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| The factories of today are nothing like the 1980s
| factories this administration thinks they are going to
| bring back. Go to FRED or any other economic data site
| and plot manufacturing output and manufacturing
| employment on the same chart. The US manufactures more
| today than we ever have in history and it grows every
| year. Meanwhile, manufacturing employment is around its
| all time low and declines every year.
| caycep wrote:
| "manufacturing as a service", however that may look,
| might be more of a fit for the modern economy...unless we
| really regress back to 1930
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| MaaS is definitely a thing and has been for a long time.
| Contract manufacturers abound in the US.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> The US manufactures more today than we ever have in
| history and it grows every year._
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OPHMFG
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > Is that what you dream of for your children?
|
| This feels like a justification for slavery and slave-
| like conditions. I assure you the conditions and salary
| in most manufacturing countries would cause riots in the
| US; but as long as it's out of sight, it's out of mind,
| who cares what happens to _their_ children.
|
| Imagine if I used this argument for 1850s plantations
| (the conditions in many factories not being much better).
| "Do you _really_ want your children working on the
| plantations? Is this what you dream of for your
| children?"
|
| The answer is, of course not; but that sure as hell
| doesn't justify enslaving other people (whether literally
| in chattel; or implicitly with meager wages, long working
| hours, no other opportunities, and no time to learn
| alternative skills).
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| https://sfstandard.com/2025/02/25/ycombinator-startups-
| surve...
|
| I would argue they know..
| justonceokay wrote:
| Fred Flintstone wasn't just looking to work behind a desk
| though. He was looking for a promotion to management. In
| those days a desk job meant that you had some authority.
| You had worked your way through the ranks and put in your
| time. It was a sign that the company values you and you
| would be taken care of. Gold wristwatches and all that.
|
| Plenty of people still work in the data entry mines, even
| though that's a desk job. In a lot of ways being an Uber
| driver about as cushy as a desk job in terms of physical
| demand on the body, but it certainly isn't a status
| position.
| Teever wrote:
| I don't understand why everyone on HN is so enamored with
| beautiful looking Apple hardware but doesn't understand
| that this stuff is made by people and machines that are
| also made by people.
|
| At the end of the day if you want quality products and
| innovation you need to pay for it.
|
| Outsourcing this ability to other countries saves you money
| up front but it costs you the institutional knowledge to do
| it at home and all the costs that losing this entails.
| jajko wrote:
| Because nobody would buy 3000$ apple products and we
| wouldn't be even discussing them. Apple got premium
| price, but not because they manufacture in US, they just
| have much higher profit margins, hence the valuation of
| company.Every buyer approved this with their wallets,
| knowingly or not
| Teever wrote:
| People do buy $3000 Apple products. You're going to be
| more specific and talk about price difference as a
| percent not an absolute value to make your point.
|
| But let's be charitable and assume that you're saying
| that the price of Apple products will double if the cases
| are machines in America -- I don't think that would be
| the outcome.
|
| What percent of the cost of an apple product goes to
| towards the aluminum case? What percent of that cost is
| the material, what percent of that cost is the milling
| machine, and what percent is the labour?
|
| It's not foolish to want to maximize manufacturing
| capacity in America and minimize it in China. If you want
| to be able to beat China in an armed conflict then
| manufacturing is what will do it -- not software
| development.
| XorNot wrote:
| The price of Apple products in the US is literally
| doubling as of today, so we get to test this hypothesis
| in real time.
| arcbyte wrote:
| There are an enormous number of people who would love to
| make $50k working a lathe in the US. Enormous amounts of
| them. But they can't. They're working at Walmart making
| minimum wage.
| antisthenes wrote:
| No one will take the risk of educating them to work the
| lathe.
|
| Working the lathe is probably not any easier to learn
| than "vibe coding" or generic office work like customer
| support or data entry.
|
| The unspoken problem is that it's enormously expensive to
| re-educate adults to do something different. Adults just
| have worse brain plasticity and don't pick things up as
| quickly as younger workers. Some just refuse to learn
| thanks to the pervasive culture of ignorance that
| permeates USA.
|
| And adults cost more as well (even just the basics such
| as food, which children eat less of) and if they have
| aging parents or kids, have additional responsibilities
| that distract them from learning.
|
| No one is taking this risk on and why should they? If I
| was starting a company, and you suggested to me that I
| should indiscriminately hire minimum wage workers to work
| in a machining workshop, but first I have to educate them
| about machining from scratch, you'd be (rightfully)
| laughed out of the room, because you're dooming this
| business to failure.
|
| Once you break that link (e.g. skip a generation of a
| profession), it's incredibly hard to bring that back.
| It's like losing institutional knowledge, because your
| genius employee was hit by a bus, or moved countries.
| creato wrote:
| The modern equivalent of working a lathe is running a CNC
| machine tool, and I would bet that if we suddenly killed
| off the tech industry and ramped up CNC machining in the
| US, the CNC machine industry would have far more former
| SWEs than former "lathe workers".
| convolvatron wrote:
| learning to operate a lathe for alot of the low-precision
| work that goes on for mass market production is really
| pretty easy. but those job are _never_ coming back,
| anywhere except places that lack sufficient capital or
| prototyping/research environments. you can program a
| swiss machine to take in stock from behind the head and
| dump completely finished parts in a tray at the bottom.
| depending on parts complexity you can easily vomit out
| 1000s of parts per hour with a single unskilled operator
| dumping out trays and loading new stock across several
| machines.
| whatshisface wrote:
| If you try to raise the number of Americans that make
| $50k by shrinking the total domestic output, it's going
| to be laid-off mechanical engineers in those new jobs,
| not former sales associates, themselves now unemployed
| due to reduced retail traffic.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Not everyone can be a SW engineer. Same how not everyone can
| be a doctor. Or a lawyer. For a lot of people, bolting
| bumpers to Fords is as good as it gets in terms of job
| prospects.
| neogodless wrote:
| This is the eternal evolution of individual labor.
|
| But then the question is - do you think going backwards to
| an earlier time is a solution?
|
| Go far enough back to individual homesteads doing some
| light farming, hunting, fishing. You'll be self sufficient,
| but you won't be able to afford a phone or television!
|
| It's going to be a difficult problem (always) solving for
| the future of individual contributions to society as labor
| gets replaced by automation, and even knowledge work gets
| replaced by machine learning.
|
| But I still think great minds (and also the minds that get
| put in charge) should look forward and try to build a good
| future, rather than cling to a dying past.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> This is the eternal evolution of individual labor. _
|
| This argument of _" fuck others' jobs, I got mine"_ works
| if you're OK with having a handful of prosperous cities
| full of multinational conglomerates with smart/educated
| people in the service industry, surrounded by slums of
| poverty, crime and homeless people on drugs who can mug
| you, as their industry blue collar jobs got offshored and
| they couldn't _" just learn to code bro"_.
|
| There's a reason countries with a solid industrial base
| like Germany are livable almost everywhere with a lot
| less income inequality, poverty and homelessness, and try
| to hold on to these jobs.
|
| UK's deindustrialization is also another point on the
| map. Great if you work at some bank/tech company in
| London, not so great otherwise.
|
| _> Go far enough back to individual homesteads doing
| some light farming, hunting, fishing._
|
| No one's arguing about going back to the stone age. But
| having moved nearly all manufacturing to Asia was a
| mistake, not only we lost jobs but also scale,
| competencies and bargaining power.
|
| Remember the covid pandemic when you couldn't get masks
| initially because most were made in China and they were
| hoarding them all for themselves? What then? Use stonks
| as masks?
| ty6853 wrote:
| It would take you 10+ years of skilled labor savings in
| any case to afford a homestead capable of sufficient
| farming and hunting output to sustain a family. Because
| you are competing not with homesteaders but rich
| professionals or pensioned .gov retirees who want some
| escape from the pollution/crime/cramp of the city.
|
| Even if all of US became homesteaders this would likely
| still be at least a little bit the case, because
| foreigners would simply buy the property instead. Take a
| look at places like Spain, Portugal, etc and the high
| land prices are based on global competition not vs the
| low local wages.
| palmotea wrote:
| > pensioned .gov retirees who want some escape from the
| pollution/crime/cramp of the city.
|
| What is this stereotype? Government retirees aren't some
| elite wealthy class. IIRC government pensions haven't
| been anything to write home about since _1982_ (or
| something), and are roughly equivalent to private sector
| retirement benefits.
| ty6853 wrote:
| Might just be regional. An insanely high proportion of my
| rural neighbors are people who did 20 years in the
| military and started receiving benefits around age 40 and
| were able to use those benefits to supplement a
| homestead. How many private sector people drew a pension
| at 40 and then double dipped? I'm not damning them for
| it, it's not like many in the military didn't work hard
| for that money, but it's incredibly difficult for a
| working class 40 year old these days to fuck off into a
| rural area and buy a homestead with rural salaries
| without something functioning as a substitute to that
| backing it up.
|
| In any case in my rural homestead region there are mainly
| three classes
|
| 1) .gov pensioners 2) successful professionals 3)
| inherited property
|
| The key to government pensions here I think is that they
| get benefits early enough in life that they are young
| enough to build and live a homestead life. At age 65+ you
| might be able to maintain an established property but
| buying something affordable (read: rough or vacant land)
| out and getting it up and running would be pretty rough
| for most at that age.
| palmotea wrote:
| > How many private sector people drew a pension at 40 and
| then double dipped?
|
| Military is a unique subset of government, and IIRC most
| people who join don't stay long enough to draw a pension.
|
| When you said "government retirees," that brings to mind
| the civil service, which I believe is larger.
| ty6853 wrote:
| But it isn't just the military. There are government
| civil servants that draw pension at 20/25 years as well
| such as FBI agents. Makes more sense to say .gov rather
| than just the military.
| palmotea wrote:
| > But then the question is - do you think going backwards
| to an earlier time is a solution?
|
| It's not "backwards in time." The need for machine tools
| didn't disappear. There's an essential machine-tool
| industry that the US depends on very much, _it 's just in
| places like China._
| neuralRiot wrote:
| The problem is that the US is already behind in
| innovation on that field, and better machines produce
| better machines. So it's "backwards in time" because you
| have to start manufacturing the shovel to start digging
| when your competitor has a backhoe. And even if you could
| somehow steal the design and build it you don't have
| anyone who could operate it.
| palmotea wrote:
| > The problem is that the US is already behind in
| innovation on that field, and better machines produce
| better machines.
|
| That's not a permanent situation, proven by the fact that
| the countries that are now ahead in machine tools used to
| be behind the US in machine tools.
|
| > So it's "backwards in time" because you have to start
| manufacturing the shovel to start digging when your
| competitor has a backhoe. And even if you could somehow
| steal the design and build it you don't have anyone who
| could operate it.
|
| As aptly demonstrated by China: it's _a lot_ easier to
| catch up than to develop at the cutting edge. All you
| need is a little bit of investment and will.
|
| And personally, I think the government should conscript
| some crypto and adtech startups (and their employees) to
| build up an operator pool, because they're obnoxious and
| those people should be doing something useful instead.
| neuralRiot wrote:
| >All you need is a little bit of investment and will.
|
| We're cooked then. To give you some perspective I had
| some Chinese sales reps visiting my shop, they saw us
| working on some designs and casually asked about working
| hours i told them about 40hs/wk they laughed and said "in
| China engineers work 12hs a day 7 days a week".
| palmotea wrote:
| > We're cooked then. To give you some perspective I had
| some Chinese sales reps visiting my shop, they saw us
| working on some designs and casually asked about working
| hours i told them about 40hs/wk they laughed and said "in
| China engineers work 12hs a day 7 days a week".
|
| Oh, the fallacy that grinding harder and longer leads to
| more and better results. Do you think you do your best
| work when you're exhausted?
|
| Also, 996 is more typical in China, hated, and I believe
| illegal too. That kind of thing is one of the (many)
| reasons their population is starting to collapse.
| drivebyhooting wrote:
| Deepseek begs to differ?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| okay then tax and redistribute, don't try to pick winners
| and do stupid industrial policy that makes everyone poorer.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Firstly, the number of people who cannot be a software
| engineer is not actually very large. There are a lot of
| really shitty software engineers out there. Unlike being a
| doctor or a lawyer, you don't have to pass a test that
| requires actually knowing material, you simply have to be
| able to convince someone to give you a job banging on a
| keyboard, which does not necessarily require one to have
| technical skills.
|
| Not everyone can be a _good_ software engineer, sure.
|
| Among people who cannot be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a
| _good_ software engineer, there are also very few people
| who can be a _good_ machinist.
|
| Competent machinists require an extremely similar set of
| problem-solving skills as competent software engineers.
|
| Bolting a bumper to a Ford is different from manufacturing
| the metal shape of the bumper itself, and a competent
| machinist is the person who both figures out how to turn a
| piece of raw metal into a piece of bumper-shaped metal, and
| also the person who figures out how to do so in an easily
| replicable way.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Until they lose a finger and can't do it anymore.
| ty6853 wrote:
| The economic picture of what will happen is instead of being
| an American engineer designing widgets made in China, some
| fraction of you are now decimated to be an American widget
| maker of items engineered in China. Tarriff is essentially
| just a handicap to comparitive advantage in trade, trading
| out jobs where you had the advantage.
|
| It is one of the most baffling thing I have seen our
| government do in our lifetime.
| walterbell wrote:
| Currency rates are also a factor.
|
| https://financialpost.com/news/stephen-miran-economist-
| trump...
|
| _> Miran.. points to Trump's application of tariffs on
| China in 2018-2019, which he argues "passed with little
| discernible macroeconomic consequence." He adds that during
| that time the U.S. dollar rose to offset the macroeconomic
| impact of the tariffs and resulted in significant revenue
| for the U.S. Treasury.. "The effective tariff rate on
| Chinese imports increased by 17.9 percentage points from
| the start of the trade war in 2018 to the maximum tariff
| rate in 2019," the report said. "As the financial markets
| digested the news, the Chinese renminbi depreciated against
| the dollar over this period by 13.7 per cent, so that the
| after-tariff USD import price rose by 4.1 per cent."_
|
| https://archive.is/uvL5w
|
| _> The deepening trade war is raising speculation in
| financial markets that China may resort to aggressively
| devaluing the yuan against the dollar in a break of their
| policy of pursuing a stable currency.. A weaker yuan would
| make Chinese goods cheaper abroad, offsetting some of
| Trump's tariff impact, and make it costlier for local
| consumers to buy US goods.. One big consideration for
| Beijing is the risk of foreign investors pulling their
| money out of China if the currency sinks._
| absolutelastone wrote:
| I don't know that the prior situation was sustainable and
| would have lasted much longer anyway. Using China for
| manufacturing is like using Amazon for sales. You are
| required to give them everything they need to take your
| business away.
| palmotea wrote:
| > The economic picture of what will happen is instead of
| being an American engineer designing widgets made in China,
| some fraction of you are now decimated to be an American
| widget maker of items engineered in China. Tarriff is
| essentially just a handicap to comparitive advantage in
| trade, trading out jobs where you had the advantage.
|
| That's just a myopic regurgitation of free trade dogma that
| misses much. For instance: 1) the previous sock of American
| widget makers didn't become engineers, they got laid off
| with poor prospects; 2) it assumes a friendly free trade
| regime, which is unrealistic oversimplification; and
| perhaps 3) that "comparative advantage" is something real
| and not just lower living standards and laxer environmental
| and labor regulations.
|
| > It is one of the most baffling thing I have seen our
| government do in our lifetime.
|
| The part you're baffled about is only baffling if you're
| ignorant of everything except free trade dogma.
|
| The real baffling thing is why little to no distinction was
| made between allies and adversaries, low wage countries and
| high wage countries.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| If you, as a machinist, can get to live in a lower-price
| region, go hunting and fishing or just traipsing through the
| woods instead of doing that next release drive, build or
| repair your own HVAC or PV array + storage and get to raise a
| family while doing so I'd say that's worth quite a bit of
| that discrepancy in salary. You'll get the added advantage of
| seeing your handiwork being used and lasting for years to
| decades instead of being replaced in a few months or never
| used at all.
|
| Replace 'machinist' with a choice of other hands-on 'blue
| collar' professions for the same effect. Even better is to
| replace it with a profession which allows you to combine
| manual dexterity with software development.
|
| Or do as I did and buy a farm which allows you to flex all
| your muscles - mental as well as physical.
| slicktux wrote:
| I know laborers that make well above most "software monkeys"
| and don't even get me started with how much heavy machine
| operators make!
| digital_sawzall wrote:
| > don't even get me started with how much heavy machine
| operators make!
|
| $40 an hour in Austin Tx, a city with construction going on
| in every corner.
| wil421 wrote:
| No you wouldn't. The trades will take your body. I work with
| field techs who are close to 50 and they tell me their bodies
| are not going to make it past 50 and not even close to
| retirement age.
|
| Office work is so easy on the body compared to almost any
| job.
| esafak wrote:
| And techies face the prospect of becoming obsolete, with
| ageism rife.
| hwillis wrote:
| > My brother is an extremely skilled machinist, the sort who
| could build machine tools if he had the resources.
|
| Machine tools are not designed by extremely skilled machinists,
| they are designed by engineers. Machinists do not know how
| frames deflect or resonant modes or overconstraint or the other
| things that are critical in machine tool design. Machine tools
| are inherently dynamic systems where moving cutters cause
| feedback into the system. Being able to make something accurate
| under static conditions is very different.
| jackyinger wrote:
| Skilled machinists are very well aware of deflection and
| resonance. Operating a machine tool is not static in the
| slightest.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| The average software engineer is working on A to B plumbing
| code to confer more privacy violating javascript onto
| webpages, not novel implementations of algorithms at scale.
|
| Likewise the average machinist is not "skilled" in the way
| that most here are implying.
| hwillis wrote:
| I can tell when a dirt bike is running rough, but that
| doesn't mean I can design the helmholtz resonator in the
| exhaust. That difference is engineering.
| letitbeirie wrote:
| > Machine tools are not designed by extremely skilled
| machinists
|
| But they're _built_ by extremely skilled machinists. I 've
| practiced engineering for decades but I wouldn't even want to
| be in the same room as any object I've personally made being
| spun up the first time.
| hwillis wrote:
| Not really. Mostly they are built by machines. Extremely
| skilled machinists work in research or niche development,
| where they can solve new problems. Very skilled operators
| can tram a machine better, or eke out more repeatable
| clamping, and make slightly more accuracy out of an
| established process.
|
| Their time is much better spent creating new processes or
| making low-run jigs and things.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| I am an engineer, making physical stuff. I sometimes design
| things as well, I generally don't make it unless it is simple
| or the machinists are busy.
|
| When they make it, they often have questions that turn into
| suggestions. I would say that any engineer that does not
| listen to their machinist is a bad one.
| jayd16 wrote:
| > How's basing the US economy on services looking now?
|
| Until this administration kicked in, historically high?
| kcb wrote:
| Shoot yourself in the foot...guess we shouldn't have depended
| on that foot to walk for so long.
| InfiniteTitan wrote:
| This whole line of reasoning is so similar to consumers picking
| up chicken breast in a grocery store and not realizing that it
| comes from chickens somehow.
|
| The US manufacturing base is extremely broad, deep, and strong.
| The onus is on you to try to prove otherwise.
| drewcoo wrote:
| > The onus is on you to try to prove otherwise.
|
| You each made claims. You each have onus for them because you
| made the claims, not because someone says you do. That's how
| the burden of proof works.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy)
| analog31 wrote:
| To put a finer point on it: How's basing the US economy on
| _advertising_ looking?
|
| I went to college and eventually got a PhD in physics. I've
| built specialized machine tools. Yet I'm considered a schmuck
| because I didn't go into software development, and the software
| developers are considered schmucks if they didn't go into
| financial services or advertising. And none of that was about
| emphasizing college. Becoming a programmer doesn't require
| college.
|
| And lazy knucklehead stories are part of the workforce culture
| in virtually every occupation and industry. I'm sure I'm the
| lazy knucklehead in some of those stories.
| Teever wrote:
| The west coast is in for a rude awakening when they realize
| that they can't win a war against china with code, and they
| don't have jobs because they don't have chips to run their
| advertising code on anymore because China took Taiwan.
|
| Manufacturing is what builds up strong economies and it's
| what saves lives by preventing wars as long as possible and
| minimizes casualties on your side in war by fielding troops
| with more/better equipment.
| analog31 wrote:
| Hard to imagine rebuilding a manufacturing economy while
| your scientists are fleeing the country.
| jopsen wrote:
| If only the US had allies. But I guess it's hard to count
| on them when you're actively threading invasion!
|
| A war with China won't be won with manufacturing. It'll be
| won by having allies.
|
| If it actually comes to pass, you'll probably declined
| fighting the hot war, and opt for a cold one. But without
| allies it'll get real cold.
| Teever wrote:
| You can have all the allies in the world but if none of
| you have weapons and the means to make them you won't
| win.
| drivebyhooting wrote:
| The same allies that buy Russian energy? Yes such
| strategic masterminds.
| rainsford wrote:
| > Because the US has emphasized college as the only respectable
| education path, as well as the only path to well paid jobs.
|
| There's this idea that the shift to college and white collar
| jobs was some artificial push, but it seems more like an
| incredibly natural and obvious move to me. A lot of blue collar
| work is just not super great from a working conditions and pay
| perspective and while not every white collar job is awesome,
| the pay and conditions are _generally_ better and at their best
| can be incredibly intellectually stimulating. My Dad started
| out working in an industrial plant but pretty quickly ended up
| going to college to get a computer science degree because that
| job sounded way better than what he was doing...and that was
| way back when those kind of factory jobs were still a
| reasonable way to make a living.
|
| I can somewhat agree with the Dirty Jobs philosophy that non-
| college careers can be valuable and the right choice for some
| people, and the world after all still needs crab fishermen. But
| it's really easy to slip into overly romanticizing those
| careers even to the point of suggesting they're better than
| getting a degree.
| ferguess_k wrote:
| I have a sense that manufacturing is not coming back until there
| is a real Cold War 2.0 (or Hot War 3.0 which hopefully never
| realizes). I mean a real one, like the NATO-WP one when there was
| not a lot of trading between the two blocs.
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| There's a way to do it. This playbook has been used repeatedly
| throughout the 20th century.
|
| First you invite industry to reshore via subsidies and
| preferential access to government contracts. If necessary, the
| government _must directly invest in new firms._ (They already
| do this in a very small way with In-Q-Tel and others, so it 's
| not totally beyond the pale. For a time there was even a US
| Army VC firm.) If you talk to a Chinese factory owner or mine
| boss, _many_ of them will tell you that they got their start
| with a >$2M direct investment from their government.
|
| Second you gradually tighten the screws on foreign finished
| products, _not_ industrial inputs like metals, plastics, ores,
| etc.
|
| Third you streamline export paperwork requirements and relax
| things like ITAR.
|
| Then, when that's all humming along and the factories are
| working, you can launch blanket tariffs to protect your nascent
| industries, if need be. But you must exempt necessary
| industrial inputs from tariffs.
|
| What's happening now is completely backwards/inverted and it's
| going to lead to total chaos.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Don't forget the step where you ignore intellectual property
| law so that it becomes temporarily legal to start companies
| without a "war chest" of patents to ward off disputes with.
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| I mean, patents only apply in the nation where they're
| granted. So "ignoring" IP is just a matter of refusing to
| recognize foreign patents, which is something that all
| nations do implicitly.
|
| Also, in most foreign countries, court cases are cheap.
| (They could literally be 100x cheaper to litigate than they
| would be in the US.)
|
| If you're talking about in a US context specifically, then
| _if absolutely necessary_ the federal government could
| either buy or nationalize the patents in dispute, just as
| all states nationalize land from time to time under eminent
| domain. Zvi recently wrote about this in the context of the
| state buying the Ozempic patent:
| https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2025/01/21/sleep-diet-
| exercise-...
|
| > _[The US Government] should buy out the patents to such
| drugs.
|
| > This solves the consumption side. It removes the
| deadweight loss triangle from lost consumption. It removes
| the hardship of those who struggle to pay, as we can then
| allow generic competition to do its thing and charge near
| marginal cost. It would be super popular. It uses
| government's low financing costs to provide locked-in up
| front cold hard cash to Novo Nordisk, presumably the best
| way to get them and others to invest the maximum in more
| R&D.
|
| > There are lots of obvious gains here, for on the order of
| $100 billion. Cut the check._
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _So "ignoring" IP is just a matter of refusing to
| recognize foreign patents, which is something that all
| nations do implicitly._
|
| That's not true at all. US companies register patents in
| all foreign jurisdictions as well. It wasn't legal for
| Chinese companies to copy all that US IP, they were just
| able to do it because to stop them, our diplomats would
| have basically had to persuade the Chinese government not
| to develop.
| ferguess_k wrote:
| I think the playbook is easy, as you described multiple
| countries went through more or less the same process.
|
| The difficulty lies in political will and execution. Either
| fails then the whole scheme fails.
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| Direct government investment in new firms is politically
| complicated in the US, I think. Also, yeah, execution could
| be a problem. There'd need to be some sort of compliance
| mechanism to ensure that people don't just take the money
| and buy fancy cars. At the same time, it can't be too
| heavy-handed, or bureaucratic checks-and-balances will bog
| down the entire program and destroy any momentum it might
| have had.
| elictronic wrote:
| Manufacturing will start coming back based on the high tariffs
| just with two big caveats.
|
| 1. Manufacturing takes time and money to setup. This is a
| software forum where changes are made at lighting speed.
| Manufacturing requires capital, years, and will. In software it
| might take a day to make an obvious change. Manufacturing
| hopefully 6 months. Working with physical systems takes time.
|
| 2. Manufacturing does not mean jobs. It will be automated with
| a fifth or less required to setup and maintain. Some technical
| jobs will come back, but nothing like what has been said.
|
| The tariffs initially put in place will have the same level of
| effects as a war. This is At Covid levels. The effects take
| time, inventories are getting sold. You are responding to the
| news not the effects give it a few weeks for company CEOs to
| get through the meetings that their employees are pushing up
| the chains.
|
| Outside of all of that. The biggest issue is consistency of
| action which this admin squirellllll.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| > Manufacturing takes time and money to setup.
|
| Trump has 4 years if he survives that long. He's an old man.
| The trade war can't possibly last long enough for
| manufacturing to be forced to restart domestically. Even if
| this was his first term and he got a second, by the time the
| second rolls around everyone would just hope to wait it out
| until the Democrats retook the White House and they could
| import everything from China again. But now no one can even
| make the argument and be taken seriously that we need this,
| because if Trump's doing trade wars then it must be a bad
| idea.
| walterbell wrote:
| _> hope to wait it out_
|
| This investment thesis is about to be tested at scale.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| IMO if Trump is serious about bringing manufacturing back
| to US, his No.1 job is to remove all middle-high managers
| from all government agencies.
|
| The whole government has been bathing in the globalization
| alcohol for so many years that there is a huge interest
| group rooted for it to go forever. You can't do much
| without removing this group.
|
| There is no "legal", "orderly" retreat from the current
| situation IMHO. It's going to be messy. The issue is
| whether Trump is doing the job or he is just faking it for
| whatever the reasons.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > There is no "legal", "orderly" retreat from the current
| situation IMHO. It's going to be messy.
|
| .. so what's the point of this again?
| markus_zhang wrote:
| What's the point of what?
| pjc50 wrote:
| The "retreat" (in which direction) from the "current
| situation" (US richest country in the world, as they keep
| reminding us "Europoors"). What's the US supposed to look
| like after this purge?
| markus_zhang wrote:
| (just a disclaimer that I do not agree or disagree with
| this bringing back manufacturing to the US, the
| discussion is solely based on the supposition that Trump
| wants to bring it back)
|
| Once the purge is done in the public and private sectors
| (yeah you can imagine that such interest groups exist
| everywhere), Trump and his allies need to install
| competitive people to create and execute policies to
| "bring manufacturing back".
|
| Failing either of the two (purging and reinstalling
| competitive policy makers) fails the job.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Rich in what, exactly? Inflated stock prices? Inflated
| home prices? Empty processed-food calories? Are we the
| richest in recently-built public infrastructure or
| intellectual property (or both!!)? Maybe we're the
| richest in collateralized debt obligations?
|
| No one in the United States feels rich, when we look
| around, we don't see wealth or prosperity. We suspect,
| though we'd feel silly to say it out loud, that if anyone
| ever busted into Fort Knox and looked in the vaults,
| those would be empty of the gold that it was once famous
| for.
|
| >What's the US supposed to look like after this purge?
|
| I imagine we'll look like what we really have been for a
| long while, instead of this illusion that everyone has of
| us.
| jajko wrote:
| Come on, US is rich, even compared to Europe. Sure, its
| just pure money and not happiness, health, safety, high
| quality education or healthcare availability but raw
| numbers are there.
|
| It will get poorer economically in upcoming years thanks
| to gov moves, the wheels have been set in motion. Maybe
| dollar will tank so that my first sentence won't be valid
| anymore. Not sure it will be balanced with rest above
| though.
| czzr wrote:
| America is the richest country in the world. Guess you
| won't know how good you have it until you destroy it.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Why do you assume it's governmental middle management
| that is the driving force of globalization? That project
| has been a mainstream private industry prerogative for
| 40+ years.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| It's definitely both, and you can see I mentioned it in a
| follow-up reply to another commenter.
|
| But Trump can only impact public sector at the moment,
| right?
| ferguess_k wrote:
| I think they will more or less add some jobs at least, which
| is fine. But I don't think there is going to be any political
| will unless the necessity pushes people to demand it.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > Manufacturing does not mean jobs.
|
| Exactly. I think a lot of people who say they "want
| manufacturing to come back to the USA" have a picture in
| their imagination of a 1950s factory employing hundreds of
| middle class people standing along an assembly line picking
| up parts with their hands and working on them, or turning
| bolts on a car as it goes down the line. Then the old steam
| whistle blows, and all those workers exit the building and
| drive back to their middle class 1950s homes.
|
| This world does not exist anymore and is never coming back.
| If manufacturing comes back, it's going to be heavily
| automated plants with a lean staff of robot technicians
| keeping the line going. Manufacturing may come back to the
| USA, but those Fred Flintstone jobs are not part of the
| picture.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Those were not middle class jobs before the 1950s nor were
| they for long afterwards.
|
| The idea that one can be functionally illiterate yet afford
| a home, a car and a family by spending 40hr and no more
| riveting spring hangers onto Chevrolets, or whatever, is a
| legacy from a blip in time during which the US had a bear
| monopoly on state of the art for the time manufacturing.
|
| Those men who worked comparable factory jobs in the 1870s
| through the 1930s had wives and kids doing piece work at
| home. And in the 1970s their wives all went back to work
| again, just outside the home.
| ferguess_k wrote:
| I think maybe with two people working a blue collar job
| that is much more realistic objective, once better wealth
| distribution has been figured out.
| jkubicek wrote:
| > Manufacturing takes time and money to setup...
| Manufacturing requires capital, years, and will.
|
| And a stable political system. If I were in the manufacturing
| industry, I wouldn't make big bets on moving manufacturing
| back to the states unless I had some real guarantees that
| these tariffs weren't going to go away in the next week.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| > It will be automated with a fifth or less required to setup
| and maintain.
|
| It is genuinely a hard problem. Even 50 years ago or so,
| simply having two hands and reasonable health was a gateway
| to a decent-paying job. These jobs have kind of evaporated,
| and aren't going back. That's a bit part of the nostalgia for
| manufacturing, I would imagine.
|
| In an ideal world, you would ramp up free education, churn
| out more skilled labour. But for many reasons, this isn't
| happening and isn't likely to happen soon. So what should
| societies do with all this "unskilled surplus labour"?
|
| UK has sort of given up, and since 1970s whole regions of
| England rely heavily on continued social transfers. I.e. the
| bankers and the oil rigs pay for the budget, the budget pays
| for former miners. But that's increasingly unsustainable, not
| to mention massively unattractive to everyone involved.
|
| US seems to (maybe?) follow a note darwinian approach. But
| this is, it seems, also not working. Bringing back
| manufacturing, as you say, won't fix it either. It feels like
| there is a whole class of people without access to good jobs
| or education to reskill.
|
| Other than spending a lot of money on this, like Switzerland,
| I don't really know how to fix it, it is genuinely a hard
| problem in a liberal country. Would be keen to hear
| suggestions.
| walterbell wrote:
| Andy Grove, _" How to Make an American Job"_ (2010),
| https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/documents/areas/adm/loeb/11_35...
| The first task is to rebuild our industrial commons. We should
| develop a system of financial incentives: Levy an extra tax on
| the product of offshored labor. (If the result is a trade war,
| treat it like other wars--fight to win.) Keep that money
| separate. Deposit it in the coffers of what we might call the
| Scaling Bank of the U.S. and make these sums available to
| companies that will scale their American operations. Such a
| system would be a daily reminder that while pursuing our company
| goals, all of us in business have a responsibility to maintain
| the industrial base on which we depend and the society whose
| adaptability--and stability--we may have taken for granted.
|
| Aaron Slodov, _" Rewiring Silicon Valley for the World of Atoms"_
| (2025), https://x.com/aphysicist/status/1906552189880844664
| Manufacturing demands capital, tech, and execution, creating
| moats through scale and complexity. Returns could dwarf SaaS
| multiples if a startup nails a sector where efficiency gains
| translate to real massively scalable growth. The risk is higher
| (upfront costs, R&D, hardware flops), but it does scream classic
| venture asymmetry. Compared to, say, biotech's long timelines or
| consumer tech's saturation, this hits a sweet spot: tangible
| impact, massive macro tailwinds, and a shot at monopoly-like
| dominance.. The greatest returns of the next decade won't come
| from shuffling bits, but from reimagining atoms--and it will take
| our entire capital ecosystem working in concert to make it
| happen.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > make these sums available to companies that will scale their
| American operations
|
| As always, it comes back to the solution which pays executives
| and shareholders from taxpayer and consumer money. That's the
| system which gave America Boeing: too big to fail.
| walterbell wrote:
| _> pays executives and shareholders from taxpayer_
|
| Maybe 2010-2024, but 2025 has seen CHIPS Act deprioritized in
| favor of foreign (e.g. TSMC $100B) investment in US
| manufacturing.
| sleepyguy wrote:
| The problem is cost. We used to buy tooling for Acme Multi-
| Spindle Screw Machines but the Chinese could produce it for a
| fraction of the cost. You would have the first set made locally,
| then send the drawings to China, and pay less than the material
| cost to have them shipped to your door. In competitive markets,
| customers hammer you for every penny on a machined item that
| costs 0.12.
|
| These days not many Screw machine shops left, very few in the
| USA. Material costs were too high, and the Chinese could make it
| for 1/10th the cost. To bring it all back is very difficult since
| even the products that the parts were being made for are no
| longer manufactured in the USA.
|
| On a tangent, watch Ives speak about trying to build the iPhone
| in America. When you understand what it takes, you quickly figure
| out it is impossible. The supply chains make it impossible when
| none of the 1000's of parts from screws to glue to chips are not
| manufactured in the USA.
|
| It won't hurt if we try to bring it all back, but it will take
| the same amount of time and sacrifice China put in to take it.
| Who thinks our Gov has what it takes to do it?
| myrmidon wrote:
| Completely agree on the cost aspect.
|
| > It won't hurt if we try to bring it all back, but it will
| take the same amount of time and sacrifice China put in to take
| it.
|
| I think this is missing a huge aspect: Chinese workers are very
| cheap compared to US levels of income ($25k/15k with and
| without adjusting for purchaising parity!).
|
| Those differences are gonna be paid by the average American,
| but not only that: Inputs for all those industries are gonna
| become more expensive than they are (because of retaliatory
| tariffs), and _everything else_ (retail, restaurants,
| craftsmen, etc.) is gonna become more expensive, too, because
| the onshored industries compete for labor (and there is not a
| lot of unemployment in the first place).
|
| Compare agriculture: Faces similar pressure (wages lower
| elsewhere), but is harder to offshore (goods expire, food
| safety)-- the US still pays ~20 billion every year just to prop
| the sector up (and I recon that is money well spent). But I
| would not want to spend similar amounts in direct/indirect
| taxes (i.e. tariffs) on mining, ore refining, metalworks,
| textile processing, electronics assembly and a dozen others,
| just to have "more self-sufficiency"- you could maybe make an
| argument for it in some cases (involving Russia or China), but
| what is the actual problem with buying some machine-tools from
| allies like Germany or Japan?
|
| I'm very confident that we are NOT gonna see a large, self-
| sufficient American manufacturing industry in 4 or 10 years;
| people may continue with the current approach for a bit, but
| _will_ realize at some point that the situation is not
| improving (prices rising faster than wages, as well as
| government debt and /or median effective tax burden spiraling
| out of control).
|
| My prediction is that we're either gonna see Trump declare
| "mission accomplished" at some random point, or reverting on
| the ~20% average import tariff because of mounting pressure.
|
| In conclusion: It _will_ hurt to try to bring manufacturing
| back, and there probably won 't be much to show for it in the
| end.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Forget about the entire iPhone. The USA cannot manufacture
| radios. I'm not joking. All fundamental communication
| technology (for consumers) is not made here.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| I just don't get what is the long term plan of who is even
| going to work in these factories. If they completely automate
| it, then it's not bringing those jobs back. If they don't...
| the median age in the US is 38.5. It's not 80s when it was like
| 30. I don't even think China can do what they did with their
| current demographics. An average person who will lose their
| service job won't be competitive in a factory just because of
| their physical limits.
|
| Oh well, good luck to you guys.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| AI will be a better at manufacturing than any human ever. It will
| do the best machining ever. It will never need to rest or slow
| down. It will be able to build and rebuild parts to nanometer
| tolerance 24/7/365. It simply cannot fail at any job once it
| learns how to do it. If you don't believe me, go watch the latest
| keynote at Zombo.com
| jmward01 wrote:
| I keep seeing people advocating that the idea that we should
| build everything, and every piece or everything, here is a good
| one. Why? Is this just an isolationist dream? The reductive,
| absurd, extreme of this is why don't individual people go out and
| build all their own stuff like cars and houses. Let's all go out
| and learn how to mine and refine metal ore so we can get started
| on building the family sedan! There is an argument for what the
| right balance is, and likely a good argument that at lest some
| minor capability should exist so we can keep re-assessing the
| value of that industry, but the notion that we should have it all
| in-house will just limit us to much more primitive tech since we
| can't gain the benefit of world wide innovation and build off of
| that.
| slicktux wrote:
| That is a pretty hyperbolic paragraph only to imply that we as
| a nation would loose out on innovation by doing so; nowhere do
| we want to isolate as a country. Look at all the jobless
| Americans in once thriving industrial cities. Generations left
| without pensions or skills all because we outsource our workers
| to other countries. That's one of the many problems that need
| to be solved and by manufacturing here in the USA it may help
| resolve or alleviate that problem.
| killingtime74 wrote:
| It may or may not but the cost is definitely huge and it's
| already arrived. Would you build a new factory, spend a huge
| amount of effort marketing, hire workers, incur large debts,
| if you knew that in three and a half years the presidency may
| change and it would not be competitive again.
| slicktux wrote:
| That's a self fulfilling prophecy...say that is the case.
| The one thing that won't change is the jobless and skill
| less Americans; I understand that the road to hell is paved
| with good intentions but at this point we can't help but
| not ignore the homeless, jobless and skill less problem.
| Though we can solve it by just creating a UBI, right
| (sarcasm)?
| XorNot wrote:
| It's also just practically not possible: the distribution of
| resources is that it is, and for the expense of conquering and
| securing an expansive empire to get them, strategic alliances
| and diplomacy will be cheaper (not to mention that just because
| something is within your empire, it hardly means you
| necessarily exert any real sovereignty or control over it - the
| conquered peoples will hardly feel like citizens).
| dccoolgai wrote:
| Unfortunately, when cheap goods are sourced outside the US
| "innovation" usually just means "slave labor" or "flouting
| environmental regulations".
|
| Not the case for Europe, etc. but most Americans are better off
| without competing against slave labor so billionaires can
| become trillionaires while they lose social security,
| healthcare, etc. I'll pay an extra 20 percent for well-made
| things that aren't produced by indentured servants.
| lesuorac wrote:
| It's an economic theory -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism
|
| The general idea is that when you buy stuff you're losing
| wealth so if you never buy anything then you never get poorer.
| Since we constantly dig gold up from the ground we still get
| richer over time even if nobody buys our stuff.
|
| This is also why its importantly to gain colonies (Greenland/
| Canada) or mineral rights from other countries so that the
| amount of stuff we have increases.
|
| IMO, it's a theory that's missing the forest for the trees but
| it's historically very popular.
| hudon wrote:
| [delayed]
| xienze wrote:
| > I keep seeing people advocating that the idea that we should
| build everything, and every piece or everything, here is a good
| one.
|
| "Everything" may be a bit extreme, but seriously, have you
| already forgotten the lessons learned during the Covid supply
| shocks? It's important to be at least somewhat self-reliant as
| a nation, especially when the country we are VERY reliant on is
| not a friendly one.
| gaze wrote:
| I don't think the MAGA crowd is prepared for the quality of goods
| produced by a country at the early stages of relearning
| manufacturing. American made, for at least 5 years, will be
| synonymous with poor quality, just has made in ___ has been
| synonymous with poor quality for any country at the early stages
| of industrialization.
| WorldPeas wrote:
| My town used to host the company that made the "Bridgeport
| machine"(the name of the town itself) and the Singer company.
| When both left, it relied on banking to pick up the slack, but
| now that seems to be falling apart as well with the skyline
| mostly empty after the banks left post-pandemic. Whenever I
| machine something on a Bridgeport I think about it.
| https://bridgeportmachinetools.com/about-us/
| https://www.singersewinginfo.co.uk/bridgeport
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