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> Although I hope it is true. I don't know if being a manufacturing powerhouse is actually all that exciting anymore. There aren't really that many jobs in man

• mattnewton 10y ago
  Or worth the cost increase of higher automation.. I don't see people living off of what it costs to manufacture goods today. I don't think those particular jobs are coming back.
• brightball 10y ago
  One of the big perks to manufacturing is that it draws the entire supply chain around it naturally. Even if the manufacturing job itself isn't as abundant, the peripheral jobs that comes with it from shipping materials, producing materials, distribution, sales agreements, logistics, building construction and maintenance...they all provide benefits. With the manufacturing hub overseas all of that's overseas too, which is why China is more vertically integrated. If I recall, one of the major reasons that Dell took off years ago was that they consolidated the entire supply chain for production and significantly increased profit margins.
  • redler 10y ago
    Yes, but since China is the manufacturing hub for so much of the world, its local surrounding galaxy of expertise, supply chain, and related resources will exceed the size of such a galaxy built only in the US — especially if the US efforts are by dint of tariffs and related policies, and not economics.
    • brightball 10y ago
      Does that mean that nobody should attempt to compete with China?
      • redler 10y ago
        No, I wasn't suggesting nobody compete. By all means, compete. But I don't think measures like 35% tariffs, local tax abatements, overseas profit repatriation discounts, or political bluster are likely to mash more than a little bit of the toothpaste back into this tube.
    • adventured 10y ago
      The US was a larger manufacturing nation than China as recently as five years ago. Cutting the US corporate income tax rate nearly in half and lightening economic regulations, will do wonders for boosting US manufacturing. Given China's $3.x trillion in manufacturing is heavily tilted toward low cost, low value manufacturing, it's not going to be surprising to see their global share of manufacturing shrink in the next decade as other low cost competitors continue to take share from them (whether in Vietnam or Mexico).
      • sulam 10y ago
        Think Africa. Vietnams is already too expensive. Mexico probably is, too.
        • JonFish85 10y ago
          Is Africa stable enough? I feel like South America has a better shot at this than Africa. Maybe in a few generations? Edited to add that I'm speaking in very broad terms, I know that Africa as a whole is enormous, but I don't think of any particular African nation as being stable enough to be able to support the infrastructure needed.
          • gech 10y ago
            But think of all those hopeless souls that will work for nothing for businesses to take advantage of. It must be done, market demands it.
• coliveira 10y ago
  Producing our own food is not exciting either, but would you like to live in a place that produces no food and has to import 100% of what is needed to survive? This is the same thing here. Manufacturing is not a sexy activity anymore, but it is necessary, as long as we still live in a physical (non-virtual) world.
  • fennecfoxen 10y ago
    > a place that produces no food and has to import 100% of what is needed to survive like, say, New York City? Sure! No, the rooftop garden on the Park Slope Whole Foods does not count.
    • malka 10y ago
      Ny is not in a position where the people whom feed it could use it as a leverage in diplomatic relationships
      • throwanem 10y ago
        'Who feed it', not 'whom'. The latter is the objective case of the pronoun, parallel to e.g. "them"; just as we wouldn't say "them feed it", we wouldn't say "whom feed it", either.
      • seanmcdirmid 10y ago
        NYC was actually very pro confederacy at the very beginning of the civil war because they were so economically dependent on the south.
    • phaus 10y ago
      He's obviously talking about doing so on an international level. As long as the US is around, New York will never have to question whether or not the other states will be willing to do business with it. While its highly unlikely, its slightly more believable that in the event of another world war or some kind of global food epidemic, a country that doesn't produce its own food might be completely screwed.
    • 10y ago
• un-devmox 10y ago
  < Some of Toyota's modern car plants employ a meager 1500 people which is about and order of magnitude decrease from what car plants used to employ. 1500 jobs + the peripheral jobs (as a another commentator pointed out) could be a boon for many of the small counties* in which these plants are located. *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toyota_manufacturing_facilities#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toyota_manufacturing_f...
  • georgemcbay 10y ago
    It won't be 1500 forever. Automation hasn't stopped, or slowed, it just keeps increasing And a lot of those peripheral jobs being talked about are also in line to be automated away.
    • tcbawo 10y ago
      The biggest cost gains have probably been realized, especially given the reduction in long term obligations (pension, healthcare, weakened union position). I could see another round or two of automation, but at some point it's not worth investing in.
      • georgemcbay 10y ago
        lol
• zanny 10y ago
  Jobs don't matter, the goods coming out of those plants are still valuable and making handsome profit with enough scale. As we move towards automation, wherever the means of production are located is going to dictate who rules the world a hundred years from now. If you don't have a manufacturing base in your country in time it will be a losing battle to try to afford buying other countries unlimited goods with your limited human resources.
• beloch 10y ago
  The article addresses this: "It's natural to look at the phenomenon of declining manufacturing employment as a political failure that can be rectified. But the fact that China has lost more manufacturing jobs than the U.S. over the past 20 years is a strong indication that playing hardball with the Chinese isn't going to do anything to increase employment in the United States. Rather than a political failure, the decline of manufacturing employment is a natural economic process that many industries, like agriculture, have gone through in past eras. As sectors become better at what they do, they often require fewer people to get the work done." Additionally, manufacturing is often an environmentally unfriendly process, so there are going to be some big added costs for the government and an increase in the importance of adequate regulation and enforcement. Given that the majority of the added revenue these manufacturers will generate is going to go into companies and individuals that are, on average, very good at hiding profits, the IRS is going to have to be very sharp indeed if the U.S. is to actually benefit from this. It's not going to be like it was in the seventies when a much higher share of gross revenue went to unionized workers who dutifully paid their taxes in full. On the bright side, more Americans are going to find out what living next to a modern chip fab plant is like. This may cause them to actually reduce the frequency with which they buy new phones.
  • bsder 10y ago
    > On the bright side, more Americans are going to find out what living next to a modern chip fab plant is like. A modern chip fab plant is one of the cleanest industries we have EVER produced. Everything is really sealed, and even the "waste" gases are purer than what you get directly from most industrial suppliers. It used to be that most of these plants immediately dump industrial gases into their waste stream and purify them to the level they need. This is different from a PCB manufacturing plant which creates lots of liquid waste that is contaminated with all manner of nasty metals.