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Right. And as a result of outsourcing all electronics manufacturing to China, US consumers now have cheaper TVs. They've lost factories, lost jobs, lost growth

Right. And as a result of outsourcing all electronics manufacturing to China, US consumers now have cheaper TVs. They've lost factories, lost jobs, lost growth momentum, but got cheap TVs. Hooray?

geofft 8y ago
Jobs aren't an inherent good. They're a way for people to have money, which they can in turn exchange for things they need or want, which is the inherent good. Making it harder for people to get things they need or want simply so they can have jobs risks being self-defeating, and it assumes there will never be other ways to get people access to things they need or want.
- AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
  No. Job is a way of manufacturing things people need or want. When you're well off, as a person or as a country, you can always find people or countries who will manufacture things for you. But they will want something back. Your real estate. Your universities. Your best people. It's a high price to pay for a bending phone.
  - geofft 8y ago
    Jobs are one way of manufacturing things people need or want. They're not the only way, unless we're playing semantic games by defining "jobs" in one sentence as "people offering 8h/day of their labor in the free market" and in the next as "people doing things"—and even if we are, let's at least be honest about the difference between "people doing things that are actually inherently productive and efficient" and "people doing things that are inefficient because we want the excuse to pay them for it." Job growth because it enables manufacturing is one thing; job growth because it enables paying people is quite another. As we become more efficient and automated in manufacturing, we'll have to decide what to do when there simply aren't enough jobs to go around. There are ways to continue giving people money to buy the things they need or want—or perhaps enable them to get the things they need or want without money—without requiring them to have jobs, or making that money proportional to the market value of their work. And they seem quite ethical. That's why I say that jobs aren't an inherent good. They're a means to an inherently-good end. That makes them conditionally good, so long as they continue to serve the end. Prioritizing the means over the end would be a mistake. There is no comparable alternative to giving people the things they need or want. I can think of a few (e.g., drugging people, plugging them into the Matrix) and they're unethical.
ineedasername 8y ago
I hate when I see this argument about lost US manufacturing. The truth is, the US industrial output has risen consistently over the years outside of recessions [0] The number of employees required to produce all of this has, however, fallen.[1] Not because of China, but because of more efficient methods of production and automation. I still don't like their IP theft though. [0]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/INDPRO https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/INDPRO [1]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP
- AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
  It's quite possible that I'm just fooled by the ubiquitous "Made in China" stamp. But another way of looking at your stats is that outsourcing labor-heavy jobs to China indeed decreases the amount of jobs available to local people. Industrial output, on the other hand, only grows because of the automation.
  - ineedasername 8y ago
    That's pretty much exactly what I mean. Sure, some jobs have left the country, but those no longer count in our industrial output index referenced in my parent comments. And I'd argue many of these jobs would have been eliminated with automation if they'd staying in the US anyway. Our native industrial output has increased but via automation that actually made jobs decrease. The situation with Carrier, manufacturer of HVAC systems, is a perfect example. They were given a tax break to keep a manufacturing plant in the US, but explicitly stated they'd be investing $13 million in automation that would reduce the number of jobs needed. No other country is getting these jobs instead of the US. The jobs are simply gone, through automation.
- ABCLAW 8y ago
  >Production indexes for a few industries are derived by dividing estimated nominal output (calculated using unit production and unit values or sales) by a corresponding Fisher price index; the most notable of these fall within the high-technology grouping and include semiconductors. You might hate the argument, but it's because the argument is accurate. The increase in US-based production isn't caused by the manufacturing industry kicking ass. It's because they fudge the numbers. They consider a CPU that's sold for twice the $ to be double the production. If you remove the high technology grouping, the US manufacturing base has cratered.

Right. And as a result of outsourcing all electronics manufacturing to China, US consumers now have cheaper TVs. They've lost factories, lost jobs, lost growth momentum, but got cheap TVs. Hooray?

geofft 8y ago

Jobs aren't an inherent good. They're a way for people to have money, which they can in turn exchange for things they need or want, which is the inherent good. Making it harder for people to get things they need or want simply so they can have jobs risks being self-defeating, and it assumes there will never be other ways to get people access to things they need or want.

AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
No. Job is a way of manufacturing things people need or want. When you're well off, as a person or as a country, you can always find people or countries who will manufacture things for you. But they will want something back. Your real estate. Your universities. Your best people. It's a high price to pay for a bending phone.
- geofft 8y ago
  Jobs are one way of manufacturing things people need or want. They're not the only way, unless we're playing semantic games by defining "jobs" in one sentence as "people offering 8h/day of their labor in the free market" and in the next as "people doing things"—and even if we are, let's at least be honest about the difference between "people doing things that are actually inherently productive and efficient" and "people doing things that are inefficient because we want the excuse to pay them for it." Job growth because it enables manufacturing is one thing; job growth because it enables paying people is quite another. As we become more efficient and automated in manufacturing, we'll have to decide what to do when there simply aren't enough jobs to go around. There are ways to continue giving people money to buy the things they need or want—or perhaps enable them to get the things they need or want without money—without requiring them to have jobs, or making that money proportional to the market value of their work. And they seem quite ethical. That's why I say that jobs aren't an inherent good. They're a means to an inherently-good end. That makes them conditionally good, so long as they continue to serve the end. Prioritizing the means over the end would be a mistake. There is no comparable alternative to giving people the things they need or want. I can think of a few (e.g., drugging people, plugging them into the Matrix) and they're unethical.

ineedasername 8y ago

I hate when I see this argument about lost US manufacturing. The truth is, the US industrial output has risen consistently over the years outside of recessions [0] The number of employees required to produce all of this has, however, fallen.[1] Not because of China, but because of more efficient methods of production and automation. I still don't like their IP theft though. [0]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/INDPRO https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/INDPRO [1]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP

AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
It's quite possible that I'm just fooled by the ubiquitous "Made in China" stamp. But another way of looking at your stats is that outsourcing labor-heavy jobs to China indeed decreases the amount of jobs available to local people. Industrial output, on the other hand, only grows because of the automation.
- ineedasername 8y ago
  That's pretty much exactly what I mean. Sure, some jobs have left the country, but those no longer count in our industrial output index referenced in my parent comments. And I'd argue many of these jobs would have been eliminated with automation if they'd staying in the US anyway. Our native industrial output has increased but via automation that actually made jobs decrease. The situation with Carrier, manufacturer of HVAC systems, is a perfect example. They were given a tax break to keep a manufacturing plant in the US, but explicitly stated they'd be investing $13 million in automation that would reduce the number of jobs needed. No other country is getting these jobs instead of the US. The jobs are simply gone, through automation.
ABCLAW 8y ago
>Production indexes for a few industries are derived by dividing estimated nominal output (calculated using unit production and unit values or sales) by a corresponding Fisher price index; the most notable of these fall within the high-technology grouping and include semiconductors. You might hate the argument, but it's because the argument is accurate. The increase in US-based production isn't caused by the manufacturing industry kicking ass. It's because they fudge the numbers. They consider a CPU that's sold for twice the $ to be double the production. If you remove the high technology grouping, the US manufacturing base has cratered.