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Is it necessary for manufacturing to be in the United States? Certainly secure shipping lanes and a country with a friendly government is enough.

• colechristensen 7y ago
  When the shit hits the fan, suddenly you are dependent on that friendly government for something and those necessary manufacturing facilities become a target and that friendly government has leverage over you and maybe becomes not quite so friendly. It has been so long since something bad has happened that people believe it can't happen. Pax Americana can only last so long and with the way things are going right now it seems closer to its end than its beginning.
• forty 7y ago
  If the end users are in the US, I assume there are financial and (more importantly) environmental costs associated with shipping when everything is made in Asia. We need to re-learn to consume local products if we want to save this planet.
  • pjc50 7y ago
    Shipping costs are fairly trivial to the environment compared to manufacturing for semiconductors, because they're extremely value-dense. And the manufacturing process is intensive of energy, water and nasty solvents. Some of the early US semiconductor sites are now Superfund sites.
    • mcny 7y ago
      I didn't know what Superfund was so I googled it: > Superfund sites are polluted locations in the United States requiring a long-term response to clean up hazardous material contaminations. They were designated under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980. CERCLA authorized the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to create a list of such locations, which are placed on the National Priorities List (NPL). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites > Superfund is a United States federal government program designed to fund the cleanup of sites contaminated with hazardous substances and pollutants. Sites managed under this program are referred to as "Superfund" sites. It was established as the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA).[1] It authorizes federal natural resource agencies, primarily the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), states and Native American tribes to recover natural resource damages caused by hazardous substances, though most states have and most often use their own versions of CERCLA. CERCLA created the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). The EPA may identify parties responsible for hazardous substances releases to the environment (polluters) and either compel them to clean up the sites, or it may undertake the cleanup on its own using the Superfund (a trust fund) and costs recovered from polluters by referring to the U.S. Department of Justice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfund
      • pjc50 7y ago
        Sorry, I shouldn't have used the Americanism. I had in mind specifically Fairchild (trichloroethane, arsenic contamination of groundwater) https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.contams&id=0901680 https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fus... , but there are plenty of others. See also https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/lens/the-superfund-sites-of-silicon-valley.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/lens/the-superfund-sites-...
• pjc50 7y ago
  Given the tariffs, does the US government count as "friendly to the US" any more?