6 ms·
Manufacturing is a ladder. You use the previous generation manufacturing to create the new. Once you lack certain manufacturing processes by moving it over seas
by tylerjwilk00 7y ago
Manufacturing is a ladder. You use the previous generation manufacturing to create the new. Once you lack certain manufacturing processes by moving it over seas you are in a sense kicking your own ladder out from underneath you. The trade wars now are a response to realizing large pieces of the ladder are gone.
- munk-a 7y agoActually US businesses were doing fine for the most part, except for those trying, and failing, to compete with the ladder replacements that moved overseas. There is a militarily strategic reason for keeping domestic production of your full supply chain, but most businesses don't care because (and this is a shocker) corporations aren't Americans, nor are they Chinese or any other nationality. They are greedy and self-interested and don't give a hoot about their country of residence.
- la_barba 7y agoCaring about the market, and not societies, is the kind of capitalism, that the US has been heavily promoting for quite a while. But seems like young people are starting to catch on to this social-democracy thing..
- mochris 7y agoAnd American consumers don't actually care about this. If they did, they'd happily pay the premium for American made goods. They don't generally pay the premiums, because they don't think the price premiums are worth it. Unfortunately, the authoritarian-right has decided to centrally plan the economy.
- hoseja 7y agoSeems to me Chinese corporations are Chinese and their executives(' families) can be disappeared on demand to make it stay so.
- criddell 7y agoI remember a few years ago reading how Dell had lost the ability to make their own computers gradually over time. On the face of it, every bit of manufacturing and design they moved out of the US made sense, but all of it added up over time meant that they had effectively lost control of the computers they were selling. It was an interesting story that but my google-fu isn't strong enough to find it.
- Spooky23 7y agoI recall that article and also can’t find it. The punchline for me was the chairman of their Taiwanese partner, who said something like “Americans are happy with their ratios. (ie reduced inventory) I am happy with cash.”
- llampx 7y agoWall Street rewards ratios not cash.
- notfromhere 7y agoAt some point, your manufacturing partners in China are going to realize they control the means of production and can capture the added value by developing their own front office to market and sell the goods they already manufacture. At what point do places like Dell become just licensing operations?
- crispyambulance 7y ago> At what point do places like Dell become just licensing operations? I don’t know, but I expect that there’s a roomful of well-paid asshole MBA’s at Dell working on that “problem” right now. Everything outsourced and a few product mangers picking stuff out of a catalog— That’s ultimately what the supply chain leads to as corporations grow.
- Xixi 7y agoIIRC that's the story of Asus: they started out by making parts, and at some point (a decade ago?) started to sell their own desktop/laptop computers.
- avar 7y agoYou might be interested to know that your notion of a successful macro-economic policy has been thoroughly tried throughout history, and has been deemed a colossal failure, see e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism
- IronWolve 7y agoRight. China using slave labor, in dangerous, polluted, deadly manufacturing hell holes, to make ladders 10x cheaper than the USA with human rights, polution controls, unions, etc. etc.