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When this is all over, we’ll have a lot of unemployed workers and a devastated service sector. It will represent an opportunity to rebuild an industrial base.
by philwelch 7y ago
When this is all over, we’ll have a lot of unemployed workers and a devastated service sector. It will represent an opportunity to rebuild an industrial base.
During the Second World War the US not only managed economic autarky, but we had enough agricultural and industrial capacity left over to feed, arm, and equip much of the free world. We lost that through complacency and the past 40-50 years have been a series of escalating kicks in the teeth. Maybe this will be enough for things to change.
- gruez 7y ago>It will represent an opportunity to rebuild an industrial base. How would this work? Who is going to buy all those expensive (by asian standards) american-made goods? >We lost that through complacency AFAIK we lost it because of globalization, which caused the labor market to be flooded cheap labor from developing countries.
- erik_seaberg 7y agoThis. Trickle-down economics does work, but when capital has access to global markets, it trickles way, way down past our own labor pool.
- philwelch 7y ago“Cheap labor” is an excuse IMO. The US firmly fell behind other countries (most famously Japan) in manufacturing expertise in the late 20th century. We buy a lot of stuff that’s made in rich, expensive-labor countries like South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Even some Chinese manufacturing hubs are rapidly approaching first-world standards of living. Cheap labor might be enough to win a niche in stuff like textiles but there’s no reason you can’t manufacture electronics in a first world country.
- nojvek 7y agoIn the world of modern technological marvel, robots should ideally be cheaper than human labor. Toyota employs fewer humans per car produced than Tesla. They simply invested in their industries such that mass production techniques makes things cheaper. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, are all examples of wealthy and industrialized nations.
- philwelch 7y agoI suspect "per car produced" has a lot more to do with Toyota producing higher volume than Tesla. At least according to the stuff that's been popularized and written about, the Toyota Production System de-emphasizes automation. The rationale being that until you've refined the manufacturing process through experience, you don't know which steps to automate. Think of it this way: if you rely upon robots too much, you're making a huge bet that you can design the manufacturing process from scratch and basically get it right the first time. If you get something wrong, it's going to be expensive to go back and improve it because you need to rework all of the automation. Conversely, if you design a less automated manufacturing process, more of the work is done by human beings, who are typically smarter and more adaptable than robots. That way, if you come up with process improvements later on, you can just teach it to the humans. Better yet, the humans themselves can think of their own process improvements. At any rate, Toyota produces millions of cars in the United States on an annual basis; clearly the cost of American labor isn't a problem for them.
- beerandt 7y agoPost wwii had a lot to do with repurposed war-machine factories that were already paid for. Which happened to align with a new glut of available labor. You've only got half the equation here, at best.
- perl4ever 7y ago"During the Second World War the US not only managed economic autarky" Suppose someone said that's completely untrue, could you back your assertion up?
- greedo 7y agoThe fact that most competing economies post WW2 were in ruins doesn't factor in at all? The US was extremely fortunate to have no real competition from any other countries for a decade. And then American companies didn't pay attention to when Japan and Europe started to compete.
- philwelch 7y agoThat factors into the complacency for sure.