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There is no single advisor, but I'd vote for the group of economists who drank so much of their own Kool-Aid they believed that offshoring all of our industrial

There is no single advisor, but I'd vote for the group of economists who drank so much of their own Kool-Aid they believed that offshoring all of our industrial capacity was a good idea.

jointpdf 6y ago
But think of the utils that you’re leaving on the table by not fully exploiting comparative advantage. /s
- rmrfstar 6y ago
  Utility is actually a really useful framework, provided you've correctly specified your utility function. [1] "I've shipped my N95 production off-shore and there is a global pandemic" is the kind of thing economists leave out of their models. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann%E2%80%93Morgenstern_utility_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann%E2%80%93Morgenster...
JamisonM 6y ago
The United States of America has a lot of remaining industrial capacity. All of the United States industrial capacity has not been off-shored. The United States of America has about 1/6th of the world's manufacturing output and the majority of the manufacturing output consumed within the United States is in fact produced within the United States.
- akiselev 6y ago
  > The United States of America has about 1/6th of the world's manufacturing output and the majority of the manufacturing output consumed within the United States is in fact produced within the United States. Manufacturing output is measured using "manufacturing value added," which is the price the output is sold at minus the price of the input - raw materials, parts from other suppliers, tooling, etc. The United States has such a high "value add" because of cheap parts and raw materials sourced globally for overpriced products sold to the Armed Forces/DoD, the healthcare system, and a vast government/corporate bureaucracy with more money than sense. It's great to be high up in the value chain but claiming the wealthiest country has 1/6th of the world's manufacturing output because it has the most money to waste isn't accurate.
  - JamisonM 6y ago
    You should take a close look at what the US actually makes and then reconsider this opinion.

There is no single advisor, but I'd vote for the group of economists who drank so much of their own Kool-Aid they believed that offshoring all of our industrial capacity was a good idea.

jointpdf 6y ago

But think of the utils that you’re leaving on the table by not fully exploiting comparative advantage. /s

rmrfstar 6y ago
Utility is actually a really useful framework, provided you've correctly specified your utility function. [1] "I've shipped my N95 production off-shore and there is a global pandemic" is the kind of thing economists leave out of their models. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann%E2%80%93Morgenstern_utility_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann%E2%80%93Morgenster...

JamisonM 6y ago

The United States of America has a lot of remaining industrial capacity. All of the United States industrial capacity has not been off-shored. The United States of America has about 1/6th of the world's manufacturing output and the majority of the manufacturing output consumed within the United States is in fact produced within the United States.

akiselev 6y ago
> The United States of America has about 1/6th of the world's manufacturing output and the majority of the manufacturing output consumed within the United States is in fact produced within the United States. Manufacturing output is measured using "manufacturing value added," which is the price the output is sold at minus the price of the input - raw materials, parts from other suppliers, tooling, etc. The United States has such a high "value add" because of cheap parts and raw materials sourced globally for overpriced products sold to the Armed Forces/DoD, the healthcare system, and a vast government/corporate bureaucracy with more money than sense. It's great to be high up in the value chain but claiming the wealthiest country has 1/6th of the world's manufacturing output because it has the most money to waste isn't accurate.
- JamisonM 6y ago
  You should take a close look at what the US actually makes and then reconsider this opinion.