6 ms·

I applaud this accomplishment. I think there will be a push to manufacture more semiconductor-intensive products in the US over the next several years as tensio

by jolux 5y ago

I applaud this accomplishment. I think there will be a push to manufacture more semiconductor-intensive products in the US over the next several years as tensions with China continue to heat up and Taiwan is left as a single point of failure. I know progress is already being made with TSMC building new fabs in the US. I will note that Purism do not say what their production capacity is, and that it would probably be a different task entirely to manufacture a significant percentage of iPhones in the US. I’m not surprised that manufacturing thousands of extremely expensive phones in the US is possible. I would be a lot more surprised if they had managed to manufacture millions of reasonably priced phones in the US. The big question is whether the federal government will embrace the industrial policy required to rebuild our manufacturing capacity in high-tech.

bluGill 5y ago
There is also debate on if the US should invest in that. Political tensions with China are one factor. However remember there are limited resources so investing in this means something else can't be invested in. Really this should be a world wide concern: if China is so bad how can we build up someone more friendly - it need not be the US. Could be Germany, could be Kenya (I understand China is investing there)
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  I've bought a few non-consumer electronics from Germany all manufactured in Germany including the housing/plastic parts. Quality is exceptional and everything is to the spec and well documented. The advantage of having semiconductor/electronics manufacturing in the US would be cheap land/labor, quantity of labor, gov incentives, regulation waivers, particularly in the American Southwest: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-southwest-is-americas-new-factory-hub-cranes-everywhere-11622554044 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-southwest-is-americas-new-f...
- jolux 5y ago
  I agree, but part of the problem with manufacturing in China is that American companies have become complicit in the abuses of a brutal authoritarian regime. The manufacturing efficiencies cannot be ignored, but it would be wise to take this into consideration as well moving forward. I’m just not sure if there’s a reasonable way to do so. This may be an inevitable consequence of globalization in the short-term.
  - orhmeh09 5y ago
    Why is complicity in abuse of populations suddenly a problem? The US imprisons more than China does, forces citizens to work through a yet-unresolved pandemic that disproportionately impacts already marginalized and abused segments of the population, and furnishes private companies with prison labor for $1 an hour when the prisoners are not being made to fight forest fires or being abused (or killed) by law enforcement or each other. I think the companies have the stomach for more and that it’s mainly a marketing and public relations issue. https://fair.org/home/us-media-cant-think-how-to-fight-fires-without-1-an-hour-prison-labor/ https://fair.org/home/us-media-cant-think-how-to-fight-fires...
    - jolux 5y ago
      > Why is complicity in abuse of populations suddenly a problem? It's always been a problem, but it's best to make whatever strides to resolve it that we can. > The US imprisons more than China does Sure, but it is not currently engaged in a genocide. Standards for due process are also stronger in the US than in China, and you don't get thrown in jail for criticizing the government either. The US prison system being bad does not make China's abuses any less serious. They are still much worse than what the US does.
      - lucian1900 5y ago
        The US is the one with widely documented concentration camps on the border. And last year showed us just how much due process is ignored and political prisoners persecuted, if previous history wasn’t enough.
        Dylan16807 5y ago
        > The US is the one with widely documented concentration camps on the border. That's for people crossing in, and on average they're only in there for a couple days. The current population is around 10k people. It's a problem but it's absolutely nothing compared to putting entire groups into concentration camps. We did that once, but it sure wasn't any time recently. > And last year showed us just how much due process is ignored and political prisoners persecuted, if previous history wasn’t enough. It did?
- mandelbrotwurst 5y ago
  > investing in this means something else can't be invested in Eh, maybe - often that "something else" is capital sitting on its hands or investing in things that serve to protect its own interests.
- munk-a 5y ago
  I actually strongly disagree with the statement > Political tensions with China are one factor. Specifically - I think that, at the end of the day, the economic flow is the only thing that matters and all the other considerations are sort of moot. What the US offers to the world is a gigantic consumer market, and it's quite difficult to actually control a consumer market since any applications of force or restriction of goods flow ends up deteriorating the market faster than it yields control. If the US embargoed Chinese imports tomorrow the Chinese government would receive a lot of domestic pressure to take action but, logically, there isn't an action it can take overtly to actually reopen the US market - instead we'd see this war play out in propaganda within the US trying to force politicians to reverse the decision by causing mass discontent. And, honestly, it's likely that companies affected by any such embargo would just act independently of the Chinese government to those ends - so, essentially, the only real forces Chinese businesses would have to oppose an economic breakdown are their personally contained forces. I think, essentially, that the Chinese government would be impotent to deal with such a situation buuuut... that's just like my opinion man.
- bingbong70 5y ago
  If given a choice, as a person that lives 99% of the time in the US, would you rather have a US device that is backdoored by the NSA/CIA or a Chinese device that is backdoored by the Chinese government? I personally think the latter is preferable. Not sure why anyone buys US made equipment post Snowden/Assange.
nikodunk 5y ago
To your point on production capacity: This reminds me of pushback in the early days of Tesla. Sure they can build 1,000, but can they build 10,000. Now we’re at “sure they can build 500,000, but can they build 5M.” I think the answers “yes”, if the demand is there. And I agree with you that industrial policy could help jumpstart that demand.
- ludocode 5y ago
  > I think the answers “yes”, if the demand is there. It's not a question of demand. A negligible number of customers care where their product is manufactured. They care only about price, which is why manufacturing moved overseas in the first place. What is needed to manufacture phones in the West is protectionism and mercantilism. Our governments would have to subsidize domestically manufactured products, require the use of domestic products for various industries, and tariff those manufactured in countries with lower labor standards and incompatible civil rights. Unfortunately such policies lead to higher costs for consumers and lower economic growth. It's politically unpopular for the same reason action on climate change is unpopular: it makes everything more expensive. It's no wonder that virtually all western politicians support neoliberal globalism. Goods are cheap, even if it means some of us lost our jobs in the process. Worse, these policies also tend to lead to war. One of the big reasons we've had relative peace between world powers for the last 75 years is that our economies have become closely intertwined, so no politician or corporation can stomach the economic costs of war. If global trade starts to break down we'll head directly into World War 3. Personally I think we should embrace protectionism anyway despite the cost and risk. I'd go so far as ripping up NAFTA. American labor standards are so shit that Canadian companies can barely compete, and it's holding us back from progressive policies like a 4-day work week. Ontario can't even mandate paid sick days! I'd rather we have a well-paid labor force than cheap groceries and electronics. Unfortunately no politician agrees with me.
  - jolux 5y ago
    > It's politically unpopular for the same reason action on climate change is unpopular: it makes everything more expensive. You've got this backwards. Both taking action on climate change and buying American are popular [1][2]. Furthermore I don't know of much evidence that suggests taking action on climate change will raise prices. But you are right about protectionism in that way. That's the biggest problem here. In the abstract I see no reason that global trade should breakdown if a significant majority of people in the world can agree about labor standards, human rights standards, etc. In the specific, I believe this was one of the major original purposes of the UN, though unfortunately the world we live in remains one in which the abuses of great powers go unchecked because the cost of nuclear war is too high. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of-americans-think-government-should-do-more-on-climate/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of... [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-madeinusa-poll/americans-want-the-government-to-buy-u-s-made-goods-even-if-they-cost-more-idUSKBN2BM1DA https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-madeinusa-pol...
CivBase 5y ago
> I’m not surprised that manufacturing thousands of extremely expensive phones in the US is possible. I would be a lot more surprised if they had managed to manufacture millions of reasonably priced phones in the US. I'm pretty naive on the subject, but in this case why would cost of local labor affect which product is manufactured at any given plant? Lets say employees A and B are payed $50 and $20 respectively for each product they manufacture. If employee A manufactures product X, which is sold for $100, and employee B manufactures product Y, which is sold for $50, the company makes a net profit of $80 ($150 revenue - $70 manufacturing costs). If employee A makes product Y instead and employee B makes product X, the net profit is still $80. Is there something I'm failing to take into account here?
- jolux 5y ago
  I don't quite follow the question you're asking, but the argument I was making is one about economies of scale. Manufacturing small quantities of expensive products is comparatively easy, at the extreme end you could have a single craftsman building every phone and selling them for $5000 each. If you need to manufacture a million phones though, you're going to need more than one guy, and the facility is going to be radically different as well. The reason phones aren't manufactured in the US is not because nobody in the US knows how to make a single phone or even thousands of them, it's because factories like Foxconn which employ over a million people to churn out millions of phones and other products just do not exist, and there might not even be enough excess labor capacity to build them.
  - CivBase 5y ago
    I must have misunderstood your point. I thought you were arguing that manufacturers who produces a variety of products with plants in the US and Taiwan can only afford to make their expensive products in the US because only those products have the margins to offset the relatively high US labor costs. But from your response (and on re-reading your original post) it sounds like you're actually pointing out that high-volume manufacturers with thin margins have more trouble justifying high US labor costs - in contrast to low-volume manufacturers with high margins.
- 5y ago
bserge 5y ago
I can only hope we in the EU can buy from the US without some ridiculous extra fees. In the past 10 years, it became cheaper to buy the same products from China than the US, which is in part due to US shipping companies (DHL, UPS, FedEx) dramatically scaling down their overseas shipping business. I could get a 5KG box of electronics in a week for $50 ten years ago. Nowadays, there's only USPS, it takes two weeks and still costs more. Kinda sad.
- zwaps 5y ago
  DHL is German (now).
apocalyptic0n3 5y ago
> I know progress is already being made with TSMC building new fabs in the US. Worth noting that TSMC started building the 5nm fab this week in Arizona and said last month they would build a 3nm or 2nm fab at the site as well, and were in the research phase for a potential third fab that would focus on older/cheaper nodes. Intel is also building a fab in Arizona and in March announced a further $20 billion investment in 2 more fabs at its Arizona site. I'm not sure if they've started building or even committed yet, but it seems likely that Samsung will build a 5nm fab in Texas as well, in addition to its existing fab there. So there's quite a bit of progress happening on US-based fabs already.

by jolux 5y ago

bluGill 5y ago

There is also debate on if the US should invest in that. Political tensions with China are one factor. However remember there are limited resources so investing in this means something else can't be invested in. Really this should be a world wide concern: if China is so bad how can we build up someone more friendly - it need not be the US. Could be Germany, could be Kenya (I understand China is investing there)

systemvoltage 5y ago
I've bought a few non-consumer electronics from Germany all manufactured in Germany including the housing/plastic parts. Quality is exceptional and everything is to the spec and well documented. The advantage of having semiconductor/electronics manufacturing in the US would be cheap land/labor, quantity of labor, gov incentives, regulation waivers, particularly in the American Southwest: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-southwest-is-americas-new-factory-hub-cranes-everywhere-11622554044 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-southwest-is-americas-new-f...
jolux 5y ago
I agree, but part of the problem with manufacturing in China is that American companies have become complicit in the abuses of a brutal authoritarian regime. The manufacturing efficiencies cannot be ignored, but it would be wise to take this into consideration as well moving forward. I’m just not sure if there’s a reasonable way to do so. This may be an inevitable consequence of globalization in the short-term.
- orhmeh09 5y ago
  Why is complicity in abuse of populations suddenly a problem? The US imprisons more than China does, forces citizens to work through a yet-unresolved pandemic that disproportionately impacts already marginalized and abused segments of the population, and furnishes private companies with prison labor for $1 an hour when the prisoners are not being made to fight forest fires or being abused (or killed) by law enforcement or each other. I think the companies have the stomach for more and that it’s mainly a marketing and public relations issue. https://fair.org/home/us-media-cant-think-how-to-fight-fires-without-1-an-hour-prison-labor/ https://fair.org/home/us-media-cant-think-how-to-fight-fires...
  - jolux 5y ago
    > Why is complicity in abuse of populations suddenly a problem? It's always been a problem, but it's best to make whatever strides to resolve it that we can. > The US imprisons more than China does Sure, but it is not currently engaged in a genocide. Standards for due process are also stronger in the US than in China, and you don't get thrown in jail for criticizing the government either. The US prison system being bad does not make China's abuses any less serious. They are still much worse than what the US does.
    - lucian1900 5y ago
      The US is the one with widely documented concentration camps on the border. And last year showed us just how much due process is ignored and political prisoners persecuted, if previous history wasn’t enough.
      - Dylan16807 5y ago
        > The US is the one with widely documented concentration camps on the border. That's for people crossing in, and on average they're only in there for a couple days. The current population is around 10k people. It's a problem but it's absolutely nothing compared to putting entire groups into concentration camps. We did that once, but it sure wasn't any time recently. > And last year showed us just how much due process is ignored and political prisoners persecuted, if previous history wasn’t enough. It did?
mandelbrotwurst 5y ago
> investing in this means something else can't be invested in Eh, maybe - often that "something else" is capital sitting on its hands or investing in things that serve to protect its own interests.
munk-a 5y ago
I actually strongly disagree with the statement > Political tensions with China are one factor. Specifically - I think that, at the end of the day, the economic flow is the only thing that matters and all the other considerations are sort of moot. What the US offers to the world is a gigantic consumer market, and it's quite difficult to actually control a consumer market since any applications of force or restriction of goods flow ends up deteriorating the market faster than it yields control. If the US embargoed Chinese imports tomorrow the Chinese government would receive a lot of domestic pressure to take action but, logically, there isn't an action it can take overtly to actually reopen the US market - instead we'd see this war play out in propaganda within the US trying to force politicians to reverse the decision by causing mass discontent. And, honestly, it's likely that companies affected by any such embargo would just act independently of the Chinese government to those ends - so, essentially, the only real forces Chinese businesses would have to oppose an economic breakdown are their personally contained forces. I think, essentially, that the Chinese government would be impotent to deal with such a situation buuuut... that's just like my opinion man.
bingbong70 5y ago
If given a choice, as a person that lives 99% of the time in the US, would you rather have a US device that is backdoored by the NSA/CIA or a Chinese device that is backdoored by the Chinese government? I personally think the latter is preferable. Not sure why anyone buys US made equipment post Snowden/Assange.

nikodunk 5y ago

To your point on production capacity: This reminds me of pushback in the early days of Tesla. Sure they can build 1,000, but can they build 10,000. Now we’re at “sure they can build 500,000, but can they build 5M.” I think the answers “yes”, if the demand is there. And I agree with you that industrial policy could help jumpstart that demand.

ludocode 5y ago
> I think the answers “yes”, if the demand is there. It's not a question of demand. A negligible number of customers care where their product is manufactured. They care only about price, which is why manufacturing moved overseas in the first place. What is needed to manufacture phones in the West is protectionism and mercantilism. Our governments would have to subsidize domestically manufactured products, require the use of domestic products for various industries, and tariff those manufactured in countries with lower labor standards and incompatible civil rights. Unfortunately such policies lead to higher costs for consumers and lower economic growth. It's politically unpopular for the same reason action on climate change is unpopular: it makes everything more expensive. It's no wonder that virtually all western politicians support neoliberal globalism. Goods are cheap, even if it means some of us lost our jobs in the process. Worse, these policies also tend to lead to war. One of the big reasons we've had relative peace between world powers for the last 75 years is that our economies have become closely intertwined, so no politician or corporation can stomach the economic costs of war. If global trade starts to break down we'll head directly into World War 3. Personally I think we should embrace protectionism anyway despite the cost and risk. I'd go so far as ripping up NAFTA. American labor standards are so shit that Canadian companies can barely compete, and it's holding us back from progressive policies like a 4-day work week. Ontario can't even mandate paid sick days! I'd rather we have a well-paid labor force than cheap groceries and electronics. Unfortunately no politician agrees with me.
- jolux 5y ago
  > It's politically unpopular for the same reason action on climate change is unpopular: it makes everything more expensive. You've got this backwards. Both taking action on climate change and buying American are popular [1][2]. Furthermore I don't know of much evidence that suggests taking action on climate change will raise prices. But you are right about protectionism in that way. That's the biggest problem here. In the abstract I see no reason that global trade should breakdown if a significant majority of people in the world can agree about labor standards, human rights standards, etc. In the specific, I believe this was one of the major original purposes of the UN, though unfortunately the world we live in remains one in which the abuses of great powers go unchecked because the cost of nuclear war is too high. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of-americans-think-government-should-do-more-on-climate/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of... [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-madeinusa-poll/americans-want-the-government-to-buy-u-s-made-goods-even-if-they-cost-more-idUSKBN2BM1DA https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-madeinusa-pol...

CivBase 5y ago

> I’m not surprised that manufacturing thousands of extremely expensive phones in the US is possible. I would be a lot more surprised if they had managed to manufacture millions of reasonably priced phones in the US. I'm pretty naive on the subject, but in this case why would cost of local labor affect which product is manufactured at any given plant? Lets say employees A and B are payed $50 and $20 respectively for each product they manufacture. If employee A manufactures product X, which is sold for $100, and employee B manufactures product Y, which is sold for $50, the company makes a net profit of $80 ($150 revenue - $70 manufacturing costs). If employee A makes product Y instead and employee B makes product X, the net profit is still $80. Is there something I'm failing to take into account here?

jolux 5y ago
I don't quite follow the question you're asking, but the argument I was making is one about economies of scale. Manufacturing small quantities of expensive products is comparatively easy, at the extreme end you could have a single craftsman building every phone and selling them for $5000 each. If you need to manufacture a million phones though, you're going to need more than one guy, and the facility is going to be radically different as well. The reason phones aren't manufactured in the US is not because nobody in the US knows how to make a single phone or even thousands of them, it's because factories like Foxconn which employ over a million people to churn out millions of phones and other products just do not exist, and there might not even be enough excess labor capacity to build them.
- CivBase 5y ago
  I must have misunderstood your point. I thought you were arguing that manufacturers who produces a variety of products with plants in the US and Taiwan can only afford to make their expensive products in the US because only those products have the margins to offset the relatively high US labor costs. But from your response (and on re-reading your original post) it sounds like you're actually pointing out that high-volume manufacturers with thin margins have more trouble justifying high US labor costs - in contrast to low-volume manufacturers with high margins.
5y ago

bserge 5y ago

I can only hope we in the EU can buy from the US without some ridiculous extra fees. In the past 10 years, it became cheaper to buy the same products from China than the US, which is in part due to US shipping companies (DHL, UPS, FedEx) dramatically scaling down their overseas shipping business. I could get a 5KG box of electronics in a week for $50 ten years ago. Nowadays, there's only USPS, it takes two weeks and still costs more. Kinda sad.

zwaps 5y ago
DHL is German (now).

apocalyptic0n3 5y ago

> I know progress is already being made with TSMC building new fabs in the US. Worth noting that TSMC started building the 5nm fab this week in Arizona and said last month they would build a 3nm or 2nm fab at the site as well, and were in the research phase for a potential third fab that would focus on older/cheaper nodes. Intel is also building a fab in Arizona and in March announced a further $20 billion investment in 2 more fabs at its Arizona site. I'm not sure if they've started building or even committed yet, but it seems likely that Samsung will build a 5nm fab in Texas as well, in addition to its existing fab there. So there's quite a bit of progress happening on US-based fabs already.