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I think people are missing the point of this comment. The US invested heavily in BD, and now BD is being incorporated into a South Korean company rather than a

by fny 5y ago

I think people are missing the point of this comment. The US invested heavily in BD, and now BD is being incorporated into a South Korean company rather than a US company. I presume this is mostly because US manufacturing industry is relatively dead so capex for potential automation gains don't make sense for US firms.

echelon 5y ago
> US manufacturing industry is relatively dead Here's where we need to be spending our tax money. We should be buying overseas firms and onshoring manufacture.
- nine_k 5y ago
  The legal landscape in the U.S. may be harder to navigate, labor laws more strict, and salaries necessarily higher. This all makes it hard for U.S. manufacturing to compete on production of commodities. Like many of the EU industries, viable U.S. industries tends to produce and export unique things with relatively small physical volume: complex chips, complex chemical compounds (like medicines), precision mechanics, high-performance agricultural equipment, aircraft, spacecraft, etc. Of course the U.S. does produce higher-volume things, too, from cars to foods to fuels, but these are more for domestic consumption, and often face competition from imported goods even domestically.
  - swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
    Not to mention land prices mean salaries need to be higher for the workers to afford rent/mortgages, facilities more expensive, higher property taxes, even ancillary purchases are more expensive.
    - echelon 5y ago
      What if we opened up immigration and built factories in middle America? Provide path to citizenship and education opportunities for children of immigrants, but host all manufacturing domestically at rates comparable to overseas facilities. Beat them on opportunity and subsidize workplace safety and vacation. Provide tax incentives or transferable/sellable credits. We could even federally purchase the land and provide no-cost ground lease. Dollars to dollars, this would make way more sense than extending Amtrak. It'd also stop population decline and create a next generation of American consumer.
derriz 5y ago
The perception that US manufacturing is dead is mostly just perception, if you look at the actual numbers. Before the big dip caused by covid, the value of US manufacturing output had never been higher. [1] Even in inflation adjusted/real value terms, US manufacturing output is 50% higher today than it was 30 years ago. My guess is that the perception is cause by a few factors: - fewer people are employed in manufacturing than were in the past because of improved manufacturing technology/productivity - other sectors of the US economy have grown at a faster rate than manufacturing (tech for example) which means manufacturing represents a smaller share of a bigger pie - the US is no longer number 1 in the world as China surpassed the US about 10 years ago. But the US still manufactures more than Germany, Japan and South Korea combined, for example. [1] https://www.nam.org/state-manufacturing-data/2020-united-states-manufacturing-facts/ https://www.nam.org/state-manufacturing-data/2020-united-sta...

by fny 5y ago

echelon 5y ago

> US manufacturing industry is relatively dead Here's where we need to be spending our tax money. We should be buying overseas firms and onshoring manufacture.

nine_k 5y ago
The legal landscape in the U.S. may be harder to navigate, labor laws more strict, and salaries necessarily higher. This all makes it hard for U.S. manufacturing to compete on production of commodities. Like many of the EU industries, viable U.S. industries tends to produce and export unique things with relatively small physical volume: complex chips, complex chemical compounds (like medicines), precision mechanics, high-performance agricultural equipment, aircraft, spacecraft, etc. Of course the U.S. does produce higher-volume things, too, from cars to foods to fuels, but these are more for domestic consumption, and often face competition from imported goods even domestically.
- swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
  Not to mention land prices mean salaries need to be higher for the workers to afford rent/mortgages, facilities more expensive, higher property taxes, even ancillary purchases are more expensive.
  - echelon 5y ago
    What if we opened up immigration and built factories in middle America? Provide path to citizenship and education opportunities for children of immigrants, but host all manufacturing domestically at rates comparable to overseas facilities. Beat them on opportunity and subsidize workplace safety and vacation. Provide tax incentives or transferable/sellable credits. We could even federally purchase the land and provide no-cost ground lease. Dollars to dollars, this would make way more sense than extending Amtrak. It'd also stop population decline and create a next generation of American consumer.

derriz 5y ago

The perception that US manufacturing is dead is mostly just perception, if you look at the actual numbers. Before the big dip caused by covid, the value of US manufacturing output had never been higher. [1] Even in inflation adjusted/real value terms, US manufacturing output is 50% higher today than it was 30 years ago. My guess is that the perception is cause by a few factors: - fewer people are employed in manufacturing than were in the past because of improved manufacturing technology/productivity - other sectors of the US economy have grown at a faster rate than manufacturing (tech for example) which means manufacturing represents a smaller share of a bigger pie - the US is no longer number 1 in the world as China surpassed the US about 10 years ago. But the US still manufactures more than Germany, Japan and South Korea combined, for example. [1] https://www.nam.org/state-manufacturing-data/2020-united-states-manufacturing-facts/ https://www.nam.org/state-manufacturing-data/2020-united-sta...