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"service economy" was always a meme being sold to the gullible masses, manufacturing capacity is the only thing that matters for an economy. Manufacturing has a

"service economy" was always a meme being sold to the gullible masses, manufacturing capacity is the only thing that matters for an economy. Manufacturing has always printed the money It amazes me how the US allowed itself to be nearly deindustrialized after manufacturing effectively won them WWII and global dominance. Now the US can't even make ventilators or face masks

minikites 5y ago
Capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction. The relentless drive to shave fractions of a cent off costs in the short term creates the conditions you describe in the long term. In other words, it's like being penny wise and pound foolish on a global scale.
- syshum 5y ago
  Fake News... that is not capitalism, that is a by product of decades and decades of tex based incentives that push people in to market index funds, mutual funds and other institutional investment where it is all managed funds These managed funds are driven by quarterly earnings people expect to see... This intern drives public companies to focus on quarterly earnings Privately held companies almost never look at quarterly earnings, they look at a 5 year picture... It is mainly public companies majority owned institutional investors (401k's, pensions, etc) that focus on quarterly earnings So once again what people blame capitalism for, is in reality government putting their hands on the scales and tipping the market in ways that have unintended consequences
Alex3917 5y ago
> "service economy" was always a meme being sold to the gullible masses, manufacturing capacity is the only thing that matters for an economy. Service economies work great in places where food and housing are free, so money is only needed to buy luxury goods. They only work poorly in the US because capitalists have leverage over service workers.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  Service economy is kinda fun when you really think about it. Rather few sectors really make sense. Food, you can't make living just by selling food to each other, the ingredients and hardware has to come from somewhere. Hospitality quite similar. Banking? Banking and finance is just extracting money from others, and actual goods produced is quite minimal... Same can be said from quite many other field like law. Some of the work does increase productivity, but you have to have some base line of it to increase...
markus_zhang 5y ago
US is smart enough to retain the cream of the manufacturers. I think some smaller western countries are really in the danger of a complete de-industrialization.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  It's not for lack of trying. It's hard to compete on the global stage and it takes more than wishful thinking to maintain a competitive edge in a world full of people trying to top you.
monocularvision 5y ago
US Manufacturing is still going. In fact, we manufacture more than ever. Folks conflate manufacturing with manufacturing _jobs_. Our manufacturing is more efficient then ever which is why you constantly hear this false refrain that US manufacturing is down or gone.
- ren_engineer 5y ago
  people always point to this dumb metric, "we're producing more than ever" compared to ourselves, while ignoring that the number in comparison to the rest of the world has dropped massively. Our share of global manufacturing is tiny compared to what it used to be
  - HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
    I've worked for manufacturing companies my entire 30+ year career. It's not a dumb metric. It's usually pulled out in response to the silly complaint that "the US doesn't manufacture anything anymore." Sure, our share of global manufacturing is smaller, but that's hardly surprising when many more countries up their manufacturing game. A more interesting metric would be US percentage of total worldwide manufacturing as a function of sophistication: I'd rather be building complex medical instruments than toasters.
    - minikites 5y ago
      >I'd rather be building complex medical instruments than toasters. Why? In what way is it better to have a handful of elite workers creating a handful of units sold to a handful of consumers instead of having many ordinary workers producing many units for many consumers?
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        Because ordinary workers, producing many units, is a business with low margins. And in modern developed economies, those margins are insufficient to support a decent salary.
kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
Moldex masks are made in the US. Their unique construction also protects them somewhat from counterfeits since the 3M masks are the low hanging fruit everyone is copying.
rat87 5y ago
"Manufacturing economy" was a meme sold to gullible nostalgic masses Work is work, money is money. There's nothing fundamentally more important about manufacturing then other types of jobs. The US still has tons of manufacturing but unsurprisingly its on the backs of much fewer jobs, many of which require more education and specialization then manufacturing economy of old used to supply
- paulmd 5y ago
  > There's nothing fundamentally more important about manufacturing then other types of jobs. the idea that manufacturing is the only work that matters is especially bizarre on a social media website for tech workers. microsoft or oracle or any number of other software products absolutely deliver value to customers just as much as a machine stamping out parts, those companies couldn't work without that software just like they can't work without an assembly line or a delivery truck or whatever.
  - tehjoker 5y ago
    Custom machine logic is a kind of manufacturing and the people doing the production are for the most part the engineers.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Manufacturing is lower on the hierarchy of needs, however when you are blocked from getting these basic needs your economy immediately crumbles. You can get by without services, you can’t get by without manufacturing. There are no tech workers without computers.
  - rat87 5y ago
    Luckily you can buy computers from other countries Same with food. It's not anything special. A way to earn a living/have an economy as a country is as good as any other.
jollybean 5y ago
"Manufacturing has always printed the money" Not really, it's usually the least profitable part of the supply chain. That American businesses would gladly hand over their profits to poorer countries is irrational at face value. TSMC is more than a manufacturer, they are a provider of very sophisticated in-demand tech for which the manufacturing process itself - is high tech, high stakes, high barriers to entry. They are a little bit like Boeing in that the 'making' part is really hard. Less so like Flextronics. Depending on how countries react to this, we could very well be in the opposite situation in 3 years, where we have a vast glut of chips and parts of every kind. TSMC is not going to charge their customers 'prevailing market value' i.e. they could spot price at 5x their current prices, because it'd be gauging and the supply change would react long term to that 'bad behaviour' by TSMC. Big supply chain relationships are longer term so those things matter. Because of the huge players involved with enough cash do influence (i.e. Auto, Apple, Samgsung) maybe we're in for a strategic alignment beyond just a fab shop in Texas. One big caveat to all of this is that though manufacturing itself is low profit, a lot of things around that can become profitable. Making moulds, adjusting designs, managing supply chains, optimizing designs etc. - all of this becomes 'know how' that moves over to the manufacturing side and if they are smart about it, they'll leverage it. Also, manufacturers can possibly develop some market power which they can try to flex as well. Hopefully we see a shift to more high quality intelligent manufacturing in the Western world by leveraging tech, robots etc. and convincing consumers to pay higher prices for some things.
didntknowya 5y ago
99% of manufacturing is low paid, manual jobs which most countries can't be bothered to do and outsourced them because of the margins. these lucrative manufacturers invested heavily into specialist machinery and are reaping the benefits.
CryptoPunk 5y ago
Service economy doesn't imply deindustrialization. The provision of a service can be highly capital-intensive. >>Now the US can't even make ventilators or face masks The US led the world in the speed of its vaccination rollout. As for manufacturing, its world-leading biopharmaceutical infrastructure allowed it to produce the most shots of the most effective covid19 vaccines, of any country in the world.
Rapzid 5y ago
We still manufacture our most important product; the American Dream. Seriously though, 3M would like a word.
xadhominemx 5y ago
Not really man. NVIDIA buys chips from foundries and marks them up 5x or more.

minikites 5y ago

Capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction. The relentless drive to shave fractions of a cent off costs in the short term creates the conditions you describe in the long term. In other words, it's like being penny wise and pound foolish on a global scale.

syshum 5y ago
Fake News... that is not capitalism, that is a by product of decades and decades of tex based incentives that push people in to market index funds, mutual funds and other institutional investment where it is all managed funds These managed funds are driven by quarterly earnings people expect to see... This intern drives public companies to focus on quarterly earnings Privately held companies almost never look at quarterly earnings, they look at a 5 year picture... It is mainly public companies majority owned institutional investors (401k's, pensions, etc) that focus on quarterly earnings So once again what people blame capitalism for, is in reality government putting their hands on the scales and tipping the market in ways that have unintended consequences

Alex3917 5y ago

> "service economy" was always a meme being sold to the gullible masses, manufacturing capacity is the only thing that matters for an economy. Service economies work great in places where food and housing are free, so money is only needed to buy luxury goods. They only work poorly in the US because capitalists have leverage over service workers.

Ekaros 5y ago
Service economy is kinda fun when you really think about it. Rather few sectors really make sense. Food, you can't make living just by selling food to each other, the ingredients and hardware has to come from somewhere. Hospitality quite similar. Banking? Banking and finance is just extracting money from others, and actual goods produced is quite minimal... Same can be said from quite many other field like law. Some of the work does increase productivity, but you have to have some base line of it to increase...

markus_zhang 5y ago

US is smart enough to retain the cream of the manufacturers. I think some smaller western countries are really in the danger of a complete de-industrialization.

mywittyname 5y ago
It's not for lack of trying. It's hard to compete on the global stage and it takes more than wishful thinking to maintain a competitive edge in a world full of people trying to top you.

monocularvision 5y ago

US Manufacturing is still going. In fact, we manufacture more than ever. Folks conflate manufacturing with manufacturing _jobs_. Our manufacturing is more efficient then ever which is why you constantly hear this false refrain that US manufacturing is down or gone.

ren_engineer 5y ago
people always point to this dumb metric, "we're producing more than ever" compared to ourselves, while ignoring that the number in comparison to the rest of the world has dropped massively. Our share of global manufacturing is tiny compared to what it used to be
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
  I've worked for manufacturing companies my entire 30+ year career. It's not a dumb metric. It's usually pulled out in response to the silly complaint that "the US doesn't manufacture anything anymore." Sure, our share of global manufacturing is smaller, but that's hardly surprising when many more countries up their manufacturing game. A more interesting metric would be US percentage of total worldwide manufacturing as a function of sophistication: I'd rather be building complex medical instruments than toasters.
  - minikites 5y ago
    >I'd rather be building complex medical instruments than toasters. Why? In what way is it better to have a handful of elite workers creating a handful of units sold to a handful of consumers instead of having many ordinary workers producing many units for many consumers?
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      Because ordinary workers, producing many units, is a business with low margins. And in modern developed economies, those margins are insufficient to support a decent salary.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

Moldex masks are made in the US. Their unique construction also protects them somewhat from counterfeits since the 3M masks are the low hanging fruit everyone is copying.

rat87 5y ago

"Manufacturing economy" was a meme sold to gullible nostalgic masses Work is work, money is money. There's nothing fundamentally more important about manufacturing then other types of jobs. The US still has tons of manufacturing but unsurprisingly its on the backs of much fewer jobs, many of which require more education and specialization then manufacturing economy of old used to supply

paulmd 5y ago
> There's nothing fundamentally more important about manufacturing then other types of jobs. the idea that manufacturing is the only work that matters is especially bizarre on a social media website for tech workers. microsoft or oracle or any number of other software products absolutely deliver value to customers just as much as a machine stamping out parts, those companies couldn't work without that software just like they can't work without an assembly line or a delivery truck or whatever.
- tehjoker 5y ago
  Custom machine logic is a kind of manufacturing and the people doing the production are for the most part the engineers.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
Manufacturing is lower on the hierarchy of needs, however when you are blocked from getting these basic needs your economy immediately crumbles. You can get by without services, you can’t get by without manufacturing. There are no tech workers without computers.
- rat87 5y ago
  Luckily you can buy computers from other countries Same with food. It's not anything special. A way to earn a living/have an economy as a country is as good as any other.

jollybean 5y ago

"Manufacturing has always printed the money" Not really, it's usually the least profitable part of the supply chain. That American businesses would gladly hand over their profits to poorer countries is irrational at face value. TSMC is more than a manufacturer, they are a provider of very sophisticated in-demand tech for which the manufacturing process itself - is high tech, high stakes, high barriers to entry. They are a little bit like Boeing in that the 'making' part is really hard. Less so like Flextronics. Depending on how countries react to this, we could very well be in the opposite situation in 3 years, where we have a vast glut of chips and parts of every kind. TSMC is not going to charge their customers 'prevailing market value' i.e. they could spot price at 5x their current prices, because it'd be gauging and the supply change would react long term to that 'bad behaviour' by TSMC. Big supply chain relationships are longer term so those things matter. Because of the huge players involved with enough cash do influence (i.e. Auto, Apple, Samgsung) maybe we're in for a strategic alignment beyond just a fab shop in Texas. One big caveat to all of this is that though manufacturing itself is low profit, a lot of things around that can become profitable. Making moulds, adjusting designs, managing supply chains, optimizing designs etc. - all of this becomes 'know how' that moves over to the manufacturing side and if they are smart about it, they'll leverage it. Also, manufacturers can possibly develop some market power which they can try to flex as well. Hopefully we see a shift to more high quality intelligent manufacturing in the Western world by leveraging tech, robots etc. and convincing consumers to pay higher prices for some things.

didntknowya 5y ago

99% of manufacturing is low paid, manual jobs which most countries can't be bothered to do and outsourced them because of the margins. these lucrative manufacturers invested heavily into specialist machinery and are reaping the benefits.

CryptoPunk 5y ago

Service economy doesn't imply deindustrialization. The provision of a service can be highly capital-intensive. >>Now the US can't even make ventilators or face masks The US led the world in the speed of its vaccination rollout. As for manufacturing, its world-leading biopharmaceutical infrastructure allowed it to produce the most shots of the most effective covid19 vaccines, of any country in the world.

Rapzid 5y ago

We still manufacture our most important product; the American Dream. Seriously though, 3M would like a word.

xadhominemx 5y ago

Not really man. NVIDIA buys chips from foundries and marks them up 5x or more.