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America is becoming more isolationistic, in everything, but economy. The manufacturing is unfortunately not only not returning to the US, despite efforts of 3
by baybal2 5y ago
America is becoming more isolationistic, in everything, but economy.
The manufacturing is unfortunately not only not returning to the US, despite efforts of 3 previous administration, but is leaving at the accelerated pace, faster than even at the "peak outsourcing."
Having no real economy, but banks, and McKinsey, while being in a such dependency on imports is a recipe for nothing good. US trade deficit has passed $70B, and we are on the route to see it pass 100 this decade because of enormous government borrowing to fight covid, and stimulate the economy.
Why it is so bad? Because, it tends to spiral out of control, when your only means to pay for basic living necessities is to spin the printing press, and kill the economy even more, precluding any chance at repayment.
People wee saying that US is facing the worst balance of payment crisis in eighties, when it just passed $10B, and the White House was in total panic. Now, fancy economists are now coming, and saying "nah, $70B is normal, we can always print more"
- mjevans 5y agoOn-shore manufacturing, automation, and making more than just ideas to sell the rest of the world does seem like a good thing. I wonder why we can't seem to invest in the future (in the USA).
- baybal2 5y agoAs a man who worked in OEM electronics for 10 years, I can say, automation will not help USA a dime. There are far richer Asian countries than China, business people with far more capital to buy fancy tooling. You think they never tried that? They did, and it didn't work largely, or the impact was minimal. Look at Malaysia, or Taiwan. Hopes on robots, and automation as an economic "Wunderwaffe" is plainly silly, and are largely coming from people who haven't put in a single nail in their life. Don't listen to these men who say that.
- systemvoltage 5y ago100% agreed, as someone who’s automated manufacturing lines, the problem of automation is beyond just robotics. It’s automation with high reliability, yield, less downtime, high throughput, low costs and have to beat humans in the long tail of weird situations. The reason why your home printer can separate sheets of paper and only pick one sheet at a time is nothing short of a miracle backed by thousands of hours of engineering and years of failures. That said, some applications are very easy and we could automate effortlessly (Pick-and-place tools for example in PCB manufacturing).
- herbst 5y agoI don't know about robotics and manufacturing. What i know is that I saved thousands of work hours for different companies by just a few lines of code in the few years I worked in this field. I don't see how automation will save anyone's economy, but it surely will put a always growing dent in the economy
- rory 5y agoElectronics are a particularly complicated thing to manufacture, though. I know an engineer who started a small business (in the USA) that makes specialized types of plastic-coated copper wiring. The process is 90% automated and runs around the clock. He keeps two employees on at all times, but they basically just change spools and then hang out and watch the machines.
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- gethoht 5y ago"enormous government borrowing to fight covid and stimulate the economy" is by no means the reason the trade deficit is what it is or what it will be. The trade deficit is the product of 40 years of policy that promotes outsourcing and does little to nothing to protect domestic manufacturing. The only thing that is protected is shareholder profit and tax schemes that protect it at the expense of the rest of society.
- iammisc 5y agoWell we saw last election how even mentioning the idea of preferring american business makes you apparently a Nazi. For the past forty years, almost every single american president, regardless of party, has been more than happy to sell out the country's manufacturing base and the media applaud and reward them for it.
- long_time_gone 5y agoNot sure to what you are referring, but Biden’s “Buy American” executive order gives preference to American companies. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-sign-buy-american-executive-order-monday-n1255487 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-sign-buy-...
- iammisc 5y agoI'm talking about how for the past four years, import tariffs, which are the same.as bidens executive order were castigated simply for the crime of having been initiated by a republican
- dc-programmer 5y agoSlapping tariffs on steel and lumber was incredibly ill conceived. We should protect industries that are economically or militarily important. But needlessly raising the cost of unrefined materials made zero sense