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High end manufacturing never left America. And low end is hardly coming back. This has be said many times in the past during brief alignments, then by the time
by tsunamifury 4y ago
High end manufacturing never left America.
And low end is hardly coming back. This has be said many times in the past during brief alignments, then by the time we’ve tooled up the rug is pulled out from under us and a new 3rd world nation is doing it for 1/10th the cost.
This is not easy for me to believe even with the desire for a rosy outlook. Those who know know this was bs before.
- Turing_Machine 4y ago> a new 3rd world nation is doing it for 1/10th the cost There are fewer and fewer of those all the time, though. Manufacturing is now starting to move to Africa because Asia has become more expensive. I don't think there's anywhere left to go after Africa.
- jhoechtl 4y agoWell observed. They are the last to exploit or to be built up, however you would like to see it.
- brvsft 4y agoWe will have to create a new underclass.
- uejfiweun 4y agoYou're forgetting Antarctica. But nobody lives there, you say? Easy, that's where we will send the robots to.
- whiskeytuesday 4y agoJust think of the coolant temperature advantages
- pg938hkd 4y agoData centers. And it’s centrally located
- tomatotomato37 4y agoMore get created though every time one of those former countries undergoes a regime change of some sort. The types of countries where you can get slave wage labor aren't exactly known for their political stability.
- elcritch 4y agoLarge factories require some level of political stability to protect the capital. Also, a functioning power grid is critical. That has been a blocker in many areas of Africa as I understand it.
- loeg 4y ago1/3-1/2 cost is more accurate.
- tsunamifury 4y agoHourly wage in Vietnam is certainly 1/10th or less than us manufacturing.
- NERD_ALERT 4y agoWages definitely are pennies on the dollar. However factors like international shipping, taxes/tariffs, quality control and lead times cost more time and money compared to domestic. So in the end it’s probably closer to 1/2 the monetary cost.
- derefr 4y ago> international shipping, taxes/tariffs If I can get an ePacket from AliExpress for a $0.50 item without paying shipping (and presumably where the shipper didn’t eat the shipping+tariff costs either, those costs not being worth it to make at most $0.50), presumably there’s a way around both of these things. Also, insofar as your argument would seem to generalize to any country’s domestic imports, this makes it “too strong”, and therefore suspicious as economic theory. There are plenty of markets outside of North America that can be served overland or with not-so-powerful ships from developing-country suppliers. (Africa can sell to itself, and to Europe, and the Middle East. Many South American nations can sell into Brazil. Obviously, you can drive a truck of t-shirts from Thailand or Vietnam straight to China. The Philippines can ship pretty cheaply to Japan and Taiwan. Etc.) So why do these countries still have domestic factories? Why does Germany still make cars? Why isn’t China outsourcing electronics production to Vietnam? The same arguments should apply to them, even more strongly than it does to America. But we don’t see the same effect.
- Brybry 4y agoI'm pretty sure ePacket is subsidized by China Post and/or USPS and that's why it's so cheap. I remember there was drama[1][2] around it during Trump's administration. It might not be so ridiculously cheap once 2025 comes around and they've finished phasing in price increases. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/trump-changes-terminal-dues-and-epacket-rates/573337/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/trump... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union#2019_Extraordinary_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union#2019_Ex...
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoI have a friend that runs a successful clothing manufacturing company. He said that the Garment District is "never coming back." I suspect that this could be extrapolated to many other industries, for the same reason. The issue is that the infrastructure is gone. Not just the physical and logical infrastructure, but the social infrastructure[0], as well. Social infrastructure is ignored by everyone, but I think that it's the most important type of infrastructure, and the most difficult to [re]build. [0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/infrastructure/ https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/infrastructure/
- AYBABTME 4y agoCan you explain what is this secret sauce social infrastructure?
- irrational 4y agoNot OP, but I assume in regards to the garment district it means people with the requisite skills aren’t around anymore. Back in the day, nearly every woman knew how to sew and make clothes. Nowadays, do you know a single woman (or man!) who knows how to sew and make clothes? I don’t. People could learn, buts it’s a lot easier when you already have a large population with the required skills to draw from.
- Natsu 4y agoOddly enough, I do know how, both via school (home ec) and more importantly, due to older relatives who were into quilting. I have zero interest in ever doing it, but I absolutely do know far more than I ever wanted to about sewing. I think you can find a few who still do such things in maker spaces, as well, but it only seems to be taken up by people who are already gainfully employed in things that make a lot more than low end manufacturing work.
- __pache__ 4y ago[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> low end is hardly coming back At a certain point of automation, America’s energy-cost and proximity advantages outweigh its cost of labor and regulation. This tradeoff as a whole occurs against margin, which is why we’re seeing middle manufacturing reshoring.
- ikiris 4y agoYou're way overestimating the proximity advantage. Shipping things via train or boat is stupidly stupidly cheap, even across the planet both ways.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> Shipping things via train or boat is stupidly stupidly cheap, even across the planet both ways Totally agree on shipping. There are other benefits to proximity, from lower geopolitical and supply-chain risk to tighter integration with design and the customer (due to enhanced information flow and lower latency).
- tsunamifury 4y agoNot just that but you are deeply underestimating the cost of automation compared to manufacturing margins, which in the middle market I really doubt is changing. Unfortunately, human hands are still much cheaper than machines. I see a fair bit of manufacturing in Chicago, and I don’t see any of these equations changing in the way that this article purports them to
- pg938hkd 4y agoYeah but it adds a month of flow when you need to make clothes to the latest trends that’s way too long. Also you want to try samples and inspect the process so you need people on site all that adds friction.
- potatolicious 4y agoYou're not accounting for the cost of automation itself. The "problem" with automation is that it's actually terrifically expensive - industrial robots run into the high-six-figures and upwards. There's a reason why low-end manufacturing is not heavily automated no matter where it occurs - automation would likely be more expensive than using humans. Also importantly automation tends to be expensive to reconfigure - for stable product lines where the same general processes are in use for years at a time, and product variability is low (see: cars) automation is highly successful. But for product lines that are more fly-by-night (see: most fast fashion) the reconfiguration cost of automation makes it even less practical. Retraining a group of humans is vastly cheaper and easier than reconfiguring a fully integrated automated assembly line.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nimbius 4y agoI work as a master diesel mechanic on heavy machinery, and it should be said that every customer assumes the parts and service are low end. Drive and cam shafts, bearing sleeves, rebuilds and reworks are all still unmatched in quality and remain largely american. Waiting 4 months for pajeet or Mr wong to float the parts over from a scrapyard masquerading as a machine shop versus sending a skilled onsite mechanical maintenance tech to rebuild an excavator blade or bucket sleeve is a no brainer. Petroleum and mining industries have zero tolerance for a service or product without a stateside relationship
- alephnerd 4y agoI agree with the content of your comment but you didn't need to add the racist comment about Asians (bruh, us Pajeets and Wongs are Americans as well. Write that same sentence with the N word and see how racist it is).
- robocat 4y agoA program about fixing or maintenance on some heavy machinery in Australia: https://youtube.com/watch?v=J0BRlFMK0lY https://youtube.com/watch?v=J0BRlFMK0lY Terrible scripting and faked moments, but still interesting for the good and the bad.
- bboygravity 4y agoThere's another angle to this as well. IMO the main reason that manufacturing stopped in the US that nobody seems to address: the USD. The USD couldnt function as a reserve currency (from the perspective of the US) if the US didnt run a massive trade deficit on purpose (import way more than you export). That's very hard to do if your manufacturing isn't happening outside of the US in countries that you want to be dependent on the USD. The day manufacturing actually makes a significant comeback to the US is the day that the US lost it's status as the nr 1 world power: the day the USD will stop being a world reserve currency. It would be extremely bad news for the US geo-politically and economically.
- JorikTheBird 4y agoThe US can't be a №1 world power without the USD being a global reserve currency? And isn't the US still the second manufacturer in the world?