4 ms·

I don't know about the US but Canada spent an absurd amount of public money to subsidize manufacturers and convince them to come. That is why they're here, and

I don't know about the US but Canada spent an absurd amount of public money to subsidize manufacturers and convince them to come. That is why they're here, and they'll leave the second we stop paying them.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
Companies don't just abandon billion-dollar-plus factories.
- tracker1 3y ago
  Tell that to Detroit.
  - dr-detroit 3y ago
    [dead]
  - bryanlarsen 3y ago
    AFAICT that's mostly about not building new factories in the same place as old/obsolete factories.
    - CydeWeys 3y ago
      That's my take on it too. Companies aren't abandoning relatively new factories that are still close to cutting edge. What they are abandoning are obsolete ones that they already got a lot of use out of that would require massive capital investment to modernize.
    - tracker1 3y ago
      These are automotive factories... I'm not sure that the uplift would take that much compared to silicon wafer fabs. I mean newer machinery/robots, but the infrastructure shouldn't need to change all that much, should it?
      - bryanlarsen 3y ago
        A large part of the reason for the Tesla shoddy quality reputation is that their main factory is 40 years old. Nobody else is building cars in a factory with a 40 year old paint shop. Teslas coming out of the new factories in China, Texas & Germany appear to have substantially higher quality.
  - CydeWeys 3y ago
    Interestingly, the largest abandoned factory in the world, the Packard Auto Plant in Detroit, was opened in 1903 and shut down in 1958, long before Detroit's fortunes actually turned. And the factory was in use for five and a half decades, hardly a failure.
  - organsnyder 3y ago
    There are many reasons automakers abandoned factories in Michigan—union-busting, changing demand, etc. AFAIK no factory that was abandoned had just lost subsidies, and they were all quite old.
tracker1 3y ago
While I mostly agree, I think that many corporate leaders are starting to realize there's other reasons to choose to build in a country beyond the bottom line numbers. There's ongoing relations, restrictions and even supported/sanctioned IP/Design theft to consider. For better or worse, making anything is largely going to be global, and a big part is going to come down to not just payments, but other incentives to produce in a given region. I think that the US and Canada are more incentivized to be competitive. My biggest concern is dealing with runoff/waste from production facilities. I'm also concerned that rapidly expanding EV is too far ahead of grid support, not to mention even recent legislation restricting new car sales to only 3rd party dealers (middlemen taking big cuts), and they don't want to sell EVs that require less maintenance.
thrashh 3y ago
Governments have spent trillions subsidizing everything from the Internet to electricity and somehow we still use both the Internet and electricity.
rhaway84773 3y ago
It’s the same for the US. At least we’re getting rid of the fiction that the global manufacturing sector is some sort of libertarian free market paradise where capital will always find its way to the ideal geographic location. This clearly shows that manufacturing basically ends up wherever govts pay them enough to end up. Either through overt subsidies, or implicit subsidies through cheap labor, lack of regulations, etc.
Sammi 3y ago
Same for China. All of the amazing productivity of China is basically subsidized by the Chinese state, which really means it is subsidized by the Chinese population. Westerners get cheap products and the Chinese population pays for it and stays poor themselves. Only a fraction of the Chinese population lives at western living standards - the rest are still dirt poor.

bryanlarsen 3y ago

Companies don't just abandon billion-dollar-plus factories.

tracker1 3y ago
Tell that to Detroit.
- dr-detroit 3y ago
  [dead]
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  AFAICT that's mostly about not building new factories in the same place as old/obsolete factories.
  - CydeWeys 3y ago
    That's my take on it too. Companies aren't abandoning relatively new factories that are still close to cutting edge. What they are abandoning are obsolete ones that they already got a lot of use out of that would require massive capital investment to modernize.
  - tracker1 3y ago
    These are automotive factories... I'm not sure that the uplift would take that much compared to silicon wafer fabs. I mean newer machinery/robots, but the infrastructure shouldn't need to change all that much, should it?
    - bryanlarsen 3y ago
      A large part of the reason for the Tesla shoddy quality reputation is that their main factory is 40 years old. Nobody else is building cars in a factory with a 40 year old paint shop. Teslas coming out of the new factories in China, Texas & Germany appear to have substantially higher quality.
- CydeWeys 3y ago
  Interestingly, the largest abandoned factory in the world, the Packard Auto Plant in Detroit, was opened in 1903 and shut down in 1958, long before Detroit's fortunes actually turned. And the factory was in use for five and a half decades, hardly a failure.
- organsnyder 3y ago
  There are many reasons automakers abandoned factories in Michigan—union-busting, changing demand, etc. AFAIK no factory that was abandoned had just lost subsidies, and they were all quite old.

tracker1 3y ago

While I mostly agree, I think that many corporate leaders are starting to realize there's other reasons to choose to build in a country beyond the bottom line numbers. There's ongoing relations, restrictions and even supported/sanctioned IP/Design theft to consider. For better or worse, making anything is largely going to be global, and a big part is going to come down to not just payments, but other incentives to produce in a given region. I think that the US and Canada are more incentivized to be competitive. My biggest concern is dealing with runoff/waste from production facilities. I'm also concerned that rapidly expanding EV is too far ahead of grid support, not to mention even recent legislation restricting new car sales to only 3rd party dealers (middlemen taking big cuts), and they don't want to sell EVs that require less maintenance.

thrashh 3y ago

Governments have spent trillions subsidizing everything from the Internet to electricity and somehow we still use both the Internet and electricity.

rhaway84773 3y ago

It’s the same for the US. At least we’re getting rid of the fiction that the global manufacturing sector is some sort of libertarian free market paradise where capital will always find its way to the ideal geographic location. This clearly shows that manufacturing basically ends up wherever govts pay them enough to end up. Either through overt subsidies, or implicit subsidies through cheap labor, lack of regulations, etc.

Sammi 3y ago

Same for China. All of the amazing productivity of China is basically subsidized by the Chinese state, which really means it is subsidized by the Chinese population. Westerners get cheap products and the Chinese population pays for it and stays poor themselves. Only a fraction of the Chinese population lives at western living standards - the rest are still dirt poor.