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What do you think globalizing means? Ships are too expensive to be built to a given level of quality in the US. This means we outsource the expertise, and in th
by observationist 2y ago
What do you think globalizing means?
Ships are too expensive to be built to a given level of quality in the US. This means we outsource the expertise, and in this case, even the expertise necessary to tell what a good deal is.
They've created a market in which a US based company cannot compete economically, because the cost of production elsewhere will be less. There is no margin by which any competition can take place, whether or not the government throws a ton of money and stopgap incentives into the mix.
You can't manufacture chips, small household goods, general purpose clothing, electronics, or a whole slew of other things in the US because our legal regime fundamentally disallows any American participation in those markets through economic disincentivization. If you can't make any profit because you have to pay higher wages or taxes if you manufacture in the US, then you're not going to manufacture in the US, even if you're a patriot.
The US doesn't have a rational system designed to maximize value to citizens, it's a hodgepodge of conflicting regulatory grifts designed to maximally benefit the corporations who paid for the lobby.
> they're crap compared to ships from other countries.
That's exactly what "globalizing" is. You literally cannot, under the current regulatory regime, create a ship building company that can compete with other established interests and competition from other countries. You'd have to relax the arbitrary labor and wage constraints, fix taxes and tariffs for sufficiently long term outlooks that anyone would bother investing. To achieve that, you'd need good faith operators throughout the government willing to rock the boat, and if you think that will ever happen, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn for ya - I'll sell it cheap.
- foota 2y agoOther industries seem to be fine competing with other countries. Would there be some greater investment in manufacturing in the US if there were no labor (or environmental) constraints? Sure, but the fact that other industries compete just fine makes me believe it's simply not an economically efficient allocation of resources for labor heavy manufacturing to be done in the US.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoWhat industries? Steel? Protectionism. Batteries? Protectionism. Solar? Protectionism. Autos? Protectionism. Aircraft? Protectionism. Agriculture? Protectionism. Why? Because efficiency is a tradeoff where you give up security and resiliency.
- foota 2y agoService industries.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoWhich are non critical and can be shed without much harm. Critical industries are, by definition, critical and require sacrificing efficiency to preserve. If you want to be able to build and retain the capability, you have to protect the machine that does the building: people, institutional knowledge and domain expertise, equipment, etc. Otherwise, you forget how to build, the machine evaporates. And here we are.
- kortilla 2y agoThat’s because a huge portion of the service industry requires local people.
- vkou 2y agoIts kind of difficult for a hairdresser in Turkey to compete with the barber down the street from my house.
- Mistletoe 2y agoIf we measured our service industries the same way we measure boats, we would rapidly see they can’t float either.
- cyberax 2y ago> What industries? Steel? Protectionism. The US imports steel, and the protectionist regime almost killed the US steel: https://reason.com/2024/01/02/protectionism-ruined-u-s-steel/ https://reason.com/2024/01/02/protectionism-ruined-u-s-steel... > Batteries? Protectionism. Solar? Protectionism. That's relatively new, and it _will_ lead to disaster. The US is already falling behind in battery tech compared to China and South Korea. > Autos? Protectionism. Aircraft? Protectionism. Need I remind you of Detroit and its handling of cheap Japanese imports in 70-s and 80-s? Aircraft are only slightly protectionist, the US companies can (and do) buy foreign aircraft (Airbuses and Embraers are commonplace).