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You might be surprised to learn that manufacturing is larger industry in the US than our tech industry, or that our domestic oil industry is even larger. Americ

by ipnon 2y ago

You might be surprised to learn that manufacturing is larger industry in the US than our tech industry, or that our domestic oil industry is even larger. America produces more oil than any other country. America was the world's factory for over a century. This dominance only ended around 2010, when China took the lead. It was our advantage to lose, and it was the result of deliberate political action. We offshored manufacturing, and treated China as a good faith trading partner, waiting decades for a cooperative international trade diplomacy that has not materialized to this day. All the while Beijing did everything in its power to enrich the Chinese worker, no matter the cost to outsiders. The results speak for themselves.

danans 2y ago
> All the while Beijing did everything in its power to enrich the Chinese worker, no matter the cost to outsiders. The results speak for themselves. In fairness, during this period, the US did everything it could to suppress the wages and benefits of its own manufacturing workers. Recall that the first rounds of manufacturing outsourcing were to US states with non-existent labor protections, mostly in the South.
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  The only way to protect wages in the face of competition that works for 1/10 to 1/3 the rate is to institute protectionist policies. That has also been unpopular because there's money to be made in offshoring as well. Americans are getting the worst at both ends, and only experiencing short-term benefits of having cheaper goods.
  - rat87 2y ago
    Some people don't like protectionism because in the long term it's worse for both countries. You have a short term benefit of protecting a handful of jobs in exchange for vastly more expensive goods for everyone as well as more expensive inputs to your other products undercutting other local industries. Protectionism is popular because the benifits for the few are visible while the downsides are diffuse but add up. And in the end your business ends up going out of business anyway like the Soviet factories
    - maeil 2y ago
      > Some people don't like protectionism because in the long term it's worse for both countries. I keep seeing these statements on here and they're utterly misleading. Protectionism is a spectrum. It is practiced by every single country. It's a very bold assumption to make that if every country would completely eliminate everything resembling it, this would benefit everyone. The opposite is very likely. There are numerous cases of protectionist policies where the country instituting them very clearly benefited from them, even in the long run. I have spent more than a decade in two countries, each having been on a different part of the protectionist spectrum since many decades ago. It is clear as day that the more protectionist one has, throughout, continuing to this day, seen very large benefits from this policy, larger than the benefits from the less protectionist country. We really need to stop propagating this myth among the educated in the West, it's just as harmful as "trickle-down economics" used to be before it became common knowledge that it's a fairy tale.
      - kriops 2y ago
        A reduction in the space of possible allocations of resources isn’t good. It is good for any particular set of parties insofar as it hurts some other set of parties more than themselves. This is neither complicated nor controversial.
        wakawaka28 2y ago
        >A reduction in the space of possible allocations of resources isn’t good. I would personally like to eliminate allocations of resources that put me out of business and wreck the country. >It is good for any particular set of parties insofar as it hurts some other set of parties more than themselves. There's a huge misunderstanding in here somewhere. Most people don't think of their own welfare in terms of a negative outcome for anyone else. It's not necessarily a zero sum game. People can coexist and duplicate effort, and that sometimes makes sense. An individual or nation should strive for some reasonable level of self-sufficiency, because you can't always rely on other people to treat you well or take care of you.
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    What the heck? When did this sort of economically irresponsible thinking become so mainstream? The benefits of protectionism are what are short-term, but they leave both us and China materially poorer in the long term. Life today is better than it was in the 1950s — and a large part of that is knowing our comparative advantage and leaning into it, not trying to restore long-dead industries by political fiat and throwing trillions in good resources after bad initiatives. If we want to help workers who are struggling - then tax more and redistribute more. Don’t throw a wrench into mutually beneficial trade (and completely sabotage our critical climate goals while we are at it, it makes no sense that we treat BYD the way we do).
    - wakawaka28 2y ago
      >What the heck? When did this sort of economically irresponsible thinking become so mainstream? It's not "irresponsible" to deny the existence of some utopia where everyone's interests align. It's not worth competing with virtual slave labor. A perpetual race to the bottom is not what we should be striving for. With our current standard of living, or even half of it, we don't make anything that is going to be economical to export in the long run. >The benefits of protectionism are what are short-term, but they leave both us and China materially poorer in the long term. You're not entirely wrong. There is a cost to duplicating effort. What is the cost of not being independent? Your country's sovereignty and maybe your life. Let us take care of ourselves as best we can and import only a small amount of stuff. >Life today is better than it was in the 1950s — and a large part of that is knowing our comparative advantage and leaning into it, not trying to restore long-dead industries by political fiat and throwing trillions in good resources after bad initiatives. I think many would argue that life is worse today than it was in the 50s. Sure we have more consumer goods, but housing is unaffordable and many people are working well beneath their capacity at meaningless make-work jobs in the service industry. The "long-dead industries" you speak of are alive and well, just not HERE. Not because others are necessarily doing those things better either. It is all about labor costs and regulations in conjunction with international competition. >If we want to help workers who are struggling - then tax more and redistribute more. First of all, many aren't working at all because there are no good jobs for them. Second of all, what exactly are we going to tax if everything is offshored consistent with the current trend? What are we going to buy our imports with, the land under our feet (which is finite and also our home)? Increasingly worthless paper, promises to drop bombs or not drop bombs somewhere, etc.? >If we want to help workers who are struggling - then tax more and redistribute more. Don’t throw a wrench into mutually beneficial trade (and completely sabotage our critical climate goals while we are at it, it makes no sense that we treat BYD the way we do). Oh yes, nothing more critical to cutting pollution than shipping giant logs to China to be turned into toothpicks. Give me a break. It makes total sense that we treat BYD the way we do. It is unfair competition that would destroy one of the few industries we have left, and China isn't exactly eager to buy cars from us (nevermind that they cost too much for the Chinese anyway). We might all be better off if every country produced what it could. It may lead to new discoveries in design and production methods. And if international trade was not an issue, countries could freely copy each other's IP for domestic use. That last part might be too optimistic but monopolies create stagnation.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
acchow 2y ago
> You might be surprised to learn that manufacturing is larger industry in the US than our tech industry, or that our domestic oil industry is even larger US oil and gas industry has $240bn in annual revenues. This is about comparable to how much Americans spend at Apple (almost $200bn)
- ajax33 2y ago
  The number you quoted for oil and gas revenue is quite low. ExxonMobil alone made $300 billion in revenue in 2023. Even if you look at oil majors that only operate in the US - Marathon had $170 billion in revenue in 2023.
- greggyb 2y ago
  I don’t think that you’re correct about US O&G revenue. The US produces 13M barrels of crude and condensate per day: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61545 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61545 The lowest recent spot price is $69.5: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/PET_PRI_SPT_S1_D.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/PET_PRI_SPT_S1_D.htm This tells you that annual production of just crude oil is > $300B/yr. The US also has plenty of downstream processing after production (https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_unc_dcu_nus_m.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_unc_dcu_nus_m.htm), which means that total annual revenue must be significantly greater than this.
forgetfreeman 2y ago
Point of Order: there was very little in good faith with the offshoring of manufacturing either in the domestic propaganda produced to drum up support for the initiative or the intention to dominate Chinese society with western consumerism.
chii 2y ago
> All the while Beijing did everything in its power to enrich the Chinese worker i am not sure that the CCP is doing anything to enrich the average worker, and in fact, is probably doing the very opposite - making sure the chinese currency is constantly and artificially debased to make export more competitive. This results in lower wages for the workers. It is why there's low demand for goods/services in china. The money being earned by these exports is kept mostly by the gov't - to be spent on whatever they think has priority, which mostly have been on infrastructure, supporting industry the party deems important etc.
- DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
  The average income in China has doubled over the last decade. Much of China's exports comes from private companies, so no, the government does not keep the money. Even state-owned enterprises have their own balance sheets and don't just transfer everything to the government. And finally, China's currency has actually been overvalued at various points. The central bank has intervened in both directions, not just to suppress the value of the currency.
bflesch 2y ago
If you think that autocratic regimes enrich the common workers, I have a bridge to sell to you.
chengiz 2y ago
The oil industry is not larger. I believe oil and gas is not even a separately measured category so the numbers you're getting are probably including many sectors across the board and are quoted by some vested interest like the American Petroleum Institute.
marcosdumay 2y ago
> It was our advantage to lose That's bullshit. China is more than 5 time larger than the US, so you really expect them to build fewer things than you forever?

by ipnon 2y ago

danans 2y ago

> All the while Beijing did everything in its power to enrich the Chinese worker, no matter the cost to outsiders. The results speak for themselves. In fairness, during this period, the US did everything it could to suppress the wages and benefits of its own manufacturing workers. Recall that the first rounds of manufacturing outsourcing were to US states with non-existent labor protections, mostly in the South.

wakawaka28 2y ago
The only way to protect wages in the face of competition that works for 1/10 to 1/3 the rate is to institute protectionist policies. That has also been unpopular because there's money to be made in offshoring as well. Americans are getting the worst at both ends, and only experiencing short-term benefits of having cheaper goods.
- rat87 2y ago
  Some people don't like protectionism because in the long term it's worse for both countries. You have a short term benefit of protecting a handful of jobs in exchange for vastly more expensive goods for everyone as well as more expensive inputs to your other products undercutting other local industries. Protectionism is popular because the benifits for the few are visible while the downsides are diffuse but add up. And in the end your business ends up going out of business anyway like the Soviet factories
  - maeil 2y ago
    > Some people don't like protectionism because in the long term it's worse for both countries. I keep seeing these statements on here and they're utterly misleading. Protectionism is a spectrum. It is practiced by every single country. It's a very bold assumption to make that if every country would completely eliminate everything resembling it, this would benefit everyone. The opposite is very likely. There are numerous cases of protectionist policies where the country instituting them very clearly benefited from them, even in the long run. I have spent more than a decade in two countries, each having been on a different part of the protectionist spectrum since many decades ago. It is clear as day that the more protectionist one has, throughout, continuing to this day, seen very large benefits from this policy, larger than the benefits from the less protectionist country. We really need to stop propagating this myth among the educated in the West, it's just as harmful as "trickle-down economics" used to be before it became common knowledge that it's a fairy tale.
    - kriops 2y ago
      A reduction in the space of possible allocations of resources isn’t good. It is good for any particular set of parties insofar as it hurts some other set of parties more than themselves. This is neither complicated nor controversial.
      - wakawaka28 2y ago
        >A reduction in the space of possible allocations of resources isn’t good. I would personally like to eliminate allocations of resources that put me out of business and wreck the country. >It is good for any particular set of parties insofar as it hurts some other set of parties more than themselves. There's a huge misunderstanding in here somewhere. Most people don't think of their own welfare in terms of a negative outcome for anyone else. It's not necessarily a zero sum game. People can coexist and duplicate effort, and that sometimes makes sense. An individual or nation should strive for some reasonable level of self-sufficiency, because you can't always rely on other people to treat you well or take care of you.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  What the heck? When did this sort of economically irresponsible thinking become so mainstream? The benefits of protectionism are what are short-term, but they leave both us and China materially poorer in the long term. Life today is better than it was in the 1950s — and a large part of that is knowing our comparative advantage and leaning into it, not trying to restore long-dead industries by political fiat and throwing trillions in good resources after bad initiatives. If we want to help workers who are struggling - then tax more and redistribute more. Don’t throw a wrench into mutually beneficial trade (and completely sabotage our critical climate goals while we are at it, it makes no sense that we treat BYD the way we do).
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    >What the heck? When did this sort of economically irresponsible thinking become so mainstream? It's not "irresponsible" to deny the existence of some utopia where everyone's interests align. It's not worth competing with virtual slave labor. A perpetual race to the bottom is not what we should be striving for. With our current standard of living, or even half of it, we don't make anything that is going to be economical to export in the long run. >The benefits of protectionism are what are short-term, but they leave both us and China materially poorer in the long term. You're not entirely wrong. There is a cost to duplicating effort. What is the cost of not being independent? Your country's sovereignty and maybe your life. Let us take care of ourselves as best we can and import only a small amount of stuff. >Life today is better than it was in the 1950s — and a large part of that is knowing our comparative advantage and leaning into it, not trying to restore long-dead industries by political fiat and throwing trillions in good resources after bad initiatives. I think many would argue that life is worse today than it was in the 50s. Sure we have more consumer goods, but housing is unaffordable and many people are working well beneath their capacity at meaningless make-work jobs in the service industry. The "long-dead industries" you speak of are alive and well, just not HERE. Not because others are necessarily doing those things better either. It is all about labor costs and regulations in conjunction with international competition. >If we want to help workers who are struggling - then tax more and redistribute more. First of all, many aren't working at all because there are no good jobs for them. Second of all, what exactly are we going to tax if everything is offshored consistent with the current trend? What are we going to buy our imports with, the land under our feet (which is finite and also our home)? Increasingly worthless paper, promises to drop bombs or not drop bombs somewhere, etc.? >If we want to help workers who are struggling - then tax more and redistribute more. Don’t throw a wrench into mutually beneficial trade (and completely sabotage our critical climate goals while we are at it, it makes no sense that we treat BYD the way we do). Oh yes, nothing more critical to cutting pollution than shipping giant logs to China to be turned into toothpicks. Give me a break. It makes total sense that we treat BYD the way we do. It is unfair competition that would destroy one of the few industries we have left, and China isn't exactly eager to buy cars from us (nevermind that they cost too much for the Chinese anyway). We might all be better off if every country produced what it could. It may lead to new discoveries in design and production methods. And if international trade was not an issue, countries could freely copy each other's IP for domestic use. That last part might be too optimistic but monopolies create stagnation.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

acchow 2y ago

> You might be surprised to learn that manufacturing is larger industry in the US than our tech industry, or that our domestic oil industry is even larger US oil and gas industry has $240bn in annual revenues. This is about comparable to how much Americans spend at Apple (almost $200bn)

ajax33 2y ago
The number you quoted for oil and gas revenue is quite low. ExxonMobil alone made $300 billion in revenue in 2023. Even if you look at oil majors that only operate in the US - Marathon had $170 billion in revenue in 2023.
greggyb 2y ago
I don’t think that you’re correct about US O&G revenue. The US produces 13M barrels of crude and condensate per day: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61545 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61545 The lowest recent spot price is $69.5: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/PET_PRI_SPT_S1_D.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/PET_PRI_SPT_S1_D.htm This tells you that annual production of just crude oil is > $300B/yr. The US also has plenty of downstream processing after production (https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_unc_dcu_nus_m.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_unc_dcu_nus_m.htm), which means that total annual revenue must be significantly greater than this.

forgetfreeman 2y ago

Point of Order: there was very little in good faith with the offshoring of manufacturing either in the domestic propaganda produced to drum up support for the initiative or the intention to dominate Chinese society with western consumerism.

chii 2y ago

> All the while Beijing did everything in its power to enrich the Chinese worker i am not sure that the CCP is doing anything to enrich the average worker, and in fact, is probably doing the very opposite - making sure the chinese currency is constantly and artificially debased to make export more competitive. This results in lower wages for the workers. It is why there's low demand for goods/services in china. The money being earned by these exports is kept mostly by the gov't - to be spent on whatever they think has priority, which mostly have been on infrastructure, supporting industry the party deems important etc.

DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
The average income in China has doubled over the last decade. Much of China's exports comes from private companies, so no, the government does not keep the money. Even state-owned enterprises have their own balance sheets and don't just transfer everything to the government. And finally, China's currency has actually been overvalued at various points. The central bank has intervened in both directions, not just to suppress the value of the currency.

bflesch 2y ago

If you think that autocratic regimes enrich the common workers, I have a bridge to sell to you.

chengiz 2y ago

The oil industry is not larger. I believe oil and gas is not even a separately measured category so the numbers you're getting are probably including many sectors across the board and are quoted by some vested interest like the American Petroleum Institute.

marcosdumay 2y ago

> It was our advantage to lose That's bullshit. China is more than 5 time larger than the US, so you really expect them to build fewer things than you forever?