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I don't think that this is an obvious decision at all, and it is very easy to be deceptive about upsides and gloss over the downsides of forcefully retaining do

I don't think that this is an obvious decision at all, and it is very easy to be deceptive about upsides and gloss over the downsides of forcefully retaining domestic industry sectors: If you want to keep industries like this, you are basically arguing that taxpayers should subsidise them-- the jobs you retain are not a straightforward net gain, you pay for the wage difference in tax money (or price, where typically the consumer foots the bill, which is often just like a rather regressive tax). There are good arguments that this is simply necessary for absolutely vital industries like agriculture, which gets a generous ~$20 billion/year to stay local. But it is clear to me that this is not something that you can do for every industry-- that would basically amount to a small-scale planned economy (with all its drawbacks), would be very likely to poach talent from sectors that are actually "more valuable" according to market consensus, and would also be likely to provoke retaliatory actions by international trading partners. For this specifically, I think throwing some hundreds of millions of taxdollars around to keep/reestablish the industry is probably a good deal, but it is rather obvious to me that you have to draw the line somewhere; spending hundreds of billions to maximize autarky would be a really bad idea even though it is easy to make it sound universally good ("local jobs! supply chain safety! trade balance!").

lesuorac 2y ago
Pretty sure it's a very obvious decision. Fire your unionized US workforce. Replace them a cheaper non-unionized workforce. Sell the goods at the same price. Increase your current profit margin while protecting future profit margins from unions. Like half the reason why people do manufacturing in China is because all the manufacturing is there. If you had a problem with the item after it's been molded you can go to the molder and see what's going on. Then walk across the street to the plastic supplier to get them to adjust their output to fix your mold issues. That's not a Chinese specific thing, you can have this situation anywhere as long as the industries are co-located.
- freeone3000 2y ago
  If the American workers aren’t paid better than the Chinese workers then why would they live in America instead of China? It won’t be for the cheap housing and cheap healthcare…
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - sandworm101 2y ago
    Because movement between countries is not possible for the vast magority of the workforce. An americqn steelworker cannot just up stakes and move to canada/china/europe. Such things take many years and, unless you are allowed to renouce your citizenship, you will still be talking to the IRS every year.
    - freeone3000 2y ago
      Shouldn’t we be trying to (have local manufacturing) to reach the goal of a better life for our people, rather than sacrificing that life in order to (have local manufacturing)? Isn’t “oh we’ll just make sure our population can’t leave” a tad dystopian?
      - lesuorac 2y ago
        I'm really not sure where this sub-thread has gone. My point is that moving manufacturing to China is not done at the government-level; it's a very smart move by business to break the unions in manufacturing while also increasing the current profit margin. Even if the American workers tried to move to China you wouldn't hire them because they're in a union so its pointless for them to moving (ignoring practical issues like language/family network/etc). --- > Shouldn’t we be trying to (have local manufacturing) to reach the goal of a better life for our people, rather than sacrificing that life in order to (have local manufacturing)? This is a false dichotomy. Manufacturing jobs while not as cushy as sitting in an office chair do not need to be deadly. There have been a ton of advances in robotics that allow you to be in significantly less harms way compared to the days of when you use children to repair equipment because their fingers fit in between the blades better. I wouldn't be surprised if most manufacturing jobs had a lower mortality than dating while female.
- myrmidon 2y ago
  > Like half the reason why people do manufacturing in China is because all the manufacturing is there It sure helps, but the primary reason is price. And the main driver for that are wages. Chinese manufacturing pays workers an average $24k/year, for 49h/week. This is after adjusting for purchasing power-- actual mean wage is <$15k (!!). You can shoot suspected union members on sight and allow dumping dimethyl mercury straight into the next river-- no amount of "regulatory streamlining" will come anywhere close to making the US competitive here.

lesuorac 2y ago

Pretty sure it's a very obvious decision. Fire your unionized US workforce. Replace them a cheaper non-unionized workforce. Sell the goods at the same price. Increase your current profit margin while protecting future profit margins from unions. Like half the reason why people do manufacturing in China is because all the manufacturing is there. If you had a problem with the item after it's been molded you can go to the molder and see what's going on. Then walk across the street to the plastic supplier to get them to adjust their output to fix your mold issues. That's not a Chinese specific thing, you can have this situation anywhere as long as the industries are co-located.

freeone3000 2y ago
If the American workers aren’t paid better than the Chinese workers then why would they live in America instead of China? It won’t be for the cheap housing and cheap healthcare…
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- sandworm101 2y ago
  Because movement between countries is not possible for the vast magority of the workforce. An americqn steelworker cannot just up stakes and move to canada/china/europe. Such things take many years and, unless you are allowed to renouce your citizenship, you will still be talking to the IRS every year.
  - freeone3000 2y ago
    Shouldn’t we be trying to (have local manufacturing) to reach the goal of a better life for our people, rather than sacrificing that life in order to (have local manufacturing)? Isn’t “oh we’ll just make sure our population can’t leave” a tad dystopian?
    - lesuorac 2y ago
      I'm really not sure where this sub-thread has gone. My point is that moving manufacturing to China is not done at the government-level; it's a very smart move by business to break the unions in manufacturing while also increasing the current profit margin. Even if the American workers tried to move to China you wouldn't hire them because they're in a union so its pointless for them to moving (ignoring practical issues like language/family network/etc). --- > Shouldn’t we be trying to (have local manufacturing) to reach the goal of a better life for our people, rather than sacrificing that life in order to (have local manufacturing)? This is a false dichotomy. Manufacturing jobs while not as cushy as sitting in an office chair do not need to be deadly. There have been a ton of advances in robotics that allow you to be in significantly less harms way compared to the days of when you use children to repair equipment because their fingers fit in between the blades better. I wouldn't be surprised if most manufacturing jobs had a lower mortality than dating while female.
myrmidon 2y ago
> Like half the reason why people do manufacturing in China is because all the manufacturing is there It sure helps, but the primary reason is price. And the main driver for that are wages. Chinese manufacturing pays workers an average $24k/year, for 49h/week. This is after adjusting for purchasing power-- actual mean wage is <$15k (!!). You can shoot suspected union members on sight and allow dumping dimethyl mercury straight into the next river-- no amount of "regulatory streamlining" will come anywhere close to making the US competitive here.