6 ms·

> The US doesn't have the people to do the actual manufacturing. A usual lack of high qualified low paid workers?

s1artibartfast 2y ago
If that's really the case, then these tariffs are the cure. If outsourcing labor overseas is cost prohibitive, wages will have to rise.
- danny_codes 2y ago
  Or standard of living can fall. Which is quite likely
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    Perhaps, but equality would rise in labor starved economy with low standard of living and high costs.
    - jquery 2y ago
      I don't see how that follows. It's not a step up to be forced to work in a factory, compared to before when not working was an option because costs were lower.
    - trinix912 2y ago
      No it wouldn't, it would end up in even more inequality as the middle and lower classes would be able to afford even less while the rich would just see their assets rack up in price. We had that problem in my small European country.
    - Vegenoid 2y ago
      Why? Who is looking at the societies of countries where manufacturing is happening and saying “we want that”? Manufacturing used to be great for the US because other places couldn’t do it, either because they hadn’t developed enough or they’d been ravaged by war. It wasn’t “manufacturing physical goods” that was great for the US, it was “having industry that others don’t”. Now, other countries have manufacturing capability. America’s uniquely exceptional industry is now tech - mostly software, but also hardware design, and design of tech for other industries. That is what we should be focused on - supporting the industries that set us apart from other countries.
    - kristjansson 2y ago
      Nevermind the improbability that a decrease in living standards would actually compress the distribution of living standards - Are you seriously arguing that's desirable? That it's better to reduce everyone's lots so that we can be more equal?
      - s1artibartfast 2y ago
        If you asked me a couple years ago, I would absolutely oppose it, but now I am seriously entertaining the idea that it may be better to live in a poorer but more equal society. It seems that the majority cares far more about comparative wealth than absolute wellbeing, and is willing to destroy the system if they don't get what they want.
        kristjansson 2y ago
        I'd actually agree that, at any level of living standard, the more equal society is probably happier. I'd question whether that'd be an effective _intervention_ though. Actively reducing the median standard of a relatively well-to-do society to compress the overall distribution does not seem like it would lead to a net increase in happiness.
- lodovic 2y ago
  This essentially amounts to subsidizing industries that aren't competitive. It's like choosing to bake bread at home for $5 when you could buy it for just $2.
  - palmotea 2y ago
    > This essentially amounts to subsidizing industries that aren't competitive. That's not a bad thing, especially if they are "not competitive" because foreign workers can be exploited more (and not some real competitive advantage). There are more desirable things than the few neoliberalism optimizes for.
  - xyzzy123 2y ago
    Or it could be interpreted as putting a higher value on self-sufficiency and domestic production capacity than standard free trade economic theories value those things at ($0). Standard comparative advantage narratives don't really account for production "webs" being ecosystems that get big synergies from colocation. They do not account for geopolitical risks either.
    - lodovic 2y ago
      True, it keeps wealth circulating domestically, fostering local economic activity. However, drawbacks of this system are higher costs for consumers and inefficiencies in production, so it needs to be balanced.
porridgeraisin 2y ago
No, this is the effect for the last 50 years' usual "I will have my high paid cushy job while some other country somewhere manufactures products for me, taking on all the negative effects. Only positive effects for me. Yes, you should use our currency and take part in our inflation. Or we'll invade you. We will print 6T USD[1] in 2 years and you need to absorb that along with us." Thankfully, this is coming to an end soon. No tears anywhere. I know a version of this is what happens in every human age, not singling anything out, but don't get onto the moral high ground of "I am just trying to ensure everyone is well paid". [1] additionally, 80% of all US dollars added to the supply were added in the last 5 years.
- yibg 2y ago
  This is the part that confuses me too. The US is in an enviable position where a lot of the "shit" jobs are outsourced and in return we get cheap stuff. Why is this a bad thing?
  - Qworg 2y ago
    It isn't a bad thing - unless you don't have a job/have been stuffed with the idea that meaning and good pay could be yours if not for those foreigners.
  - porridgeraisin 2y ago
    My interpretation is that today other countries are less willing to take on the role the US would like them to. So, the chosen solution in the US now is to wind down this approach, and try to bring back production to the country. I don't know enough to comment on the effectiveness of the method they are using to do this, but that they are doing it is clear to me. China is not going to play this role anymore as has been made clear over the last 2 years. Them being the largest country playing this role for the last decade has fueled this recent revamp in the US. Russia has not really played that role for a long long time. India(me being an Indian, I might be biased) is way way too slow to be depended on to sustain the sheer scale of US' requirements. Also, compared to china, it's actually getting more and more difficult to get "shit jobs" done here, which might be surprising. It is for all the wrong reasons though, so not much to celebrate as an indian. However, india has enough domestic potential to be self sufficient, so nothing to worry about either. A few years ago, I thought the next "dump yard country" for the US would be africa. But their progress to the required level is clearly multiple decades away, so that's out of the window in the short- and medium- term. Europe is already finding it difficult to get much out of Africa, despite still basically controlling multiple countries there. Thus, they are having to resort to immigration from the middle east (some 10 years back, it was all from africa) Needless to say, "freewheelers" (for lack of a better word) such as western europe and australia&oceania were never under consideration, and will never accept this role. Eastern Europe/SEA are "up for grabs", but the former is already saturated playing this role for western europe/russia (and the two fight for control of the same) and the latter is thoroughly saturated playing this role for china. You saw this play out recently with the attempt to get ukraine's rare earth industry serving the US. Russia invaded them for similar reasons. The upper middle east clearly will not play this role, preferring to live in substandard conditions and submit to terrorist organisations instead (and who can blame them?) China seems to love supporting these lot too. Saudi Arabia/UAE are options, and the new US government has made good use of them (atleast on paper) with the new investments. However, they can only do so much given their size, geography and demographics. I never thought they would allow it to happen, but even LatAm is slowly being "lost" to china. And suddenly, you've run out of countries! Maybe we'll find some martians though, they can do the welding for the starship. Strangely, the US is also seemingly losing its ability to maintain an edge through intellectual property. The whole hype in non-technical circles when Deepseek came out was a reaction to this. 20 years ago, it would have been protected better. The IP from 20 years ago is protected well... even today! See: semiconductor manufacturing. Some people say this is because you're now needing to import people too (and so, the knowledge leaks). Some people probe further and say that this happened in the first place because of worsening education in the US. I am inclined to agree with this, since over financialization/trade/empire-building and increasingly poorer education was also what killed medieval india, which I have more knowledge of. However, I might be making more of the symmetry than there is.
blitzar 2y ago
People in the US dont want to work 14 hour shifts for 50c a day for some reason.
- cevi 2y ago
  Think about it: with 20% tariffs, we will now have the option to work 14 hour shifts for 60c a day!

If that's really the case, then these tariffs are the cure. If outsourcing labor overseas is cost prohibitive, wages will have to rise.

danny_codes 2y ago
Or standard of living can fall. Which is quite likely
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Perhaps, but equality would rise in labor starved economy with low standard of living and high costs.
  - jquery 2y ago
    I don't see how that follows. It's not a step up to be forced to work in a factory, compared to before when not working was an option because costs were lower.
  - trinix912 2y ago
    No it wouldn't, it would end up in even more inequality as the middle and lower classes would be able to afford even less while the rich would just see their assets rack up in price. We had that problem in my small European country.
  - Vegenoid 2y ago
    Why? Who is looking at the societies of countries where manufacturing is happening and saying “we want that”? Manufacturing used to be great for the US because other places couldn’t do it, either because they hadn’t developed enough or they’d been ravaged by war. It wasn’t “manufacturing physical goods” that was great for the US, it was “having industry that others don’t”. Now, other countries have manufacturing capability. America’s uniquely exceptional industry is now tech - mostly software, but also hardware design, and design of tech for other industries. That is what we should be focused on - supporting the industries that set us apart from other countries.
  - kristjansson 2y ago
    Nevermind the improbability that a decrease in living standards would actually compress the distribution of living standards - Are you seriously arguing that's desirable? That it's better to reduce everyone's lots so that we can be more equal?
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      If you asked me a couple years ago, I would absolutely oppose it, but now I am seriously entertaining the idea that it may be better to live in a poorer but more equal society. It seems that the majority cares far more about comparative wealth than absolute wellbeing, and is willing to destroy the system if they don't get what they want.
      - kristjansson 2y ago
        I'd actually agree that, at any level of living standard, the more equal society is probably happier. I'd question whether that'd be an effective _intervention_ though. Actively reducing the median standard of a relatively well-to-do society to compress the overall distribution does not seem like it would lead to a net increase in happiness.
lodovic 2y ago
This essentially amounts to subsidizing industries that aren't competitive. It's like choosing to bake bread at home for $5 when you could buy it for just $2.
- palmotea 2y ago
  > This essentially amounts to subsidizing industries that aren't competitive. That's not a bad thing, especially if they are "not competitive" because foreign workers can be exploited more (and not some real competitive advantage). There are more desirable things than the few neoliberalism optimizes for.
- xyzzy123 2y ago
  Or it could be interpreted as putting a higher value on self-sufficiency and domestic production capacity than standard free trade economic theories value those things at ($0). Standard comparative advantage narratives don't really account for production "webs" being ecosystems that get big synergies from colocation. They do not account for geopolitical risks either.
  - lodovic 2y ago
    True, it keeps wealth circulating domestically, fostering local economic activity. However, drawbacks of this system are higher costs for consumers and inefficiencies in production, so it needs to be balanced.

porridgeraisin 2y ago

No, this is the effect for the last 50 years' usual "I will have my high paid cushy job while some other country somewhere manufactures products for me, taking on all the negative effects. Only positive effects for me. Yes, you should use our currency and take part in our inflation. Or we'll invade you. We will print 6T USD[1] in 2 years and you need to absorb that along with us." Thankfully, this is coming to an end soon. No tears anywhere. I know a version of this is what happens in every human age, not singling anything out, but don't get onto the moral high ground of "I am just trying to ensure everyone is well paid". [1] additionally, 80% of all US dollars added to the supply were added in the last 5 years.

yibg 2y ago
This is the part that confuses me too. The US is in an enviable position where a lot of the "shit" jobs are outsourced and in return we get cheap stuff. Why is this a bad thing?
- Qworg 2y ago
  It isn't a bad thing - unless you don't have a job/have been stuffed with the idea that meaning and good pay could be yours if not for those foreigners.
- porridgeraisin 2y ago
  My interpretation is that today other countries are less willing to take on the role the US would like them to. So, the chosen solution in the US now is to wind down this approach, and try to bring back production to the country. I don't know enough to comment on the effectiveness of the method they are using to do this, but that they are doing it is clear to me. China is not going to play this role anymore as has been made clear over the last 2 years. Them being the largest country playing this role for the last decade has fueled this recent revamp in the US. Russia has not really played that role for a long long time. India(me being an Indian, I might be biased) is way way too slow to be depended on to sustain the sheer scale of US' requirements. Also, compared to china, it's actually getting more and more difficult to get "shit jobs" done here, which might be surprising. It is for all the wrong reasons though, so not much to celebrate as an indian. However, india has enough domestic potential to be self sufficient, so nothing to worry about either. A few years ago, I thought the next "dump yard country" for the US would be africa. But their progress to the required level is clearly multiple decades away, so that's out of the window in the short- and medium- term. Europe is already finding it difficult to get much out of Africa, despite still basically controlling multiple countries there. Thus, they are having to resort to immigration from the middle east (some 10 years back, it was all from africa) Needless to say, "freewheelers" (for lack of a better word) such as western europe and australia&oceania were never under consideration, and will never accept this role. Eastern Europe/SEA are "up for grabs", but the former is already saturated playing this role for western europe/russia (and the two fight for control of the same) and the latter is thoroughly saturated playing this role for china. You saw this play out recently with the attempt to get ukraine's rare earth industry serving the US. Russia invaded them for similar reasons. The upper middle east clearly will not play this role, preferring to live in substandard conditions and submit to terrorist organisations instead (and who can blame them?) China seems to love supporting these lot too. Saudi Arabia/UAE are options, and the new US government has made good use of them (atleast on paper) with the new investments. However, they can only do so much given their size, geography and demographics. I never thought they would allow it to happen, but even LatAm is slowly being "lost" to china. And suddenly, you've run out of countries! Maybe we'll find some martians though, they can do the welding for the starship. Strangely, the US is also seemingly losing its ability to maintain an edge through intellectual property. The whole hype in non-technical circles when Deepseek came out was a reaction to this. 20 years ago, it would have been protected better. The IP from 20 years ago is protected well... even today! See: semiconductor manufacturing. Some people say this is because you're now needing to import people too (and so, the knowledge leaks). Some people probe further and say that this happened in the first place because of worsening education in the US. I am inclined to agree with this, since over financialization/trade/empire-building and increasingly poorer education was also what killed medieval india, which I have more knowledge of. However, I might be making more of the symmetry than there is.

blitzar 2y ago

People in the US dont want to work 14 hour shifts for 50c a day for some reason.

cevi 2y ago
Think about it: with 20% tariffs, we will now have the option to work 14 hour shifts for 60c a day!