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American labor is low quality and high cost. China is no longer a guarantee of cheap and terrible like it used to be. If america wants to make shit again they n

American labor is low quality and high cost. China is no longer a guarantee of cheap and terrible like it used to be. If america wants to make shit again they need to compete on cost terms and quality terms. Honestly the biggest issue I have seen with US companies trying to manufacture goods is that they tend to only target US customers. Especially at the low end. There must be some quirk with US postage where it is cheaper to buy foreign goods than it is to purchase outgoing postage. I keep trying to buy local self pub (as in proper self pub, not just Amazon POD) books from americans and the half that actually permit foreigners to buy their books have actively stopped permitting their promotions to be accessed by foreigners. I used to try to buy hobby stuff (militaria etc) from americans via eBay and 90+% of them would explicitly tell ROW to get bent in the listing. And etsy postage from yankistan? Forget about it. Kickstarter postage from the USA? Often as much as the product.

HWR_14 2y ago
> some quirk with US postage where it is cheaper to buy foreign goods than it is to purchase outgoing postage. International rates (or the system that runs it) were decided a long time ago. The international postal system was set up so that all developing countries (which still includes China) are subsidized by developed countries.
epicureanideal 2y ago
> American labor is low quality and high cost. That is the opposite of my experience with software engineers, and my observation of the work ethic of most Americans in a variety of professions makes me think the opposite is true in pretty much every industry. I think "American labor is low quality and high cost" is one of those things people think must be true about some other industry besides the ones they've seen, kind of like they think the news is inaccurate when it reports things they know to be false, but accurate when it reports on other subjects.
- watwut 2y ago
  Working a lot of hours and high quality are two orthogonal categories. Frequently at odds. That being said, topic here is low paid manufacturing where people dont want to work. Not high paid seeked positions. You can't compare them.
- protocolture 2y ago
  Its my experience with US network engineers, system administrators, cablers, DC operators, business owners and a few other bits and bobs. Something near 100% of the US telco industry I could not find a polite word to describe. And its very common for obvious deficiencies to be laughed off as normal and acceptable. >Work Ethic Lets start with "Listening Ethic" and "Understanding Instructions" and maybe "Work Ethic" will become relevant.
lenkite 2y ago
> American labor is low quality and high cost Speaking as a non-American, this is just not true. I have always been impressed by the very high quality of American engineers. I cannot comment on manufactured goods though, but I think if the US rebuilds its mid-level industrial pipeline, quality would be amongst the best in the world since Americans generally hold themselves to a high standard. I don't think there is a need to be so negative.
- protocolture 2y ago
  >I have always been impressed by the very high quality of American engineers. I could not have had a more opposing experience possible.
gadders 2y ago
>>American labor is low quality and high cost. American Labor will never be cheaper than virtual slave labor.
- Qwertious 2y ago
  There are more than those two categories - for example, Europe exists. So does Canada.
  - gadders 2y ago
    I would be surprised if there were any meaningful differences between American, European and Canadian labour.
    - protocolture 2y ago
      Mindset is a big one.
    - Qwertious 2y ago
      Europe includes Germany, Spain, and Romania. I know Romania is far cheaper than Germany, at least.
- protocolture 2y ago
  Yes but there are barriers there that other countries dont have. Its lower cost than serbia, where you need to either register a business locally or help the staff out with taxes. But its higher cost than canada, where people just sort of dont fuck around and get on with things. And in some circumstances the lack of regulation can make things more expensive. Or at least, lack of regulation + lack of respect for norms. I had a customer insist on using a particular tower climber for cabling, but the guy had no idea about cabling or network engineering. He was "cheap" in that he didn't draw a large wage, but he was actually expensive because he needed so much hand holding. Later I found out he had several 500M + runs of Cat5 that could have been 3 meters and a switch. In fact it seems a fairly uniquely american thing that some bloke will go off and do a lot of """work""" and then hand over an absolute pile of dogshit that proper engineers need to come in and resolve. The shit I have seen american network engineers "produce" that needed to be cleaned up by expensive consultants would curl your hair. Its because americans try and do everything with slave labor that they are so damned expensive to deal with. If I engage a cabler in an Australian or Canadian data centre, they tend to find a fault and fix it in the first instance. Literally never happened for me with yanks. Its always 5 visits, back and forth, arguments about responsibility, providers closing tickets before they have resolved anything, and engineers that dont understand the difference between light stats and BGP neighborship.
noirscape 2y ago
At least internationally speaking, American products tend to have a reputation of being expensive, low quality and the company's marketing department is gonna try to find ways to squeeze even more out of you after a purchase, to the point of doing things that probably should be illegal. This is in contrast to European designed products, which are expensive, but usually are high quality, work really well and last for much longer. (In exchange, the user experience does often feel like it was designed by someone who is way too technically minded/thinks that all UX innovations past the 80s or 90s should be treated with extreme prejudice, whether that's good or bad.)

HWR_14 2y ago

> some quirk with US postage where it is cheaper to buy foreign goods than it is to purchase outgoing postage. International rates (or the system that runs it) were decided a long time ago. The international postal system was set up so that all developing countries (which still includes China) are subsidized by developed countries.

epicureanideal 2y ago

> American labor is low quality and high cost. That is the opposite of my experience with software engineers, and my observation of the work ethic of most Americans in a variety of professions makes me think the opposite is true in pretty much every industry. I think "American labor is low quality and high cost" is one of those things people think must be true about some other industry besides the ones they've seen, kind of like they think the news is inaccurate when it reports things they know to be false, but accurate when it reports on other subjects.

watwut 2y ago
Working a lot of hours and high quality are two orthogonal categories. Frequently at odds. That being said, topic here is low paid manufacturing where people dont want to work. Not high paid seeked positions. You can't compare them.
protocolture 2y ago
Its my experience with US network engineers, system administrators, cablers, DC operators, business owners and a few other bits and bobs. Something near 100% of the US telco industry I could not find a polite word to describe. And its very common for obvious deficiencies to be laughed off as normal and acceptable. >Work Ethic Lets start with "Listening Ethic" and "Understanding Instructions" and maybe "Work Ethic" will become relevant.

lenkite 2y ago

> American labor is low quality and high cost Speaking as a non-American, this is just not true. I have always been impressed by the very high quality of American engineers. I cannot comment on manufactured goods though, but I think if the US rebuilds its mid-level industrial pipeline, quality would be amongst the best in the world since Americans generally hold themselves to a high standard. I don't think there is a need to be so negative.

protocolture 2y ago
>I have always been impressed by the very high quality of American engineers. I could not have had a more opposing experience possible.

gadders 2y ago

>>American labor is low quality and high cost. American Labor will never be cheaper than virtual slave labor.

Qwertious 2y ago
There are more than those two categories - for example, Europe exists. So does Canada.
- gadders 2y ago
  I would be surprised if there were any meaningful differences between American, European and Canadian labour.
  - protocolture 2y ago
    Mindset is a big one.
  - Qwertious 2y ago
    Europe includes Germany, Spain, and Romania. I know Romania is far cheaper than Germany, at least.
protocolture 2y ago
Yes but there are barriers there that other countries dont have. Its lower cost than serbia, where you need to either register a business locally or help the staff out with taxes. But its higher cost than canada, where people just sort of dont fuck around and get on with things. And in some circumstances the lack of regulation can make things more expensive. Or at least, lack of regulation + lack of respect for norms. I had a customer insist on using a particular tower climber for cabling, but the guy had no idea about cabling or network engineering. He was "cheap" in that he didn't draw a large wage, but he was actually expensive because he needed so much hand holding. Later I found out he had several 500M + runs of Cat5 that could have been 3 meters and a switch. In fact it seems a fairly uniquely american thing that some bloke will go off and do a lot of """work""" and then hand over an absolute pile of dogshit that proper engineers need to come in and resolve. The shit I have seen american network engineers "produce" that needed to be cleaned up by expensive consultants would curl your hair. Its because americans try and do everything with slave labor that they are so damned expensive to deal with. If I engage a cabler in an Australian or Canadian data centre, they tend to find a fault and fix it in the first instance. Literally never happened for me with yanks. Its always 5 visits, back and forth, arguments about responsibility, providers closing tickets before they have resolved anything, and engineers that dont understand the difference between light stats and BGP neighborship.

noirscape 2y ago

At least internationally speaking, American products tend to have a reputation of being expensive, low quality and the company's marketing department is gonna try to find ways to squeeze even more out of you after a purchase, to the point of doing things that probably should be illegal. This is in contrast to European designed products, which are expensive, but usually are high quality, work really well and last for much longer. (In exchange, the user experience does often feel like it was designed by someone who is way too technically minded/thinks that all UX innovations past the 80s or 90s should be treated with extreme prejudice, whether that's good or bad.)