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Or we would have automated assembly faster—the investment in which would’ve been counted in domestic investment offsetting the trade deficit, right? I’m trying

Or we would have automated assembly faster—the investment in which would’ve been counted in domestic investment offsetting the trade deficit, right? I’m trying to verify my mental model of what’s going on.

chii 1y ago
the assumption being that the automated assembly is going to be price competitive with the manual assembly. If this is the case, why doesn't it happen with the chinese supply chain? After all, there's no reason not to make it cheaper. The only conclusion you can draw is that the automated assembly will still be more expensive compared to the current manual one.
- newsclues 1y ago
  Or it would mean the time and cost for tooling would be prohibitive to annual releases, as they would need to sell each refresh for longer. Like car manufacturing where the models are more consistent each year with longer cycles to refresh. I honestly don’t see that as a big issue. It may even be better.
- Joker_vD 1y ago
  Are you arguing that if something hasn't been invented/adopted yet, then it will never be? Because IIRC the Chinese do invest into attempts to automate the phone assembly. It may not yet be price-competitive today but why not tomorrow?
- Filligree 1y ago
  It does happen in the chinese supply chain; it's already heavily automated. It's a bit late to try to undercut them using automation.
- sigmaisaletter 1y ago
  The chain of thought goes like this: -american labour is expensive -because of tariffs (or geopolitics) cheap asian labour unavailable -investment in automation research -first Gen automation is expensive -further research -2nd Gen automation is price-competitive with american labour -iterate n times -Nth Gen automation is price-competitive with asian labour > why doesn't it happen with the chinese supply chain The idea is that because asian labour is so cheap, there is no real incentive to invest in automation research, because everyone knows it won't be price-competitive for long. No idea if that is actually true, but that is the argument.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    Americans will not accept the quality-of-life sacrifice of their labor being competitive with Asia. It's never happening. The only way US manufacturing will be competitive with China's is if it is 100% automated from the mines to the store shelves.
    - ta1243 1y ago
      Which means 100% of the money goes to the owner. At least now some goes to foreigners who watch stuff on youtube so american workers get a little of the money.
      - Sohcahtoa82 1y ago
        > Which means 100% of the money goes to the owner. As more jobs get automated, this is becoming more and more inevitable anyways. There have been massive strides in computer vision and planning in the past few years. I think in 5-10 years we'll have robots that can handle nearly any manual labor task. In 10-15 years, we could be facing skyrocketing unemployment. We'll either see the collapse of society as the economy collapses, or we'll need to increase taxes on the owners to fund UBI.
        ryandrake 1y ago
        This is the obvious end-state of unregulated capitalism. Fewer and fewer people owning and benefiting from the means of production, and more and more people with nothing and nothing to do besides revolt and (eventually) chop heads off. All the ownership class needs to stop the "head chopping" part is a robust and powerful police/surveillance state, which we all know they are diligently working on right now.
        ta1243 1y ago
        The wealthiest 10% of America have increased the ownership of wealth from about 40% in the 1970s to 70% today, with no sign of slowing. A typical HN techbro may not care because they're likely in the wealthiest 35 million, but the only way for the top 3 million / 1% to continue growing at the same rate once the bottom 90% have nothing more to lose is to take the wealth from the 32 million between 1% and 10%. It took 50 years for the bottom 90% to halve the ownership of wealth in the US. Once they are fully tapped out the only way the 1% will continue to increase their wealth is taking it from the 10%. Then the 0.1% from the 1%.
- branko_d 1y ago
  > why doesn't it happen with the chinese supply chain There are already "dark factories" that don't require light or heating because they are fully automated and don't require human presence. Guess where they are? China.
maxerickson 1y ago
"I’m trying to verify my mental model of what’s going on." Why not try to improve it?
ta1243 1y ago
OK lets assume the entire chain is automated and you don't need to employ anyone. The factory can go anywhere, in China, in France, in California, in North Dakota. What benefit is that to the average American citizen?
- antihipocrat 1y ago
  Maintenance would be all that remains, and I would think that cost of energy to power the facility would be the biggest driver of location
  - usefulcat 1y ago
    Proximity to suppliers could be a factor..
- hollerith 1y ago
  The US government can tax the factory and spend the tax revenue on average Americans. The German government for example gets a big fraction of its revenue from taxes on export industries that employ only a small fraction of Germans.
  - ta1243 1y ago
    So the company owning that factory moves it to Iceland or Ireland or India who don't tax it. Or you could bypass all that and simply tax Apple now, despite their factory being in China.
    - hollerith 1y ago
      The German export manufacturers show no great desire to leave Germany -- or at least they didn't till their energy supplies became very expensive in the wake of the Ukrainian invasion.
      - ta1243 1y ago
        And apple seems happy staying in California and paying the tiny amount of tax it does. Assuming no change in costs, how does moving its factories from China to Nebraska change anything, for apple, for the US government or the US citizen?
pdfernhout 1y ago
The future the USA could have had, sigh: "A brief history of Steve Jobs’ automated factory at NeXT" https://www.cultofmac.com/news/a-brief-history-of-steve-jobs-automated-factory-at-next-cook-book-leftovers https://www.cultofmac.com/news/a-brief-history-of-steve-jobs... "Put simply, there was never any necessity for NeXT to have an automated factory. Jobs might have been right that the future of just-in-time manufacturing would involve a heavy dose of automation, but it made no financial sense whatsoever to have a plant staffed with the latest robots for such a low volume business. The problem with NeXT came down to one thing: no-one (relatively speaking) was buying the computers."

chii 1y ago

the assumption being that the automated assembly is going to be price competitive with the manual assembly. If this is the case, why doesn't it happen with the chinese supply chain? After all, there's no reason not to make it cheaper. The only conclusion you can draw is that the automated assembly will still be more expensive compared to the current manual one.

newsclues 1y ago
Or it would mean the time and cost for tooling would be prohibitive to annual releases, as they would need to sell each refresh for longer. Like car manufacturing where the models are more consistent each year with longer cycles to refresh. I honestly don’t see that as a big issue. It may even be better.
Joker_vD 1y ago
Are you arguing that if something hasn't been invented/adopted yet, then it will never be? Because IIRC the Chinese do invest into attempts to automate the phone assembly. It may not yet be price-competitive today but why not tomorrow?
Filligree 1y ago
It does happen in the chinese supply chain; it's already heavily automated. It's a bit late to try to undercut them using automation.
sigmaisaletter 1y ago
The chain of thought goes like this: -american labour is expensive -because of tariffs (or geopolitics) cheap asian labour unavailable -investment in automation research -first Gen automation is expensive -further research -2nd Gen automation is price-competitive with american labour -iterate n times -Nth Gen automation is price-competitive with asian labour > why doesn't it happen with the chinese supply chain The idea is that because asian labour is so cheap, there is no real incentive to invest in automation research, because everyone knows it won't be price-competitive for long. No idea if that is actually true, but that is the argument.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  Americans will not accept the quality-of-life sacrifice of their labor being competitive with Asia. It's never happening. The only way US manufacturing will be competitive with China's is if it is 100% automated from the mines to the store shelves.
  - ta1243 1y ago
    Which means 100% of the money goes to the owner. At least now some goes to foreigners who watch stuff on youtube so american workers get a little of the money.
    - Sohcahtoa82 1y ago
      > Which means 100% of the money goes to the owner. As more jobs get automated, this is becoming more and more inevitable anyways. There have been massive strides in computer vision and planning in the past few years. I think in 5-10 years we'll have robots that can handle nearly any manual labor task. In 10-15 years, we could be facing skyrocketing unemployment. We'll either see the collapse of society as the economy collapses, or we'll need to increase taxes on the owners to fund UBI.
      - ryandrake 1y ago
        This is the obvious end-state of unregulated capitalism. Fewer and fewer people owning and benefiting from the means of production, and more and more people with nothing and nothing to do besides revolt and (eventually) chop heads off. All the ownership class needs to stop the "head chopping" part is a robust and powerful police/surveillance state, which we all know they are diligently working on right now.
        ta1243 1y ago
        The wealthiest 10% of America have increased the ownership of wealth from about 40% in the 1970s to 70% today, with no sign of slowing. A typical HN techbro may not care because they're likely in the wealthiest 35 million, but the only way for the top 3 million / 1% to continue growing at the same rate once the bottom 90% have nothing more to lose is to take the wealth from the 32 million between 1% and 10%. It took 50 years for the bottom 90% to halve the ownership of wealth in the US. Once they are fully tapped out the only way the 1% will continue to increase their wealth is taking it from the 10%. Then the 0.1% from the 1%.
branko_d 1y ago
> why doesn't it happen with the chinese supply chain There are already "dark factories" that don't require light or heating because they are fully automated and don't require human presence. Guess where they are? China.

maxerickson 1y ago

"I’m trying to verify my mental model of what’s going on." Why not try to improve it?

ta1243 1y ago

OK lets assume the entire chain is automated and you don't need to employ anyone. The factory can go anywhere, in China, in France, in California, in North Dakota. What benefit is that to the average American citizen?

antihipocrat 1y ago
Maintenance would be all that remains, and I would think that cost of energy to power the facility would be the biggest driver of location
- usefulcat 1y ago
  Proximity to suppliers could be a factor..
hollerith 1y ago
The US government can tax the factory and spend the tax revenue on average Americans. The German government for example gets a big fraction of its revenue from taxes on export industries that employ only a small fraction of Germans.
- ta1243 1y ago
  So the company owning that factory moves it to Iceland or Ireland or India who don't tax it. Or you could bypass all that and simply tax Apple now, despite their factory being in China.
  - hollerith 1y ago
    The German export manufacturers show no great desire to leave Germany -- or at least they didn't till their energy supplies became very expensive in the wake of the Ukrainian invasion.
    - ta1243 1y ago
      And apple seems happy staying in California and paying the tiny amount of tax it does. Assuming no change in costs, how does moving its factories from China to Nebraska change anything, for apple, for the US government or the US citizen?

pdfernhout 1y ago

The future the USA could have had, sigh: "A brief history of Steve Jobs’ automated factory at NeXT" https://www.cultofmac.com/news/a-brief-history-of-steve-jobs-automated-factory-at-next-cook-book-leftovers https://www.cultofmac.com/news/a-brief-history-of-steve-jobs... "Put simply, there was never any necessity for NeXT to have an automated factory. Jobs might have been right that the future of just-in-time manufacturing would involve a heavy dose of automation, but it made no financial sense whatsoever to have a plant staffed with the latest robots for such a low volume business. The problem with NeXT came down to one thing: no-one (relatively speaking) was buying the computers."