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The US is manufacturing more than ever and is the second largest manufacturer in the world after China. The US middle class has actually "eroded" upwards -- our

The US is manufacturing more than ever and is the second largest manufacturer in the world after China. The US middle class has actually "eroded" upwards -- our wealthiest population cohort has tripled in the last thirty years.

bumby 1y ago
Counterpoint: We aren’t necessarily manufacturing the things that contribute to national security in the same way we were after WW2. The DoD has listed lost manufacturing capacity as a major risk. And I think you’ll need to elaborate more on your point about the middle class. Depending on how you measure it, people can move from middle class into upper class, but also into lower classes. Your post acts as if class mobility is only in one direction. A bifurcated distribution supports the point that the middle class is eroding.
jerkstate 1y ago
That’s what the data shows until you peel back the covers and understand that nothing at all could be manufactured here at all without enormous imports of not just raw materials but partially completed goods. US manufacturing output looks large economically because it’s mostly final assembly of imported partially completed goods, but if you looked at the value added (manufacturing output minus imports) it would be much smaller than other countries like China which own entire supply chains.
- sorcerer-mar 1y ago
  Outside of a few strategic industries or products, why is this bad?
  - aeternum 1y ago
    Because we can't actually make the strategic products. You might have a factory to assemble the highly strategic fighter jet in the US but it is problematic if you are dependent on foreign countries to source or manufacture the multitude of parts.
    - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
      That was in the premise of the question. Obviously if you don't have a secure supply chain for all the parts of a jet, you don't have a secure supply chain for a jet.
      - bumby 1y ago
        It’s probably hard to silo a modern weapon system in the way your question supposes, meaning it may not be a good premise.
        sorcerer-mar 1y ago
        By that logic, I guess we oughta onshore everything right? Lest there be a forgotten screw that we don't produce. And yeah, engineering a market economy is hard (read: impossible). That's why it's largely a fool's errand to try to do it comprehensively.
        bumby 1y ago
        This is a bad faith argument, and I think you know it. There is a wide gulf between “just a few industries” and “everything”. The first is naive and the latter is impractical. My suggestion is we take a targeted stance, where the solution resides in that gulf. And for what it’s worth, your screw argument belies a poor understanding, especially given your example of a jet. Aerospace parts are notoriously expensive because we want to track and manage the entire supply chain. That’s why an airplane screw can cost $1k, when naive people assume you can just pick up an equivalent part at Home Depot.
        sorcerer-mar 1y ago
        But you just said we effectively can't do it for narrow industries.
        bumby 1y ago
  - jerkstate 1y ago
    I’m going to offer a less defense-oriented point of view: manufacturing jobs are more lucrative than service jobs that are available to uneducated people, and allow them to live a more prosperous, happy life. More of these jobs is a net benefit for society.
    - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
      If you want a jobs program just say you want a jobs program. Instead of churning out uncompetitive widgets how about we tax the wealthy and employ people fixing our infrastructure?
      - jerkstate 1y ago
        It’s fallacious that manufacturing can’t be done competitively in the US, it absolutely can, but policy allows business owners to make slightly more profit by offshoring production, so that’s what happens. Regarding fixing the infrastructure, I like that idea too, but the government is pretty incompetent and full of grifters so I don’t really think that’s an efficient way to get money to poor uneducated people - most of the money will go to consultants and non-profit directors and so on.
        bumby 1y ago
        >the government is pretty incompetent and full of grifters Is this based on actual data or just vibes from your interactions with the DMV, IRS, etc.? Michael Lewis writes well about this. His perspective is that the govt often shoulders the hard problems that lack a clear path to profitability for private industry. He’s studied govt extensively and seems to have the opposite view.
        jerkstate 1y ago
        I know you aren’t the other guy, but it’s a really interesting argument that despite spending more and more money every year to solve this kind of problem, and seeing that the problem is getting worse (quality of life and economic security for uneducated people, in this case), one can still argue that the government is actually efficient and competent. It seems obvious to me that they are not successfully solving this problem with spending. I know a natural reaction is to blame one political party or the other for being especially bad, but you can see a lot of examples of failures to improve outcomes despite increasing spending at the state and local levels for both parties in the US. So if a politician comes along and says you know what, let’s try to solve this problem with policy instead of spending, the people who are suffering listen to that, even if the outcome isn’t certain.
JSteph22 1y ago
A significant portion of the trade deficit is due to heavily discounted Canadian crude imports that American oil refineries refine and resell domestically and internationally at a large markup that brings in massive revenues. American lobbying has to date successfully prevented Canada from building up its refinery capacity. Now that Trump doesn't seem to like this arrangement, Canada will likely simply stary refining its own crude. This will definitely reduce the US trade deficit but may not be good overall for the American economy. The blanket generalization that all trade deficits are subsidies is flat out wrong. You need to look into the details to determine whether a given trade arrangement is beneficial for the US or not.
immibis 1y ago
By dollar value, but not by actual amount of manufacturing. When you peel back the US's real GDP growth, it just turns out prices rose faster than inflation.

bumby 1y ago

Counterpoint: We aren’t necessarily manufacturing the things that contribute to national security in the same way we were after WW2. The DoD has listed lost manufacturing capacity as a major risk. And I think you’ll need to elaborate more on your point about the middle class. Depending on how you measure it, people can move from middle class into upper class, but also into lower classes. Your post acts as if class mobility is only in one direction. A bifurcated distribution supports the point that the middle class is eroding.

jerkstate 1y ago

That’s what the data shows until you peel back the covers and understand that nothing at all could be manufactured here at all without enormous imports of not just raw materials but partially completed goods. US manufacturing output looks large economically because it’s mostly final assembly of imported partially completed goods, but if you looked at the value added (manufacturing output minus imports) it would be much smaller than other countries like China which own entire supply chains.

sorcerer-mar 1y ago
Outside of a few strategic industries or products, why is this bad?
- aeternum 1y ago
  Because we can't actually make the strategic products. You might have a factory to assemble the highly strategic fighter jet in the US but it is problematic if you are dependent on foreign countries to source or manufacture the multitude of parts.
  - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
    That was in the premise of the question. Obviously if you don't have a secure supply chain for all the parts of a jet, you don't have a secure supply chain for a jet.
    - bumby 1y ago
      It’s probably hard to silo a modern weapon system in the way your question supposes, meaning it may not be a good premise.
      - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
        By that logic, I guess we oughta onshore everything right? Lest there be a forgotten screw that we don't produce. And yeah, engineering a market economy is hard (read: impossible). That's why it's largely a fool's errand to try to do it comprehensively.
        bumby 1y ago
        This is a bad faith argument, and I think you know it. There is a wide gulf between “just a few industries” and “everything”. The first is naive and the latter is impractical. My suggestion is we take a targeted stance, where the solution resides in that gulf. And for what it’s worth, your screw argument belies a poor understanding, especially given your example of a jet. Aerospace parts are notoriously expensive because we want to track and manage the entire supply chain. That’s why an airplane screw can cost $1k, when naive people assume you can just pick up an equivalent part at Home Depot.
        sorcerer-mar 1y ago
        But you just said we effectively can't do it for narrow industries.
        bumby 1y ago
- jerkstate 1y ago
  I’m going to offer a less defense-oriented point of view: manufacturing jobs are more lucrative than service jobs that are available to uneducated people, and allow them to live a more prosperous, happy life. More of these jobs is a net benefit for society.
  - sorcerer-mar 1y ago
    If you want a jobs program just say you want a jobs program. Instead of churning out uncompetitive widgets how about we tax the wealthy and employ people fixing our infrastructure?
    - jerkstate 1y ago
      It’s fallacious that manufacturing can’t be done competitively in the US, it absolutely can, but policy allows business owners to make slightly more profit by offshoring production, so that’s what happens. Regarding fixing the infrastructure, I like that idea too, but the government is pretty incompetent and full of grifters so I don’t really think that’s an efficient way to get money to poor uneducated people - most of the money will go to consultants and non-profit directors and so on.
      - bumby 1y ago
        >the government is pretty incompetent and full of grifters Is this based on actual data or just vibes from your interactions with the DMV, IRS, etc.? Michael Lewis writes well about this. His perspective is that the govt often shoulders the hard problems that lack a clear path to profitability for private industry. He’s studied govt extensively and seems to have the opposite view.
        jerkstate 1y ago
        I know you aren’t the other guy, but it’s a really interesting argument that despite spending more and more money every year to solve this kind of problem, and seeing that the problem is getting worse (quality of life and economic security for uneducated people, in this case), one can still argue that the government is actually efficient and competent. It seems obvious to me that they are not successfully solving this problem with spending. I know a natural reaction is to blame one political party or the other for being especially bad, but you can see a lot of examples of failures to improve outcomes despite increasing spending at the state and local levels for both parties in the US. So if a politician comes along and says you know what, let’s try to solve this problem with policy instead of spending, the people who are suffering listen to that, even if the outcome isn’t certain.

JSteph22 1y ago

A significant portion of the trade deficit is due to heavily discounted Canadian crude imports that American oil refineries refine and resell domestically and internationally at a large markup that brings in massive revenues. American lobbying has to date successfully prevented Canada from building up its refinery capacity. Now that Trump doesn't seem to like this arrangement, Canada will likely simply stary refining its own crude. This will definitely reduce the US trade deficit but may not be good overall for the American economy. The blanket generalization that all trade deficits are subsidies is flat out wrong. You need to look into the details to determine whether a given trade arrangement is beneficial for the US or not.

immibis 1y ago

By dollar value, but not by actual amount of manufacturing. When you peel back the US's real GDP growth, it just turns out prices rose faster than inflation.