8 ms·

The decline of high-tech manufacturing in the United States

intalentive 1y ago
America’s ruling class has driven the country into a ditch. I am profoundly skeptical of their willingness or ability to fix the mess they have made over the past several decades. This is what they wanted. This is what happens when finance capital holds the whip hand over the state. China furnishes an example of the opposite.
Gud 1y ago
Meanwhile, american companies are 1) Building a grid of satellites, surpassing most networks, SpaceX 2) Building a carbon fibre rocket, Rocket Lab 3) Building fusion reactors, Commonwealth Fusion Systems 4) Advanced solar panels, First Solar. Hard to say how this will all pan out but the USA are absolutely at the forefront of high tech manufacturing. Obviously they are lagging behind in some ends. Poor rail networks, for example.
jonezie 1y ago
War will be automated before too long as well. The Chinese are far ahead of the west in automation of production lines too. Basically, we need to be nice to China, not try and start a war with them. Historically, there’s no evidence to say that china would start a war so I guess that’s up to the west to chill out and accept that they’re not number one anymore.
chrsw 1y ago
1. Do we really want these jobs to come back to the US? 2. If we do, what cost are we willing to pay for it?
- smitty1e 1y ago
  3. If we don't, who eats the blame when the strategic failure comes home to roost?
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    Given current trajections: either Biden, Hilary, or Obama. Changes based on the day. Democrats by default are always at blame, of course.
- noosphr 1y ago
  Does the US need a functioning war force that China can't turn off when they feel like it? This happens: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/22/books.france https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/22/books.france
  - 8note 1y ago
    couldnt china make the same threat of nuking america if america doesnt give over its nuclear codes?
    - sieabahlpark 1y ago
      [dead]
    - noosphr 1y ago
      If you read the article you'd realize the whole point is that they won't have to if they are the ones who built the conventional forces in the first place.
  - 4gotunameagain 1y ago
    Maybe maintaining interdependencies will maintain peace. But of course this is not going to happen, we are on course for conflict.
- pokstad 1y ago
  People need purpose. It’s not enough to work in an Amazon warehouse selling stuff from China to make ends meet or driving Ubers. These manufacturing jobs aren’t low skill industrial age jobs, they are highly skilled professions that improve our national security.
  - bilbo0s 1y ago
    I think the implication of question 2 is who, exactly, are we going to tax to get the money to pay for all the highly skilled professionals needed? Everyone can't be working for a military contractor. Someone has to pay the costs of moving the legions of workers needed into those jobs. And taxing the uber drivers, walmart stockboys, or the Amazon warehouse workers is just not going to get us there. In my view, the way forward is, unfortunately, automation. We can't bring that manufacturing back using the same labor basis as is used in Asia. Just to put that labor basis in perspective, we'd be looking at millions of jobs that the military would be funding through sub-contracts. We have to get some of that work done through industrial automation without creating jobs. We need to do that not only to make this sustainable, but really even to make this feasible at all.
  - Analemma_ 1y ago
    I've yet to be convinced that manufacturing jobs inherently give more "purpose" than white-collar work, and I think posts like yours are mostly ungrounded fantasy. Ironically, that kind of rose-tinted nostalgia is usually coming from people who have never actually worked a manufacturing job themselves and can only guess at what it's like from internet memes. I recommend this quasi-review of Rivethead by Ben Hamper if you want a taste of what "manufacturing jobs" were actually like: a lot of people drinking themselves stupid to escape the monotony and utter lack of agency in their work. And this was at one of the Big Three automakers, supposedly the peak of what we're trying to return to! [0] [0]: https://kontextmaschine.tumblr.com/post/96390732283/happy-labor-day https://kontextmaschine.tumblr.com/post/96390732283/happy-la...
  - nemothekid 1y ago
    >People need purpose. I can't help but feel you are romanticizing manufacturing jobs. The vast number of manufacturing jobs that "give people purpose" are still here - those people just travel to china once a quarter. The guy that stands at a station for 8 hours a day, stamping the same 4 bolts into a car frame does not have anymore "purpose" than a guy running around in an Amazon warehouse.
- lettergram 1y ago
  Yes. Strategically, it makes sense for the US, much like Russia and China to be independent. Sanctions weren’t effective on Russia because they had most of what they needed domestically and partner markets to sell those goods to. When the US tried to impose sanctions on China, China called the bluff and blocked strategic materials. The US “trade deal” wasn’t much different than how it started. In terms of willing to pay for it; what’s having a country worth? Because if a competing country can withhold resources you need, you’re effectively a junior partner. Ultimately, reduce over seas benefits, tariff and offer tax write offs to build on shore. Then you’ll have better higher paying jobs and onshore manufacturing. More real GDP from goods will not have a negative impact or cost, it’s part of why Germany and Japan grew rapidly (they had tight import controls, to build a domestic industry). Also, the majority of the country voted for Trump and this was his #1 issue. Like him or hate him, the desire for domestic protection is what elected him.
  - justinrubek 1y ago
    Given that only 65% of people voted, the majority did not vote that way. Plurality is likely the word you're looking for.
  - delecti 1y ago
    I don't think it refutes your point that supply chain dependence is a tactical weakness, but sanctions weren't effective on Russia because half the world is still buying their oil.
    - lettergram 1y ago
      Also true, kind of ment the chip sanctions. They transitioned to China and domestic production.
- mc32 1y ago
  They would pay better than fast-food. So, I think so. When we started shipping manufacturing jobs overseas people in power would say that the future was in service jobs. Ha! What a joke. Every population has a bell curve distribution --i.e. not everyone can work toward being a high value-add service jobber. We manufactured high end handsets (Motorola) stateside till roughly 2014. Sun manufactured workstations in the East bay. If you go back further Cisco and 3Com used to manufacture in the South bay. It was better than working at Mickey D's. So, yeah, we'd want these stateside. Better than having people out in the streets strung out on drugs not even aware their lives are going down a whirlpool. Everyone since Obama paid lip service to bringing back manufacturing jobs --they were doing this to pretend they cared about the blue collar folks Clinton, G "H" W and G "W" sold out. I blame Clinton the most because he just let China ascend to the WTO despite knowing the Chinese had loopholes allowing them to ignore much of the conditions. "W" just didn't care.
  - varispeed 1y ago
    The economy is going downhill, precisely because we have no manufacturing and investment funds are in full asset stripping mode. In few years there will be no one to buy said services and everything will implode.
- wenc 1y ago
  If we want US manufacturing, it has to: 1) Meet or exceed spec (this shouldn't be a problem) 2) Lower TCO than competition -- labor, automation (this is where the US is current uncompetitive on the lower-end, very competitive on the high-end). 3) Non-cost strategic requirements compared to the competition -- supply chain resilience, national security, lower lead time, consumer preference for US made (but not all products fall into these categories) 4) Benefit from policy intervention like subsidies, tariffs, tax incentives and regulations vis-a-vis competition (the problem with these protections is they make US products uncompetitive in the long run in the international market -- US cars for instance are not competitive in most countries)
d_sem 1y ago
When I see data like this i'm reminded of the history of automotive manufacturing in the 20th century and the several waves of technological changes that re-wrote the role local labor played in building cars. The question isn't, what are the absolute number of jobs in a given sector. The question is, what are the overall trends in productivity, robustness of supply chain, and relative competitiveness in the market.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  Good callout. Also, a major pet peeve of mine for over a decade now has been the lack of granularity in classifying "high tech" jobs. Most studies use BLS codes, but those are extremely dated - they still treat a typist like a skilled worker and a machinist as a semi- or low-skilled worker. In reality, aside from macro-level production stats and private sector signals such as dealflow, we have no idea about the rate of production in the US. From personal experience, I doubt any "make in America" policy would lead to more jobs - most low and medium level assembly roles have been automation friendly for decades now (even in India you can buy and install a programmable soldering robot for roughly the same amount as a year's salary for an employee). Most discourse is divorced from reality, I blame this on the lack of engineers in the policy space - most of us with those backgrounds would rather remain in the private sector, because an LA or think tank staffer salary ain't making rent in DC. If you do not know the difference between AC or DC or what solder flux is, let alone further intricacies, you have no position making industrial policy or grand strategy for American manufacturing or engineering (this is a shot fired at you so called "Software Engineers" as well - Leetcode doesn't mean you understand how Infiniband works). But this principal also works in reverse w/ regards to policy matters imo.
  - ericmay 1y ago
    > I doubt any "make in America" policy would lead to more jobs This seems guaranteed to be false because at a minimum you’d have construction workers building manufacturing facilities. But I don’t think you meant it literally, which leads to my next point which is that even if moving a factory making X widget from (insert country here) resulted in a single job at the expense of any number of jobs in (insert country), I would deem that trade off to generally be worth it. Now as we add in prices and cost and all those things it means there’s a social cost to moving those jobs back, but often times the “jobs” angle is that moving production here or even to other western countries won’t create that many jobs, but even if it’s 1 it’s 1 more than before. I think it’s better and more important to think of the whole package of trade-offs instead of caring about number of jobs.
laughing_man 1y ago
1987, literally the peak cold war military spending, is an interesting year for comparison. Much of that high tech manufacturing (and employment) was underwritten by the taxpayers through the Pentagon, and that military tech eventually made its way into the civilian market. Very soon after the US took a decade-long "procurement holiday", and we lost an enormous amount of manufacturing expertise. Can we bring those jobs back? Sure, with a lot of tax money. Do we want to? I do - the value of "service economy" jobs is in free fall as companies replace white collar employees with LLMs.
- avalys 1y ago
  Is this really about military spending? The US used to make so many products and appliances domestically - everything from steel to uranium to doorknobs to refrigerators to chemicals to CRT displays to roofing shingles, and everything in between. The military benefited from the massive industrial base that supported this production - but it didn’t create it. And now the loss of that domestic manufacturing base is largely why military production - and indeed, any kind of large-scale endeavor in the US, including construction - is slow and expensive.
  - bad_haircut72 1y ago
    its not specifically military spending, just good government. If they pivoted after the cold war back into the space race or something, we would still have a high tech sector and it need not necessarily be military focussed
    - speed_spread 1y ago
      Could also have invested in public education and healthcare but noooo
      - laughing_man 1y ago
        The US spends twice what we spent in 1970 on education per student, in constant dollars. I don't know how to make the schools better, but money sure didn't do it. And we're going broke paying for health care. I don't know how much more we spend, but it's multiples.
varispeed 1y ago
It's painfully obvious if you want to make something in very much any western country. There are very few firms you can subcontract CNC work or PCB assembly. Then the costs are so high, your product will be dead on arrival price wise, but also there is lack of skill and capabilities. Unless you are dealing with companies that supply to the military, you'll get poor workmanship and months long lead times. Might as well just give up or... Just subcontract work to China. Sure, there is many crap suppliers, but once you find good ones, it's another league in very much every aspect. Parts take days to deliver, not months and are top quality. I think many people don't realise that we are very much in the middle of shit creek and without a paddle.
- A_D_E_P_T 1y ago
  > Unless you are dealing with companies that supply to the military, you'll get poor workmanship and months long lead times. Might as well just give up or... This is true even if you deal with companies that supply to the military. > Just subcontract work to China. The thing that kills me is that dealing with China is so much easier than dealing with anywhere else. Part of it seems to be an attitude thing. Like, if I shoot somebody in China an email, it will inevitably be answered within 24 hours, and more likely within 4. Send an email to an EU or US company, and you're often (I'd say typically) going to wait days for a response. I've never seen that, not once, in dealing with a Chinese firm. What's more, if you're buying from their B2B megamarkets (like 1688.com) they almost always have live 24/7 customer service and procurement support available on chat. The other part is that, if you know what you're doing, it's less risky. I was chatting with a French vineyard owner a couple of years ago. He was pulling white vines to plant more red varieties, because his best clients, the Chinese, preferred reds. He told me that dealing with China was easy -- they'd always pay in advance, and a handshake deal was always honored. Dealing with the US, in contrast, was a nightmare of legal quicksand, double-dealing, and Net-30 that always seemed to turn into Net-90.
  - ai4u 1y ago
    In fact, China has a complete surplus of productive capacity because of its large population. Every path that can lead to remuneration by meeting demand is crowded with people.
bix6 1y ago
Meanwhile farmers are also struggling but we can just eat AI right?
nostrademons 1y ago
So here's what I don't get about the public discourse on manufacturing in the U.S: When I talk to people who actually run factories here, they say that manufacturing in the U.S. is fine. It's just highly, highly automated. You'll have a production line that takes in plastic and chips and solder, and spits out consumer electronics at the end, and there are maybe a couple dozen employees in the whole plant whose job is to babysit the line and fix any machine that goes awry. Their description is backed up by data: manufacturing output has been flat since roughly 2000 [1], but manufacturing employment has dropped by more than 50% [2]. The public discourse about why we want to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. has been split into two main points (and you'll see it in comments here): 1) We should bring back manufacturing jobs so that we can have good, middle-class wages for the large segment of the population that's currently in low-wage service jobs and about to be displaced by AI. 2) We should bring back manufactured goods so that if we go to war with China, we can still make all the things we need to wage that war. If it's #2, that's fair enough, and every indicator is that we can do that, it'll just take time and capital and perhaps some entrepreneurship. But it won't fix #1. Just like all other manufacturing in America today, the lines will be highly automated and largely run by themself. And that's a good thing - if we go to war, we want highly productive, distributed factories because we'll need the people to actually fight the war itself. The jobs are not coming back. If you expect someone with a high-school degree to be able to own a home today, the solution is not to put them to work in a factory ("manufacturing engineer" is a skilled job today anyway, not unlike a computer programmer), but to automate building houses and get rid of zoning/permitting constraints so that there are actually enough houses for everybody. Is this just a case where politicians tell voters what they want to hear so they can go do what they want to do anyway? "We're going to bring back good high-paying manufacturing jobs for everyone" is a lot more palatable message than "We're going to go to war so you can die." [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP
- mattnewton 1y ago
  I think it’s as simple as the selective pressures in our democratic system push for this rhetoric. Politicians who pitch “I match your worldview and will implement the simple fixes you want” outcompete “I think your worldview is incomplete and this is what you really want instead”, by a lot. Some might be very crafty and believe the second while shouting like the first. Many will actually believe the simple solution can work though.
hypeatei 1y ago
With the US unemployment rate being so low, with birth rates below replacement levels, and with anti-immigration sentiment: how do proponents of "bring everything back" plan to deal with the human capital problem? Besides that, bringing everything back would surely raise prices quite substantially and we've seen how voters reacted to COVID inflation.
- ericmay 1y ago
  There are 340 million or so people in the United States - what’s the human capital problem? It seems like we have a skills gap, and I’d agree if that’s what you had in mind, but shear manpower? I’d have to see some extraordinary evidence to convince me otherwise. Even for agriculture or construction it’s not like America can’t issue seasonal work permits or something. We have plenty of levers there and plenty of folks who would come work here. > Besides that, bringing everything back would surely raise prices quite substantially and we've seen how voters reacted to COVID inflation. Agreed, but if both parties get behind it, I don’t think it would matter too much.
  - hypeatei 1y ago
    > There are 340 million or so people in the United States - what’s the human capital problem? As I mentioned, the unemployment rate is already low. Looking at total population numbers is a fools errand since not every single person is able to work (or willing) > it’s not like America can’t issue seasonal work permits or something How does that fare against the anti-immigration i.e. "only Americans should work these jobs" sentiment? > and plenty of folks who would come work here. Agreed. > but if both parties get behind it, I don’t think it would matter too much. That's pretty hand wavey and doesn't address the very price sensitive culture that the US voter base has.
    - ericmay 1y ago
      > As I mentioned, the unemployment rate is already low. Looking at total population numbers is a fools errand since not every single person is able to work (or willing) Similarly looking at the unemployment number (which is rising) doesn’t give you the full picture in this context, because full employment != efficient employment. Something like yea maybe we just have fewer Starbucks baristas or web developers and instead they go into manufacturing and construction. Starbucks responds by automating or closing some borderline profitable stores, or people stop buying Starbucks but spend more on an espresso machine or a TV made in the USA. To rephrase maybe, I don’t disagree with your broader point, but I’m just not sure our population’s work efforts are being efficiently allocated. They’re focused on service sector economy generated positions (dating apps, coffee shops, clerical work - contrived examples), but we can change the mix-up and orientation of our economy. So you get less of some jobs and folks switch around some. > How does that fare against the anti-immigration i.e. "only Americans should work these jobs" sentiment? Idk, doesn’t seem to bother my neighbor having a new garage built with very clearly immigrant labor. I don’t care either, though I support secure borders and fair paths to immigration. I think how people generally feel about immigration is similar, though Trumpistan is just -particularly loud about the worst and dumbest aspects of it, whereas the vast majority of people aren’t that crazy. At least that has been my experience living in Ohio. > That's pretty hand wavey and doesn't address the very price sensitive culture that the US voter base has Well if both parties supported the approximate same position, voters would go to the ballot box and either pick the Republican version of it or the Democratic version of it. People can be lead to believe anything. War is peace, freedom is slavery, inflation is deflation, etc. I won’t say it’s not hand-wavy, but politics is kind of hand-wavy sometimes isn’t it?
juujian 1y ago
Note that "Aerospace" is largely arms, not passenger airplanes. It's the billion-dollar bomb the U.S. has dropped on Afghanistan, and air-to-air missiles that cost 10s of millions of dollars each to manufacture. There aren't even any benefits accruing to a large population, it is actually the opposite.
protocolture 1y ago
Honestly prefer manufacturing in politically stable countries like China. The US is just too big a risk.
tekno45 1y ago
people always want manufacturing jobs that manufacture widgets. If we spent time expanding and heck just properly maintaining our infrastructure we'd have plenty of blue collar jobs that pay well. but infrastructure is an unspoken sin in modern america.
esseph 1y ago
This article is fantastic
cayu-ai 1y ago
We work in blue-collar industries such as logistics and manufacturing, the backbone of the U.S. economy, where most processes remain manual. Small and mid-sized companies resist change. Convincing them to adopt even basic “data entry” automation can take months. Many prefer to keep friends or relatives on the payroll instead of modernizing. At the level of production lines or logistics functions, the resistance is stronger. The prevailing view is: “we have done it this way for decades, why change.” I believe the future will not come from persuading reluctant incumbents. It will come from new manufacturing companies that start digital-first, with AI at their core. These firms will redeploy workers into higher-value roles, outpace legacy operators, and set a new standard for U.S. competitiveness. Case in point - China. They started manufacturing companies mostly from 2000s, using slightly more modern tech than US did in 50s. Obviously, China has more efficiency and higher production capacity per (any normalized unit). Or, in financial services, in APAC, nobody uses checks, or even in Africa. Because they did not have to deal with legacy financial systems. The opportunity is not to patch the old, but to build the new.

America’s ruling class has driven the country into a ditch. I am profoundly skeptical of their willingness or ability to fix the mess they have made over the past several decades. This is what they wanted. This is what happens when finance capital holds the whip hand over the state. China furnishes an example of the opposite.

Gud 1y ago

Meanwhile, american companies are 1) Building a grid of satellites, surpassing most networks, SpaceX 2) Building a carbon fibre rocket, Rocket Lab 3) Building fusion reactors, Commonwealth Fusion Systems 4) Advanced solar panels, First Solar. Hard to say how this will all pan out but the USA are absolutely at the forefront of high tech manufacturing. Obviously they are lagging behind in some ends. Poor rail networks, for example.

jonezie 1y ago

War will be automated before too long as well. The Chinese are far ahead of the west in automation of production lines too. Basically, we need to be nice to China, not try and start a war with them. Historically, there’s no evidence to say that china would start a war so I guess that’s up to the west to chill out and accept that they’re not number one anymore.

chrsw 1y ago

1. Do we really want these jobs to come back to the US? 2. If we do, what cost are we willing to pay for it?

smitty1e 1y ago
3. If we don't, who eats the blame when the strategic failure comes home to roost?
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  Given current trajections: either Biden, Hilary, or Obama. Changes based on the day. Democrats by default are always at blame, of course.
noosphr 1y ago
Does the US need a functioning war force that China can't turn off when they feel like it? This happens: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/22/books.france https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/22/books.france
- 8note 1y ago
  couldnt china make the same threat of nuking america if america doesnt give over its nuclear codes?
  - sieabahlpark 1y ago
    [dead]
  - noosphr 1y ago
    If you read the article you'd realize the whole point is that they won't have to if they are the ones who built the conventional forces in the first place.
- 4gotunameagain 1y ago
  Maybe maintaining interdependencies will maintain peace. But of course this is not going to happen, we are on course for conflict.
pokstad 1y ago
People need purpose. It’s not enough to work in an Amazon warehouse selling stuff from China to make ends meet or driving Ubers. These manufacturing jobs aren’t low skill industrial age jobs, they are highly skilled professions that improve our national security.
- bilbo0s 1y ago
  I think the implication of question 2 is who, exactly, are we going to tax to get the money to pay for all the highly skilled professionals needed? Everyone can't be working for a military contractor. Someone has to pay the costs of moving the legions of workers needed into those jobs. And taxing the uber drivers, walmart stockboys, or the Amazon warehouse workers is just not going to get us there. In my view, the way forward is, unfortunately, automation. We can't bring that manufacturing back using the same labor basis as is used in Asia. Just to put that labor basis in perspective, we'd be looking at millions of jobs that the military would be funding through sub-contracts. We have to get some of that work done through industrial automation without creating jobs. We need to do that not only to make this sustainable, but really even to make this feasible at all.
- Analemma_ 1y ago
  I've yet to be convinced that manufacturing jobs inherently give more "purpose" than white-collar work, and I think posts like yours are mostly ungrounded fantasy. Ironically, that kind of rose-tinted nostalgia is usually coming from people who have never actually worked a manufacturing job themselves and can only guess at what it's like from internet memes. I recommend this quasi-review of Rivethead by Ben Hamper if you want a taste of what "manufacturing jobs" were actually like: a lot of people drinking themselves stupid to escape the monotony and utter lack of agency in their work. And this was at one of the Big Three automakers, supposedly the peak of what we're trying to return to! [0] [0]: https://kontextmaschine.tumblr.com/post/96390732283/happy-labor-day https://kontextmaschine.tumblr.com/post/96390732283/happy-la...
- nemothekid 1y ago
  >People need purpose. I can't help but feel you are romanticizing manufacturing jobs. The vast number of manufacturing jobs that "give people purpose" are still here - those people just travel to china once a quarter. The guy that stands at a station for 8 hours a day, stamping the same 4 bolts into a car frame does not have anymore "purpose" than a guy running around in an Amazon warehouse.
lettergram 1y ago
Yes. Strategically, it makes sense for the US, much like Russia and China to be independent. Sanctions weren’t effective on Russia because they had most of what they needed domestically and partner markets to sell those goods to. When the US tried to impose sanctions on China, China called the bluff and blocked strategic materials. The US “trade deal” wasn’t much different than how it started. In terms of willing to pay for it; what’s having a country worth? Because if a competing country can withhold resources you need, you’re effectively a junior partner. Ultimately, reduce over seas benefits, tariff and offer tax write offs to build on shore. Then you’ll have better higher paying jobs and onshore manufacturing. More real GDP from goods will not have a negative impact or cost, it’s part of why Germany and Japan grew rapidly (they had tight import controls, to build a domestic industry). Also, the majority of the country voted for Trump and this was his #1 issue. Like him or hate him, the desire for domestic protection is what elected him.
- justinrubek 1y ago
  Given that only 65% of people voted, the majority did not vote that way. Plurality is likely the word you're looking for.
- delecti 1y ago
  I don't think it refutes your point that supply chain dependence is a tactical weakness, but sanctions weren't effective on Russia because half the world is still buying their oil.
  - lettergram 1y ago
    Also true, kind of ment the chip sanctions. They transitioned to China and domestic production.
mc32 1y ago
They would pay better than fast-food. So, I think so. When we started shipping manufacturing jobs overseas people in power would say that the future was in service jobs. Ha! What a joke. Every population has a bell curve distribution --i.e. not everyone can work toward being a high value-add service jobber. We manufactured high end handsets (Motorola) stateside till roughly 2014. Sun manufactured workstations in the East bay. If you go back further Cisco and 3Com used to manufacture in the South bay. It was better than working at Mickey D's. So, yeah, we'd want these stateside. Better than having people out in the streets strung out on drugs not even aware their lives are going down a whirlpool. Everyone since Obama paid lip service to bringing back manufacturing jobs --they were doing this to pretend they cared about the blue collar folks Clinton, G "H" W and G "W" sold out. I blame Clinton the most because he just let China ascend to the WTO despite knowing the Chinese had loopholes allowing them to ignore much of the conditions. "W" just didn't care.
- varispeed 1y ago
  The economy is going downhill, precisely because we have no manufacturing and investment funds are in full asset stripping mode. In few years there will be no one to buy said services and everything will implode.
wenc 1y ago
If we want US manufacturing, it has to: 1) Meet or exceed spec (this shouldn't be a problem) 2) Lower TCO than competition -- labor, automation (this is where the US is current uncompetitive on the lower-end, very competitive on the high-end). 3) Non-cost strategic requirements compared to the competition -- supply chain resilience, national security, lower lead time, consumer preference for US made (but not all products fall into these categories) 4) Benefit from policy intervention like subsidies, tariffs, tax incentives and regulations vis-a-vis competition (the problem with these protections is they make US products uncompetitive in the long run in the international market -- US cars for instance are not competitive in most countries)

d_sem 1y ago

When I see data like this i'm reminded of the history of automotive manufacturing in the 20th century and the several waves of technological changes that re-wrote the role local labor played in building cars. The question isn't, what are the absolute number of jobs in a given sector. The question is, what are the overall trends in productivity, robustness of supply chain, and relative competitiveness in the market.

alephnerd 1y ago
Good callout. Also, a major pet peeve of mine for over a decade now has been the lack of granularity in classifying "high tech" jobs. Most studies use BLS codes, but those are extremely dated - they still treat a typist like a skilled worker and a machinist as a semi- or low-skilled worker. In reality, aside from macro-level production stats and private sector signals such as dealflow, we have no idea about the rate of production in the US. From personal experience, I doubt any "make in America" policy would lead to more jobs - most low and medium level assembly roles have been automation friendly for decades now (even in India you can buy and install a programmable soldering robot for roughly the same amount as a year's salary for an employee). Most discourse is divorced from reality, I blame this on the lack of engineers in the policy space - most of us with those backgrounds would rather remain in the private sector, because an LA or think tank staffer salary ain't making rent in DC. If you do not know the difference between AC or DC or what solder flux is, let alone further intricacies, you have no position making industrial policy or grand strategy for American manufacturing or engineering (this is a shot fired at you so called "Software Engineers" as well - Leetcode doesn't mean you understand how Infiniband works). But this principal also works in reverse w/ regards to policy matters imo.
- ericmay 1y ago
  > I doubt any "make in America" policy would lead to more jobs This seems guaranteed to be false because at a minimum you’d have construction workers building manufacturing facilities. But I don’t think you meant it literally, which leads to my next point which is that even if moving a factory making X widget from (insert country here) resulted in a single job at the expense of any number of jobs in (insert country), I would deem that trade off to generally be worth it. Now as we add in prices and cost and all those things it means there’s a social cost to moving those jobs back, but often times the “jobs” angle is that moving production here or even to other western countries won’t create that many jobs, but even if it’s 1 it’s 1 more than before. I think it’s better and more important to think of the whole package of trade-offs instead of caring about number of jobs.

laughing_man 1y ago

1987, literally the peak cold war military spending, is an interesting year for comparison. Much of that high tech manufacturing (and employment) was underwritten by the taxpayers through the Pentagon, and that military tech eventually made its way into the civilian market. Very soon after the US took a decade-long "procurement holiday", and we lost an enormous amount of manufacturing expertise. Can we bring those jobs back? Sure, with a lot of tax money. Do we want to? I do - the value of "service economy" jobs is in free fall as companies replace white collar employees with LLMs.

avalys 1y ago
Is this really about military spending? The US used to make so many products and appliances domestically - everything from steel to uranium to doorknobs to refrigerators to chemicals to CRT displays to roofing shingles, and everything in between. The military benefited from the massive industrial base that supported this production - but it didn’t create it. And now the loss of that domestic manufacturing base is largely why military production - and indeed, any kind of large-scale endeavor in the US, including construction - is slow and expensive.
- bad_haircut72 1y ago
  its not specifically military spending, just good government. If they pivoted after the cold war back into the space race or something, we would still have a high tech sector and it need not necessarily be military focussed
  - speed_spread 1y ago
    Could also have invested in public education and healthcare but noooo
    - laughing_man 1y ago
      The US spends twice what we spent in 1970 on education per student, in constant dollars. I don't know how to make the schools better, but money sure didn't do it. And we're going broke paying for health care. I don't know how much more we spend, but it's multiples.

varispeed 1y ago

It's painfully obvious if you want to make something in very much any western country. There are very few firms you can subcontract CNC work or PCB assembly. Then the costs are so high, your product will be dead on arrival price wise, but also there is lack of skill and capabilities. Unless you are dealing with companies that supply to the military, you'll get poor workmanship and months long lead times. Might as well just give up or... Just subcontract work to China. Sure, there is many crap suppliers, but once you find good ones, it's another league in very much every aspect. Parts take days to deliver, not months and are top quality. I think many people don't realise that we are very much in the middle of shit creek and without a paddle.

A_D_E_P_T 1y ago
> Unless you are dealing with companies that supply to the military, you'll get poor workmanship and months long lead times. Might as well just give up or... This is true even if you deal with companies that supply to the military. > Just subcontract work to China. The thing that kills me is that dealing with China is so much easier than dealing with anywhere else. Part of it seems to be an attitude thing. Like, if I shoot somebody in China an email, it will inevitably be answered within 24 hours, and more likely within 4. Send an email to an EU or US company, and you're often (I'd say typically) going to wait days for a response. I've never seen that, not once, in dealing with a Chinese firm. What's more, if you're buying from their B2B megamarkets (like 1688.com) they almost always have live 24/7 customer service and procurement support available on chat. The other part is that, if you know what you're doing, it's less risky. I was chatting with a French vineyard owner a couple of years ago. He was pulling white vines to plant more red varieties, because his best clients, the Chinese, preferred reds. He told me that dealing with China was easy -- they'd always pay in advance, and a handshake deal was always honored. Dealing with the US, in contrast, was a nightmare of legal quicksand, double-dealing, and Net-30 that always seemed to turn into Net-90.
- ai4u 1y ago
  In fact, China has a complete surplus of productive capacity because of its large population. Every path that can lead to remuneration by meeting demand is crowded with people.

bix6 1y ago

Meanwhile farmers are also struggling but we can just eat AI right?

nostrademons 1y ago

So here's what I don't get about the public discourse on manufacturing in the U.S: When I talk to people who actually run factories here, they say that manufacturing in the U.S. is fine. It's just highly, highly automated. You'll have a production line that takes in plastic and chips and solder, and spits out consumer electronics at the end, and there are maybe a couple dozen employees in the whole plant whose job is to babysit the line and fix any machine that goes awry. Their description is backed up by data: manufacturing output has been flat since roughly 2000 [1], but manufacturing employment has dropped by more than 50% [2]. The public discourse about why we want to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. has been split into two main points (and you'll see it in comments here): 1) We should bring back manufacturing jobs so that we can have good, middle-class wages for the large segment of the population that's currently in low-wage service jobs and about to be displaced by AI. 2) We should bring back manufactured goods so that if we go to war with China, we can still make all the things we need to wage that war. If it's #2, that's fair enough, and every indicator is that we can do that, it'll just take time and capital and perhaps some entrepreneurship. But it won't fix #1. Just like all other manufacturing in America today, the lines will be highly automated and largely run by themself. And that's a good thing - if we go to war, we want highly productive, distributed factories because we'll need the people to actually fight the war itself. The jobs are not coming back. If you expect someone with a high-school degree to be able to own a home today, the solution is not to put them to work in a factory ("manufacturing engineer" is a skilled job today anyway, not unlike a computer programmer), but to automate building houses and get rid of zoning/permitting constraints so that there are actually enough houses for everybody. Is this just a case where politicians tell voters what they want to hear so they can go do what they want to do anyway? "We're going to bring back good high-paying manufacturing jobs for everyone" is a lot more palatable message than "We're going to go to war so you can die." [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP

mattnewton 1y ago
I think it’s as simple as the selective pressures in our democratic system push for this rhetoric. Politicians who pitch “I match your worldview and will implement the simple fixes you want” outcompete “I think your worldview is incomplete and this is what you really want instead”, by a lot. Some might be very crafty and believe the second while shouting like the first. Many will actually believe the simple solution can work though.

hypeatei 1y ago

With the US unemployment rate being so low, with birth rates below replacement levels, and with anti-immigration sentiment: how do proponents of "bring everything back" plan to deal with the human capital problem? Besides that, bringing everything back would surely raise prices quite substantially and we've seen how voters reacted to COVID inflation.

ericmay 1y ago
There are 340 million or so people in the United States - what’s the human capital problem? It seems like we have a skills gap, and I’d agree if that’s what you had in mind, but shear manpower? I’d have to see some extraordinary evidence to convince me otherwise. Even for agriculture or construction it’s not like America can’t issue seasonal work permits or something. We have plenty of levers there and plenty of folks who would come work here. > Besides that, bringing everything back would surely raise prices quite substantially and we've seen how voters reacted to COVID inflation. Agreed, but if both parties get behind it, I don’t think it would matter too much.
- hypeatei 1y ago
  > There are 340 million or so people in the United States - what’s the human capital problem? As I mentioned, the unemployment rate is already low. Looking at total population numbers is a fools errand since not every single person is able to work (or willing) > it’s not like America can’t issue seasonal work permits or something How does that fare against the anti-immigration i.e. "only Americans should work these jobs" sentiment? > and plenty of folks who would come work here. Agreed. > but if both parties get behind it, I don’t think it would matter too much. That's pretty hand wavey and doesn't address the very price sensitive culture that the US voter base has.
  - ericmay 1y ago
    > As I mentioned, the unemployment rate is already low. Looking at total population numbers is a fools errand since not every single person is able to work (or willing) Similarly looking at the unemployment number (which is rising) doesn’t give you the full picture in this context, because full employment != efficient employment. Something like yea maybe we just have fewer Starbucks baristas or web developers and instead they go into manufacturing and construction. Starbucks responds by automating or closing some borderline profitable stores, or people stop buying Starbucks but spend more on an espresso machine or a TV made in the USA. To rephrase maybe, I don’t disagree with your broader point, but I’m just not sure our population’s work efforts are being efficiently allocated. They’re focused on service sector economy generated positions (dating apps, coffee shops, clerical work - contrived examples), but we can change the mix-up and orientation of our economy. So you get less of some jobs and folks switch around some. > How does that fare against the anti-immigration i.e. "only Americans should work these jobs" sentiment? Idk, doesn’t seem to bother my neighbor having a new garage built with very clearly immigrant labor. I don’t care either, though I support secure borders and fair paths to immigration. I think how people generally feel about immigration is similar, though Trumpistan is just -particularly loud about the worst and dumbest aspects of it, whereas the vast majority of people aren’t that crazy. At least that has been my experience living in Ohio. > That's pretty hand wavey and doesn't address the very price sensitive culture that the US voter base has Well if both parties supported the approximate same position, voters would go to the ballot box and either pick the Republican version of it or the Democratic version of it. People can be lead to believe anything. War is peace, freedom is slavery, inflation is deflation, etc. I won’t say it’s not hand-wavy, but politics is kind of hand-wavy sometimes isn’t it?

juujian 1y ago

Note that "Aerospace" is largely arms, not passenger airplanes. It's the billion-dollar bomb the U.S. has dropped on Afghanistan, and air-to-air missiles that cost 10s of millions of dollars each to manufacture. There aren't even any benefits accruing to a large population, it is actually the opposite.

protocolture 1y ago

Honestly prefer manufacturing in politically stable countries like China. The US is just too big a risk.

tekno45 1y ago

people always want manufacturing jobs that manufacture widgets. If we spent time expanding and heck just properly maintaining our infrastructure we'd have plenty of blue collar jobs that pay well. but infrastructure is an unspoken sin in modern america.

esseph 1y ago

This article is fantastic

cayu-ai 1y ago

We work in blue-collar industries such as logistics and manufacturing, the backbone of the U.S. economy, where most processes remain manual. Small and mid-sized companies resist change. Convincing them to adopt even basic “data entry” automation can take months. Many prefer to keep friends or relatives on the payroll instead of modernizing. At the level of production lines or logistics functions, the resistance is stronger. The prevailing view is: “we have done it this way for decades, why change.” I believe the future will not come from persuading reluctant incumbents. It will come from new manufacturing companies that start digital-first, with AI at their core. These firms will redeploy workers into higher-value roles, outpace legacy operators, and set a new standard for U.S. competitiveness. Case in point - China. They started manufacturing companies mostly from 2000s, using slightly more modern tech than US did in 50s. Obviously, China has more efficiency and higher production capacity per (any normalized unit). Or, in financial services, in APAC, nobody uses checks, or even in Africa. Because they did not have to deal with legacy financial systems. The opportunity is not to patch the old, but to build the new.