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The article headline makes it seem like the factories couldn't make the gloves. But further down it says that the cost was double and factories couldn't get bu
by Illniyar 3mo ago
The article headline makes it seem like the factories couldn't make the gloves.
But further down it says that the cost was double and factories couldn't get buyers.
These are very different failure modes, and speak to very different solutions.
- reactordev 3mo agoOne sounds incapable from a skill perspective, the other is incapable from a market perspective. I’ll take the later over the former any day.
- samsolomon 3mo agoAgree. The problem is over extended lengths of time the people with the skills to make these things—or make tools that make them—will leave the workforce. That's how this goes from being a market issue to a skill issue.
- stingraycharles 3mo agoThe later form was part of the design from the beginning: relying on imports for something this critical in times of an epidemic was a supply chain risk. It was never intended to compete in terms of pricing. It baffles me that this wasn’t made more explicit? That seems to be the root cause of the failure.
- SanjayMehta 3mo agoOnce the epidemic was over, stakeholders forgot about the original motives.
- wrs 3mo agoAlso, the stakeholders decided the epidemic was a hoax in the first place.
- shimman 3mo agoGood thing the country isn't run by shareholders. Note that a federal jobs program has something like 60-80% support by voters across all political spectrums in the USA.
- reactordev 3mo agooh but it is... oh but it is.
- quotemstr 3mo agoOver time, the latter becomes the former.
- reactordev 3mo agoOnly for a time until the market conditions improve. Humans are incredibly talented and we have a knack for picking up skills.
- quotemstr 3mo agoI wish it were so. It's not. For an object-level example, look at the difficulties the Russians had reconstituting their industrial base in the post-apocalyptic wasteland they found themselves after the 90s. It took them a decade to figure out how to restart production of the Tu-160M bomber, and they had all the original blueprints! Likewise, for a while, we forgot how to make this "FOGBANK" substance that's somehow important for nuclear weapons. It's all too easy to forget how to do something if you stop doing it for a while.
- reactordev 3mo agoAnd then you pick it back up. Yes, you will get rusty or need to train up but that’s better than lacking the technological capability.
- iamnothere 3mo agoThe main thing is to ensure you can continue to produce the machine tools, electronic components, and precision equipment needed to service each major industry. And the domestic engineering talent to run them. This allows you to add capacity quickly if self-sufficiency is needed. Oh, and you also need to secure stable supply chains. (We may be in trouble here)
- croes 3mo agoIf the price is too high you aren’t skilled enough to make them cheaper
- cucumber3732842 3mo agoOr free enough. All that civil engineering, permitting, compliance checkbox BS has to be amortized over the stuff the factory makes.
- croes 3mo agoForeign made medical gloves have the same compliance to fulfill
- zbentley 3mo agoThey really, really don’t. I’m sympathetic to the goal of moving manufacturing stateside, but fixing regulatory hurdles needs to happen first. Just because a foreign glove manufacturer has to comply with the same safety/quality standards for their product only scratches the surface. Domestic companies also have to operate compliant with regulations regarding hiring, real estate, safety, finance, and many more. To be clear, a lot of those regulations (most of them!) achieve good things and should be preserved! Working/environmental/low-corruption conditions in the US (though they could be better) are often superior to those same conditions in the places we import from precisely because of those regulations. But not all regulations (even those with good goals) are effective, others are not worth the burden, and all of them in aggregate do directly contribute to domestic manufacturing loss. It’s a hard problem that others (e.g. Pahlka) have written about much more wisely than I can.
- t0mpr1c3 3mo agoRegulations exist for a reason. Polluting industries like the plastics business would obviously prefer not to be burdened by them. I am not particularly sympathetic to their concerns.
- trebligdivad 3mo agoThat might have been a bargain if you could have done it during peak Covid. Having the capability to make them is worth a lot in resilience.
- brianwawok 3mo agoWho’s paying to bring online a factory that sites idle just in case? Are you also paying workers to sit there idle?
- trebligdivad 3mo agoWell I wouldn't pay for it to be idle; if you want to ensure you have the ability to do it, then you buy some proportion of it's potential output at their increased costs; but while that's happening you work on all the reasons it's more expensive.
- brianwawok 3mo agoThings like paying the workers a livable wage?
- michaelmrose 3mo agoThe logical thing is that the government buys them continually at the higher price which justifies the existence of the factory with the requirement that it is made here and if this is not sufficient motivation you make buying something more buying something profitable contingent
- kaikai 3mo agoLike the Jones act but for gloves
- wbl 3mo agoOr stockpile a two year supply. You can get a lot with a billion dollars.
- aaron695 3mo ago[dead]
- FrankyHollywood 3mo agoExactly, the article also mentions "Only about 1% of those used in the US are made domestically". It's already being done so it seems more a cost related issue than lack of knowledge.
- natbennett 3mo agoHeadlines and articles are typically written by different people with different goals.