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I think you're missing the point. Domestic production is very important if we want to keep our living standards while accounting for the ecological costs of our

by DeepDuh 14y ago

I think you're missing the point. Domestic production is very important if we want to keep our living standards while accounting for the ecological costs of our consumerism. 'Made in the USA' is just a label to sell American consumers on, but the reasonings are deeper than jingoism. Sooner or later our greenhouse gas output is going to bite us in the ass and for that we need new solutions. For the Chinese economy I'm not concerned, since they're growing into a huge domestic market themselves. Luckily they also seem to understand the ecological dangers, thus they're beginning to invest quite heavily in clean energy. P.S. I'm European. I have much more hope for the USA to turn around their economy however. Long term Europe is in a much tougher position to compete in the new global economy, mostly because we have no silicon valley and we have hardly any top tier universities that churn out massive amounts of startups. On the other hand what's very worrysome about the US are the exploding cost for academic degrees - that's gonna hurt really soon when a whole generation of high potential people (a) aren't able to get a degree or (b) get a degree but can't spend any money on consumer products because of their loans. However - this as well as medical care is fixable in mid term. Not having a culture of innovation is much tougher.

yummyfajitas 14y ago
...but the reasonings are deeper than jingoism. Could you explain the reasoning? Your post is very unclear unclear what greenhouse gas output has to do with American manufacturing.
- DeepDuh 14y ago
  When big consumer brands launch a new mobile product they often book all the available air cargo space they can. Chinese manufacturing has lead to an explosion of air as well as ship cargo, thus adding tons of CO2 cost to your products. That's were domestic manufacturing would safe you.
  - yummyfajitas 14y ago
    I seriously doubt the CO2 emissions of shipping an iPhone are remotely significant. In fact, I'd bet at even odds that driving a car to the Apple store emits more CO2 than shipping the iPhone from China.
DigitalTurk 14y ago
I couldn't agree more with your post scriptum! The ecology argument makes sense, of course, insofar more of the sales are in the US than Asia. Nonetheless, it seems to me that it's usually more of a convenient side-effect than the actual motivation. But thanks for your perspective. Some of the Kickstarter project take manufacturing to an extremely local level. In the project description it will say that their costs are higher because the designers want everything to be manufactured in their hipster town. I feel really uneasy about such sentiments. (And mind you, people call me a hipster all the time.) As for the Chinese economy, I try to be optimistic. However… The housing market seems really unhealthy. You'll pay more for an apartment in a not-that-great neighborhood in Beijing than for one in an awesome neighborhood in the capital of many European cities. Meanwhile, the quality of the Beijing apartment will leave much to be desired and the building is actually built on land that is merely leased from the government! Consumerism is crazy too. Did you know that on China's Single's Day (one of the many holidays in China invented by marketeers) sales were higher than on the US's Black Friday? Finally, the Chinese definitely don't care about the environment. It's not in their mindset at all. Everyone wants to drive an SUV (while public transportation is dirt-cheap), the amount of plastic packaging they use is insane, the only recycling is done by homeless people who collect plastic bottles from trash cans, etcetera.

by DeepDuh 14y ago

yummyfajitas 14y ago

...but the reasonings are deeper than jingoism. Could you explain the reasoning? Your post is very unclear unclear what greenhouse gas output has to do with American manufacturing.

DeepDuh 14y ago
When big consumer brands launch a new mobile product they often book all the available air cargo space they can. Chinese manufacturing has lead to an explosion of air as well as ship cargo, thus adding tons of CO2 cost to your products. That's were domestic manufacturing would safe you.
- yummyfajitas 14y ago
  I seriously doubt the CO2 emissions of shipping an iPhone are remotely significant. In fact, I'd bet at even odds that driving a car to the Apple store emits more CO2 than shipping the iPhone from China.

DigitalTurk 14y ago

I couldn't agree more with your post scriptum! The ecology argument makes sense, of course, insofar more of the sales are in the US than Asia. Nonetheless, it seems to me that it's usually more of a convenient side-effect than the actual motivation. But thanks for your perspective. Some of the Kickstarter project take manufacturing to an extremely local level. In the project description it will say that their costs are higher because the designers want everything to be manufactured in their hipster town. I feel really uneasy about such sentiments. (And mind you, people call me a hipster all the time.) As for the Chinese economy, I try to be optimistic. However… The housing market seems really unhealthy. You'll pay more for an apartment in a not-that-great neighborhood in Beijing than for one in an awesome neighborhood in the capital of many European cities. Meanwhile, the quality of the Beijing apartment will leave much to be desired and the building is actually built on land that is merely leased from the government! Consumerism is crazy too. Did you know that on China's Single's Day (one of the many holidays in China invented by marketeers) sales were higher than on the US's Black Friday? Finally, the Chinese definitely don't care about the environment. It's not in their mindset at all. Everyone wants to drive an SUV (while public transportation is dirt-cheap), the amount of plastic packaging they use is insane, the only recycling is done by homeless people who collect plastic bottles from trash cans, etcetera.