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Comment by gutnor | Hacker News Reader

It definitively put stuff into perspective.

6500 jobs is a big number in human scale. That's more people that you know.

But that's 0.05% of the manufacturing jobs in the US alone. 0.05% of the manufacturing power of the US fitted with the latest tech match the output of the whole Lithium-ion battery sector.

Obviously that's 1 specific field and product and you can't extrapolate to everything else, but really you can't help but think that even maintaining current employment in manufacturing will require staggering increase in manufacturing output of the US. If Trump is even a bit serious about trying (and has the congress support for it), it would require a colossal disruption of the market either through regulation, taxation, investment, ...

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6500 people need to live somewhere. They need to eat. They need haircuts. They need medical services. And all those other people need the same services too.

I could keep going but you get the idea. Jobs create more jobs which create more jobs.

The point is that it's a fraction of the number of employees needed to accomplish the same tasks 50 years ago or even 10 years ago.

What's the point of making that statement? 'Cotton production requires a fraction of the number of employees needed to accomplish the same tasks 150 years ago.'

The bottom line is this: It's an advanced economy sector industry creating jobs in the US, where none existed before. Not in spite of, but because it's a highly automated factory, it can be built in the US. The more "great American" companies that build advanced factories, the better for the US economy.

Frankly, I'm most impressed that this project seems to be on schedule. Gives me a little encouragement that we can execute on mega projects like this.

The point is that the jobs that were lost in manufacturing will never come back. Even if everything is shifted back from China/Mexico to the US, very few of the jobs will come back. The old world as many Trump supporters hope for will not return and we have to think of a way to go forward.

If I remember correctly, Tesla are supposedly unusually keen on automation. Possibly more so than the economics actually justify, even - or at least, there were some doubts amongst industry experts as to whether the ways in which they automated tasks actually made sense, given the cost and speed of the robots they were using compared to a human.

"or at least, there were some doubts amongst industry experts as to whether the ways in which they automated tasks actually made sense, given the cost and speed of the robots they were using compared to a human."

That makes sense, considering that Tesla's approach seems to be to get the tech set up first, and then make it economical with R&D breakthroughs later.

It's all a front set up to provide a plausible reason for building the infrastructure that our upcoming AI robotic overlords requested from Elon.

The great thing would be if the increased output from this automation matched what USA currently produces in China. Then it could gain independence from China, and China could finally give those goods to their internal markets. And employment standards could be respected in both countries (however products built in USA will still be significantly more expensive, matching hopefully higher salaries).

The net result is both countries would be poorer, we didn't start international trade for no reason, there are strong economic and politcal benefits to trade.

Maybe the rich will get poorer. I suspect income inequality would decrease however. Median income would increase.

What mechanism do you think will decrease inequality?

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