Ask HN: Where is the discourse re: overseas manufacturing?
It's clear to me that the American economy is not going to recover until we have widespread job creation. I think that there are some real opportunities to kill two birds with one stone re: job creation and energy independence, but I don't want to talk about that.
I want to talk about some toys from my childhood. My parents recently pulled down several Fisher Price trucks from the attic for my 2 year old son to play with. I examined every single toy and they were entirely made in the US. (Interestingly, at the time, Fisher Price was a division of Quaker Oats, apparently...) They were dated 1978. How much things have changed in just 30 years...
If you're a parent you know you'd be hard pressed to find any plastic truck toys that are made in the US today. Even if you're not a parent, I'm sure you've seen that almost NOTHING is made in the US. There are the occasional exceptions, like some light bulbs I bought at home depot recently, but for the most part, it seems clear that we're not in the business of manufacturing anymore.
My question to HN is -- why? And why is this not talked about at a political level? Why don't any candidates appear to be running on a platform of bringing jobs back to the US? It's an issue that's dripping in perfectly bow-tied patriotic emotions. Why does no one seem to care?
People seem to make some kind of hand-wavey argument about increased costs, but those costs seemed acceptable in 1978, at a time when there was certainly a stronger union presence and more worker's rights! I don't really buy it.
It's not just an issue of creating manufacturing jobs, it's an issue of sustaining all the second order small businesses that support a manufacturing base - I can't even think of them all - from the small restaurants that service workers, up to construction and maintenance of facilities, transportation, training, B2B sales, etc etc.
Is this an issue where no company wants to be the first to have to mark up due to US manufacturing costs? (But if a few did, they might all start doing it?)
It might be time for a little culture jamming to get his ball rolling. Get Miley Cyrus to stop shopping at WalMart. Start trying to shame companies into bringing jobs back to the US.
I'd love to hear HN's thoughts on this because I expect that I'm being a bit naive.