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Comment by carlmr | Hacker News Reader

It's like any vicious cycle. All manufacturing is in China because all manufacturing is in China. A few years ago when they moved manufacturing in China I'm sure the supply chain wasn't there either. But they had the low manufacturing prices that enticed them to move anyway.

If you want manufacturing to move back to the US (or Europe) you need to have tariffs that are so high that it's more profitable to move to the US even with supply chains that need to be built back up.

It's not easy to move manufacturing, that's why there's a lot of incentive to stay where you are.

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The US still does a lot of manufacturing, from wooden furniture to CPU’s and aircraft.

In a large scale war consumer electronics and massive quantities of consumer goods would not be a priority. Thing s like food, bullets, clothing, fuel, tanks etc would be and all of that can easily be manufactured in the US.

But who made the screws in the wooden furniture?

The point of this article is that Apple likes to use non-standard screws. It's not hard at all to buy standard screws made in the US.

I know of a few companies in the US that make screws. The machines are automated and energy in the US is cheap so China can't compete. (I don't know business details, but I suspect they make screws to sell in the US, shipping to China probably is too expensive) The machines also ensure consistent high quality, which is something China is only starting to figure out.

Actually now that you mention it I bought some screws on Saturday at Home Depot and they were made in the US (Spax).

It's a bit of a bummer about Apple's computers. On my self-built desktops there are basically two types of screws that are interchangeable between any computer I've ever built (the normal ones and the ones that self-thread into plastic fan). If I add a PCI card and need an extra, the ones that came with a Pentium 4 motherboard will do just fine.

I kinda get the "we need this very specific screw" thing for laptops or phones where thinness matters, but the trashcan Mac Pro is an exercise in weird priorities.

It feels like Apple's design team has forgotten that standard parts exist even when they'd work fine, or even better than some crazy integrated solution. Custom screws for everything just because you can. PCIe GPUs? Who needs em!? Gotta fit in this cylinder.

It's a problem they've created for themselves, and if they wanted to stop having it the solution is "Stop doing that." Go buy a normal screw like everyone else.

> In a large scale war consumer electronics and massive quantities of consumer goods would not be a priority. Thing s like food, bullets, clothing, fuel, tanks etc would be and all of that can easily be manufactured in the US.

I'm not so sure. A modern army also needs things like radios, navigation aids, data-link terminals, etc. in massive quantities. The supply chains for those things have more in common with consumer electronics than with those for food, fuel, and bullets.

In WWII, I understand that the US converted its civilian manufacturing base from making things like civilian cars to making tanks and airplanes. I'd think it'd be a lot easier to covert a manufacturing base than to build one from scratch.

US military has ~100% US supply chains specifically for that stuff. But also clothing, MRE’s, chemicals, and everything else it needs.

Of note, the minimal types of equipment, large existing stockpiles, and lower percentage of servicemen vs civilians even in a total war situation makes this a vastly smaller market than consumer electronics. The risk vs benifits of offshoring is simply not worth it. Especially becase it allows congressional spending in specific districts.

PS: While manufacturing would need to be expanded, stockpiles allows for a significant ramp up period.

I guess part of my point was that having more domestic or allied consumer electronics manufacturing capacity is what would provide the ability to ramp up the production.

I'm skeptical that peacetime military-dedicated manufacturing capability + peacetime stockpiles would be able to scale to meet wartime needs. I would think it would be significantly advantageous to have plenty of slack, state-of-the-art civilian capacity (+ related expertise) in all needed areas.

-600 + Billion every year buys a lot of ‘toys’ and T-shirts.

At 1.3 million active duty military and more than 800,000 reserve forces the infrastructure to maintain that is already significant manufacturing capacity. Training more people takes time so you get various projections around force mobilization vs war footing etc. But while some lag is expected, you can get a lot done with even 1 year of critical supplies on hand.

Remember this is the same group that designed the internet to keep working even as major cities where nuked. Going to war is very much part of long term planning.

At the same time, having strong commercial ties is extremely important to ensure peace.

Stopping European and American companies from making business with Chinese companies puts us closer to a war.

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