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Comment by brenden2 | Hacker News Reader

Manufacturing jobs in the US has been on a long, steady decline[1]. My pet theory is that 1) people don't want these jobs and 2) people elsewhere (like China) are more willing to take manufacturing jobs because it provides a greater life quality boost there than it does here. What value does it bring for the government to subsidize these industries? Other than helping someone's chances in election cycles, I don't see the point.

I think the only reasonable way to stay relevant long term is for the US to forget about manufacturing and focus on intellectual endeavors. Focus on creating new technologies, exploring space, giving people greater mobility and less red tape. Just my 2 cents.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_St...

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Manufacturing employment has been on a long, steady decline. Manufacturing output is experiencing steady growth and has never been higher.

The US is the second largest manufacturer in the world and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. Giving up on it would be a huge mistake. What we can’t do is count on it to employ the masses.

My bad. You articulated it better than me.

Isn’t that just cooking the books though? I mean if the rump of manufacturing gets done in a low cost economy, and mere assembly is performed onshore, what kind of manufacturing is that really

No, the US builds lots of real stuff. It’s not just assembly. Not by a long shot.

The reason the trends are in opposite directions is because of increasing productivity. The number of worker-hours needed to build a car is much lower than in the past because of improved efficiency.

> My pet theory is that 1) people don't want these jobs

Ask pretty much anyone who has worked in manufacturing if they liked their job, and wanted to keep it, and you'll generally get a positive answer. People were (and are) proud of their jobs. I've previously worked in manufacturing; the vast majority of people there loved their job and the company. Many were highly-skilled professionals. I've been in quite a few factories over the years, and it's the same story in most places. People like to do real jobs making an actual contribution to the society they live in.

The assumption you're making here is kind of typical for views expressed here on HN by people who have precious little real-world experience with life outside software. Very little modern manufacturing is dirty and dangerous heavy industry where people work like slaves. The vast majority is light industry with great work conditions. The world doesn't run on software, it's merely a facilitator. It runs on manufacturing. Don't forget that manufacturing is the fundamental basis of all our first-world economies.

> for the US to forget about manufacturing and focus on intellectual endeavors

"Intellectual endeavours" are mostly pointless if you can't turn them into something real and physical. You can't base an entire economy from doing nothing in the real world.

My brother likes his job making truck parts.

Anecdata, but in line with what you said.

>I think the only reasonable way to stay relevant long term is for the US to forget about manufacturing and focus on intellectual endeavors.

A seriously small fraction of the country is capable of this type of work. Not everyone can "learn to code", and a former line worker isn't going to become a firmware engineer overnight - if ever. Manufacturing was a way for those folks, predominantly men, to find worth in their life and a steady paycheck they could support a family with. Discount this as "electioneering" all you want, but the situation is more nuanced than "well the Chinese are more willing to do this work as evidenced by their lower wages". I guarantee that a lot of Gig Economy folks would trade the unknown and inconsistent schedule (I get it that that works for some) for steady hours and a predictable paycheck.

Is it possible that the manufacturers simply want to pay as little as possible to get these things manufactured, and that they can pay people elsewhere (like in China) far less that they can pay US workers? I am no expert, but this site claims that rent prices in the US are, on average, 150% higher than in China and the cost of groceries are 72% higher.

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_resu...

It seems to me that Apple can get the same work done in China and pay the worker far less than they would have to pay a US worker (in terms of equivalent spending power).

I'm surprised that the cost of living is that high in China, to be honest. I would've expected the differences in prices to be greater.

I also wonder what it is that makes milk (and cheese) more expensive when everything else is less so there.

Cows are expensive, unless you’ve got some way of subsidising them, e.g with rainforest

The cost of living in China has been rising steadily for the last few decades as the country has gone from a backwater to a manufacturing powerhouse. Chinese labor rates actually aren't that much less than US ones any more, and so some manufacturing is going to even cheaper places now (e.g. southeast Asia, Africa).

As for milk and cheese, it's the same in Japan: those aren't big parts of the local diet, so the supply is very small and the prices high. Cheese is probably the biggest complaint about food I've heard about in regards to Japan from westerners in all the things I've read or watched on YT: the food in Japan is generally considered wonderful, except cheese: it's hard to find much variety, really tiny, and very expensive. The US isn't that different, if you're looking for some food that's common on the other side of the planet and not well-known here: try finding a durian or starfruit in your local grocery store. You'll probably have to go to an Asian grocery store to get it, unless you have a fancier store near you and a large Asian population.

Which part of that wikipedia article strikes you as characteristic of a "long, steady decline"?

What I meant was manufacturing jobs, not actual manufacturing output. Just didn't phrase it correctly.

The government typically provides incentives under the condition of creating jobs, but they're trying to create jobs people don't want.

That's true, also government programs to create jobs are pretty misguided in an environment with all-time-low unemployment. We should be trying to create employees.

It’s a form of wealth distribution that’s morally more palatable than putting all these guys on welfare, though perhaps not as cost effective

Donald Trump won in the rust belt, at least in part, by promising those people he'd bring back their manufacturing jobs. People do want those jobs.

A hot take from 1986

I think people do want these jobs, not everybody can be a programmer after all ... but without specific policy intervention it’s just not possible to make these jobs cost effective. Where economics is ruled by the [EDIT economically (rather than socially)] liberal free market mindset, which does effectively maximise profits, you’re not going to get this value judgement in favour of expensive low skill jobs ...

EDIT the alternative is to put all the displaced employees on welfare, which may actually be cheaper overall ... but that’s another value judgement ...

Certainly some people want those jobs. However if you talk to young people, most of them seem to be more interested in becoming Instagram famous than stamping out widgets for 40h a week.

Many would be happy with less ambitious roles if you could realistically eke out an existence ...

Like I say not everybody can get these high profile well paying jobs ... and probably not everybody should ...

Yep - a minimum wage of 7.x is murdering American jobs still. Not because low skill labour pays that, but it bases its increases on that incredibly insulting baseline.

You can survive on welfare rather than eke out a miserly living on shit jobs that take up your life, which also allows for black market income. Either go for a living wage linked to food and housing/leasing costs that is evaluated periodically, or go for a universal income minimum - it would at least be more honest than that.

Our political system is incredibly dysfunctional and the main cause of this. Instead of forming alliances like a multi-party system in Europe, we're forced to choose between ideological (not practical) extremes. It serves to further cement that disparity.

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