Comment by robomartin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by robomartin | Hacker News Reader

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> I think this says more about how badly Craftsman has shat the bed and less about manufacturing in America.

Sorry to burst your bubble. Manufacturing pliers and screwdrivers is a joke when compared to, as an example, manufacturing a cordless drill, battery packs, charger and accessories.

We cannot do ANY of that in the US.

Something like this:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Milwaukee-M12-12V-Lithium-Ion-Co...

Nope. Can't do it.

Not unless you are willing to play $500 for it, or much more.

Let's put it this way: If you take the time to create a detailed list of every component, material and process required to manufacture and deliver that product, you will quickly discover that NONE OF IT is made in the US.

In business terms, the supply chain for the manufacturing of such products is long and very expensive, because it isn't local.

Guess where you'd have to buy all the components from? China.

A corollary is that you cannot make this product for less (or even the same) than what it costs to make it in China. Impossible, even if the factories existed.

While people love to talk about "Buy American" there's a huge gaping hole between those who virtue-signal with bumper-stickers and flags and the much smaller group who actually practice --to the extent possible-- what they preach.

BTW, I have attended trade shows where Chinese OEM manufacturers showcase products they make, including tools. To put it in simple terms, anyone can sign a deal with any of these manufacturers and have a line of quality hand and power tools with their own brand and logo. You go to these conferences and can actually talk to and buy from the very companies who are making tools for the top brands in the US and Europe.

Sure.

But a reminder that this didn't happen by accident. Capital went in search of cheap labor, to increase profits. The cheap(er) labor wasn't in the USA.

We let capital do this. We loosened capital flow rules, we loosened profit repatriation rules, we reduced or eliminated tariffs.

That's not to say that Chinese/Asian companies would never have gotten good at doing this on their own. But the situation we are actually is not really a result of their excellence and/or costs - it's because we elected political representatives who allowed the capital class to fuck us over, and so they did.

I'm much more socialist than the average HN'er, but let's not mistake - they pursued increased profits AND massively reduced prices.

Now we can say the price reduction wasn't worth it and the bang for buck has actually gotten worse as we've made more things more accessible. That the cost of everything being cheaper is that we have to buy more of it, creating more waste, contributing more to climate change, etc.

But ultimately globalization and the move to manufacturing in China HAS contributed to a huge amount of prosperity world wide as geographies that would've never been able to afford certain devices, tools, or even just entertainment before, have been able to.

Heh, you've just made me consider that the asymptote of capitalism is communism.

"What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave diggers." - some German dude

Yep, the trick of neoliberalism was they reduced worker shares of wages, but they tried to cover that up by reducing the price of commodities (but not fundamentals like land, education, healthcare etc).

And now with inflation those prices have gone up, while wages have not because it all went to where the supply is created.

That view is still highly Western-centric.

In North America, and maybe Europe, the share of worker wages has decreased to the benefit of the elite, but World-wide prosperity has increased DRAMATICALLY in the decades of "globalism" and "neoliberalism"

BILLIONS of people escaped poverty worldwide in exchange for the millions that entered it in the US.

Unfortunately it's not clear what the next step for those billions is. It's certainly not the path that the US and Europe went through for their post-industrial and post-war boom. But what is it instead? It's uncertain and unwritten.

At this point the existential threat to the majority of humanity isn't a lack of clean drinking water, vaccinations, and upward mobility opportunity. It's climate, heat waves, flood, and all the effects that affect everyone across class divides (except the 0.01% in their mountain bunkers)

Well, it's not western-centric to say that they (corporations/capitalists) reduced the workers' share of the revenue or profits. The workers for the corporations that moved production out of the USA and the EU pay their workers a smaller fraction of their revenue than they used to.

Yes, we've done a lot to reduce poverty in many parts of the world. There is a (relatively) furious argument going on, however, about the role of capitalist corporations in that process.

Most of that contribution has been from China lmao

In the west, we seem committed to destroying our gains in public health currently. Really incredible times to be living in.

These sorts of change tend to have significant but very diffuse benefits (everybody pays X% less for $thing) but very concentrated costs (areas dependent on $industry being gutted).

I tend towards the idea that the benefits are often worth having, but that the costs shouldn't be externalised onto the workers in question, and therefore regard corporation tax being used to fund redistribution/welfare programs to be justifiable on a market basis as a pigouvian tax as well as justifiable from basic morality.

Maybe if stuff was still quality and we didn't have to buy everything multiple times as they break and malfunction, we could afford purchasing more expensive tools and items. And it's not like things are all that cheap anymore.

    That the cost of everything being cheaper is that 
    we have to buy more of it, creating more waste

Is this true? It's an interesting question and one that's difficult to answer in any objective way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durable_good

Using the economists' definition of "durable goods" I would say that for the most part, quality has improved. Cars last 2-3x longer these days. Computers have been "fast enough" for a while and can last 10+ years. Perhaps professional tools have taken a nosedive but my low-end Ryobi tools last essentially forever with light household weekend usage.

Not a "durable good", but cheap clothing also feels way more reliable. Cheap synthetic or cotton/synthetic blends are now comfortable and breathable (which is a relatively new development) and last pretty much forever.

Some things have gotten anecdotally worse. Everybody says that large household appliances like refrigerators, washers, and dryers have really taken a nosedive in quality and/or repairability. It certainly feels true but, I don't know what the actual numbers might say.

But I don't know, man. Affordable crap from 2023 actually feels better than the affordable crap I remember from 1983 or 1993. It certainly doesn't feel worse.

Can't you just feel all that wealth trickling down?

No, but hey, at least we feel the rising tides as we drown

No kidding. Tides are rising, but most of us have concrete boots on. xD

It's like the rain on Venus or the tears of all the people mildly wealthier than the next.

Yea I'm pretty sure the people in Palestine OH felt it trickling down for sure. Just hope they didn't drink the water.

And on the flip side "We don't need those dirty manufacturing jobs, we will have a service industry" , "You didn't build that" and "Never coming back".

Throw in a dash of "Learn to code" too.

Maybe one day we can sit down and talk about how shitty it is but not until we stop playing Team Red vs Team Blue

To be clear, we didn't do anything. Corporations, the ultra wealthy, and the purchased politicians did this.

They wanted it. We let them do it.

> We let them do it.

How?

Apologies if I'm interpreting/extrapolating incorrectly, but:

    We let capital do this [...] 

    we elected political representatives who 
    allowed the capital class to fuck us over

Are you framing this as some kind of localized "we did capitalism wrong" mistake as opposed to like... an elemental, fundamental, inexorable aspect of free-marketish capitalism?

Short-term, "fuck the future" profit making is what capitalism encourages. Executives are judged quarterly and yearly, not rewarded for long-term thinking.

Same with our system of government. Relatively short terms for elected officials and the "endless campaign" have some benefits but essentially rule out any sort of coherent future-focused long-term thinking.

This is what our system was designed to do. Any other kind of behavior is anomalous.

Again, I apologize if I'm interpreting you unfairly. I'm ranting at the system, really.

I don't like capitalism much at all, but yeah, I don't think that this particular aspect of it was inevitable.

Judging based on quarterly results is a peculiarly American version of capitalism, and one that has a lot to do with publicly traded companies rather than private ones (which are still capitalist entities in a capitalist system, but subject to quite different incentives and pressures).

I don't think it's accurate to say our "system was designed" to do this sort of thing, if only because 50-90 years, it didn't do this sort of thing. It has mutated and/or the wiggle room within it has been discovered.

Now, capitalism can still be totally wrong or even almost entirely wrong, quite independently of whether "we allowed free capital flow, profit repatriation, no labor movement, etc." is also a terrible long term plan given capitalism.

   one that has a lot to do with publicly traded 
   companies rather than private ones

Are there a lot of private companies doing big things (ie, $90M wrench factories?) out of their own war chests?

I can think of a few examples but my perception is that this is rare enough to essentially disregard... but, I could well be wrong.

Even if a private company does such a thing, it would almost always be via some kind of financing, right? Which creates its own sort of short-term pressure even if it's not as psychotically ADHD as the pressure exerted by Wall Street.

     I don't think it's accurate to say our "system was designed" 
     to do this sort of thing,

I mean, of course it wasn't intentionally designed for this outcome.

But it was designed for rapid and almost entirely unfettered economic growth. Given that, what other outcome was possible?

     if only because 50-90 years [ago] it didn't do this sort of thing.

It wasn't possible 50-90 years ago. There were world wars, the seas were not safe, communication was glacially slow or impossible, etc. Also the U.S. was not yet so rich that it couldn't afford to pay its own people to make its own stuff.

> Are there a lot of private companies doing big things (ie, $90M wrench factories?) out of their own war chests?

Ask the Germans :) Anyway, you issue bonds, instead of stocks. You control the term, the "market" tells you the cost. And its a fixed cost. Or you take out a loan, again with fixed interest. You control the parameters as much as anyone else. Or you issue restricted shares, to convince capital owners willing to make a longer term bet to play with you. They have to be in it for the long haul, since they can't sell the shares based on some 1st, 2nd or 3rd order belief about the company value.

> But it was designed for rapid and almost entirely unfettered economic growth

I don't think it was "designed" at all. It evolves subject to various pressures and interests. And since Reagan or slightly before, most of the pressures from citizens (as opposed to customers) have been lifted/ameliorated. Same with pressures from employees. True, we did somewhat increase the pressure from environmental concerns. But at some point, people noticed that extracting value, instead of creating value, was a pathway to riches, and that's where a lot of the big bucks are made these days.

> I don't like capitalism much at all

Say people who:

  - Are typing on computers that would not exist without capitalism
  - Using an an internet that would not exist without capitalism
  - Using phones that would not exist without capitalism
  - Wearing clothes that would not exist without capitalism
  - Living in homes that would not exist without capitalism
  - Using furniture that would not exist without capitalism
  - Enjoying entertainment that would not exist without capitalism
  - Buying food that would not exist without capitalism
  - Benefiting from medicine that would not exist without capitalism
  - Living lives that would not exist without capitalism
  - etc.

It's always interesting that those who despise capitalism never pull-up anchor and move to where they might be able to enjoy something in the range between socialist utopia and flat-out communism. Weird how that NEVER happens and how the vast majority of people actually yearn to live in places where capitalism has managed to --yes, imperfectly so-- raise more people out of poverty than any other system in the history of humanity.

No? Well, then, be an example and get rid of all the things you benefit from that came as a result of dirty-filthy capitalism. Be a role model for others. There's a huge difference between talking about virtue and having it. It's easy to not like capitalism while using your laptop while sipping a latte at Starbucks.

This is just total bullshit.

You seem to believe that innovation, and perhaps even production, requires a system in which the investment of capital in a limited liability enterprise is disproportionately the beneficiary of profit compared to the investment of labor or IP (that's all the capitalism consists of).

The things you list above are the product of science, art, curiosity, imagination, ambition, empathy, and hope. All of which can exist (and flourish) without or without capitalism.

Perhaps you make the mistake of thinking that capitalism somehow means "free markets" or "entrepeneurial culture". It does not. Those ideas are orthogonal to it, and can exist with it or without it. They can exist with or without worked-owned co-operatives. They can exist with or without state owned enterprises. They can exist with or without publicly traded shared-based ownership.

Painting fantasies does not magically make them reality. Be careful, your indoctrination is showing.

The fantasies are your conflation of all human progress with "capitalism".

Quiet a few fallacies on display here. I don't even know where to start.

- You can dislike capitalism but currently have insurmountable obstacles preventing you from moving somewhere else

- You can dislike capitalism but accept that it is currently something like the least-bad economic system

- You can like capitalism in general but criticize it and recognize its inherent flaws

- You can like capitalism in general and criticize a particular implementation of it

   Well, then, be an example and get rid of all the 
   things you benefit from that came as a result of 
   dirty-filthy capitalism

Oh my god.

Good and accurate comment.

Worth mentioning that one can also go to pharma manufacturing and trade shows in China and discuss bespoke bulk synthesis deals and leave with free sample bags of uncapsuled high grade perscription drugs with a "to US patient on US soil" value of tens of thousands of US dollars.

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