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Comment by ta1243 | Hacker News Reader

OK lets assume the entire chain is automated and you don't need to employ anyone.

The factory can go anywhere, in China, in France, in California, in North Dakota.

What benefit is that to the average American citizen?

The US government can tax the factory and spend the tax revenue on average Americans. The German government for example gets a big fraction of its revenue from taxes on export industries that employ only a small fraction of Germans.

So the company owning that factory moves it to Iceland or Ireland or India who don't tax it.

Or you could bypass all that and simply tax Apple now, despite their factory being in China.

The German export manufacturers show no great desire to leave Germany -- or at least they didn't till their energy supplies became very expensive in the wake of the Ukrainian invasion.

And apple seems happy staying in California and paying the tiny amount of tax it does.

Assuming no change in costs, how does moving its factories from China to Nebraska change anything, for apple, for the US government or the US citizen?

We are in a discussion of the US trade deficit. Obviously, moving a factory from China to Nebraska reduces the US's trade deficit.

But, how does changing some number on a "trade deficit" spreadsheet materially affect Apple or Americans? Apple pays slightly more taxes to the government than it did before. Big deal. There is no incentive to demolish an automated factory in China and re-build it in Nebraska.

Apparently the US can sustain a trade deficit with the rest of the world, but certainly this ability to sustain one is not unlimited, so lowering the trade deficit tends to help Americans by making it more likely that the US economy can continue to import things (including some things are are available only outside the US, e.g., fruits that only grow in tropical climate).

How will apple being in Nebraska make any difference to Joe Bloggs from Oklahoma importing something?

If the trade deficit becomes or continues to be unsustainably large, that would devalue the dollar so that Joe's dollar buy less imports than it does now.

There are hints of a strange energy to your questions, which does not bother me, but I am curious whether you feel hostile to me, e.g., because you inferred from my answers that I probably support a political faction that you regard as the enemy.

Not really, you seem to think that the location of an automated factory which employs basically nobody makes a material difference to anyone, and I'm trying to work out what that is

America will gain the know-how how to make such factories and maintain them. Use the knowledge and experience to make more such factories in other fields. A whole industry can grow around it. Do you think factories in China pop-up like mushroom after rain by them self and there is no industry and jobs associated with building highly automated production lines?

Maintenance would be all that remains, and I would think that cost of energy to power the facility would be the biggest driver of location

Proximity to suppliers could be a factor..

You'd need to site it near to the Grand Forks air force base (almost Minnesota) because that's the only runway in state capable of handling 747 cargo flights.

Or you just build a big runway.

If we have magic machines that produce everything soup to nuts, you don’t see why it benefits us to have those in america rather than in China?

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