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Comment by chrsw | Hacker News Reader

1. Do we really want these jobs to come back to the US?

2. If we do, what cost are we willing to pay for it?

Does the US need a functioning war force that China can't turn off when they feel like it? This happens: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/22/books.france

couldnt china make the same threat of nuking america if america doesnt give over its nuclear codes?

If you read the article you'd realize the whole point is that they won't have to if they are the ones who built the conventional forces in the first place.

Maybe maintaining interdependencies will maintain peace. But of course this is not going to happen, we are on course for conflict.

People need purpose. It’s not enough to work in an Amazon warehouse selling stuff from China to make ends meet or driving Ubers. These manufacturing jobs aren’t low skill industrial age jobs, they are highly skilled professions that improve our national security.

I think the implication of question 2 is who, exactly, are we going to tax to get the money to pay for all the highly skilled professionals needed? Everyone can't be working for a military contractor. Someone has to pay the costs of moving the legions of workers needed into those jobs. And taxing the uber drivers, walmart stockboys, or the Amazon warehouse workers is just not going to get us there.

In my view, the way forward is, unfortunately, automation. We can't bring that manufacturing back using the same labor basis as is used in Asia. Just to put that labor basis in perspective, we'd be looking at millions of jobs that the military would be funding through sub-contracts. We have to get some of that work done through industrial automation without creating jobs. We need to do that not only to make this sustainable, but really even to make this feasible at all.

I've yet to be convinced that manufacturing jobs inherently give more "purpose" than white-collar work, and I think posts like yours are mostly ungrounded fantasy. Ironically, that kind of rose-tinted nostalgia is usually coming from people who have never actually worked a manufacturing job themselves and can only guess at what it's like from internet memes.

I recommend this quasi-review of Rivethead by Ben Hamper if you want a taste of what "manufacturing jobs" were actually like: a lot of people drinking themselves stupid to escape the monotony and utter lack of agency in their work. And this was at one of the Big Three automakers, supposedly the peak of what we're trying to return to! [0]

[0]: https://kontextmaschine.tumblr.com/post/96390732283/happy-la...

>People need purpose.

I can't help but feel you are romanticizing manufacturing jobs. The vast number of manufacturing jobs that "give people purpose" are still here - those people just travel to china once a quarter.

The guy that stands at a station for 8 hours a day, stamping the same 4 bolts into a car frame does not have anymore "purpose" than a guy running around in an Amazon warehouse.

It depends on the job. T-shirts yes. I enjoy building microgrids. There are many unsolved challenges. When the robots start doing it maybe it’ll be boring. That’s a long way off.

What about the guy that sits at a computer and works through an issue queue changing the color of buttons or adding an extra 2px of padding to a class or writing glue code so one API can talk to another API?

Oh no, those are highly skilled professionals as API Integration Architects and Gartner tells me we currently have shortage of 230,000 of those. Hence we need import these best and brightest from outside.

>work in an Amazon warehouse selling stuff from China to make ends meet or driving Ubers

You think those factory workers have a better job ? Imagine sitting 8 hours a day, just screwing screw.

If we want US manufacturing, it has to:

1) Meet or exceed spec (this shouldn't be a problem)

2) Lower TCO than competition -- labor, automation (this is where the US is current uncompetitive on the lower-end, very competitive on the high-end).

3) Non-cost strategic requirements compared to the competition -- supply chain resilience, national security, lower lead time, consumer preference for US made (but not all products fall into these categories)

4) Benefit from policy intervention like subsidies, tariffs, tax incentives and regulations vis-a-vis competition (the problem with these protections is they make US products uncompetitive in the long run in the international market -- US cars for instance are not competitive in most countries)

3. If we don't, who eats the blame when the strategic failure comes home to roost?

Given current trajections: either Biden, Hilary, or Obama. Changes based on the day. Democrats by default are always at blame, of course.

Yes. Strategically, it makes sense for the US, much like Russia and China to be independent.

Sanctions weren’t effective on Russia because they had most of what they needed domestically and partner markets to sell those goods to.

When the US tried to impose sanctions on China, China called the bluff and blocked strategic materials. The US “trade deal” wasn’t much different than how it started.

In terms of willing to pay for it; what’s having a country worth? Because if a competing country can withhold resources you need, you’re effectively a junior partner.

Ultimately, reduce over seas benefits, tariff and offer tax write offs to build on shore. Then you’ll have better higher paying jobs and onshore manufacturing. More real GDP from goods will not have a negative impact or cost, it’s part of why Germany and Japan grew rapidly (they had tight import controls, to build a domestic industry).

Also, the majority of the country voted for Trump and this was his #1 issue. Like him or hate him, the desire for domestic protection is what elected him.

I don't think it refutes your point that supply chain dependence is a tactical weakness, but sanctions weren't effective on Russia because half the world is still buying their oil.

Also true, kind of ment the chip sanctions. They transitioned to China and domestic production.

Given that only 65% of people voted, the majority did not vote that way. Plurality is likely the word you're looking for.

They would pay better than fast-food. So, I think so.

When we started shipping manufacturing jobs overseas people in power would say that the future was in service jobs. Ha! What a joke. Every population has a bell curve distribution --i.e. not everyone can work toward being a high value-add service jobber.

We manufactured high end handsets (Motorola) stateside till roughly 2014. Sun manufactured workstations in the East bay. If you go back further Cisco and 3Com used to manufacture in the South bay.

It was better than working at Mickey D's. So, yeah, we'd want these stateside. Better than having people out in the streets strung out on drugs not even aware their lives are going down a whirlpool.

Everyone since Obama paid lip service to bringing back manufacturing jobs --they were doing this to pretend they cared about the blue collar folks Clinton, G "H" W and G "W" sold out. I blame Clinton the most because he just let China ascend to the WTO despite knowing the Chinese had loopholes allowing them to ignore much of the conditions. "W" just didn't care.

The economy is going downhill, precisely because we have no manufacturing and investment funds are in full asset stripping mode.

In few years there will be no one to buy said services and everything will implode.

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