The question no one is asking: SHOULD there be manufacturing in the US?

[Anonymous]

I am confused. Now, making cell phones is a bad thing?

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lmdc4hyqkb27

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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quote]
Finally, it is very likely that the existence of a 91 percent bracket led to significant tax avoidance and lower reported income. There are many studies that show that, as marginal tax rates rise, income reported by taxpayers goes down.

So, they paid a lower tax rate because they probably cheated. With Trump gutting IRS, I guess we'll see more wealthy tax cheats like himself.

When income is taxed you take compensation in alternative tax advantaged ways. When those ways are discouraged you take it as income. For example a distribution isn't subject to FICA while a salary is.



Tax avoidance is not cheating. It isn't now and it never has been.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Without a living wage, no one is going to be doing any of these manufacturing jobs. I doubt any of these companies are going to offer a pension and I doubt a family of four will not be able to live off of a line worker's income like they did in the '50s. No matter how badly you want it, America will not be back in the '50s. I would love to be able to vacation and have a single family home in a suburb and our children in a great school and me stay home all day with just my husband's job as a line worker working 40 hours a week. But honey that ain't going to happen

Also the reason the fifties were a golden age was quite terrible and shouldn’t be replicated. Europe was decimated by fifty years of war, Asia and Africa and Latin America were struggling with the often violent ends of colonialism. Our only true rivals were Canada and Australia and they didnt have the human capital and Australia is super far. Do we want the whole world to be decimated so we can have that back ?

It was also during a time when white males didn't have to compete for high paying jobs with women and minorities.

BTW, taxes were much higher back then. Sure, let's go back to the 1950s tax bracket, too.

+1 we could fix a lot of problems by going back to a 1950s tax rate on the top earners.

Literally most of the US' problems could be fixed if we taxed the wealthy like me. I don't pay my fair share in taxes. I know this. I'm well aware of that fact as someone who grew up poor and married into wealth. I remember paying more as a single person making $65k/yr than I do now as a c-suite who married a wealthy spouse. There are so many freaking tax loopholes and breaks for me. I try to do my part by giving a lot back to my community, but that just gets more tax breaks.

If I and others like me were properly taxed, the US could have universal healthcare, universal covered childcare, longer maternity & paternity leave, free or reduced state colleges, etc.

There's a reason why hundreds of billion/millionaires wrote an open letter to world leaders to tax them more.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/17/wealth-tax-super-rich-davos-abigail-disney-brian-cox-valerie-rockefeller

More than 250 billionaires and millionaires are demanding that the political elite meeting for the World Economic Forum in Davos introduce wealth taxes to help pay for better public services around the world.

“Our request is simple: we ask you to tax us, the very richest in society,” the wealthy people said in an open letter to world leaders. “This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations’ economic growth. But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future.”

That sounds encouraging. Now who TF is going to listen and do it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Without a living wage, no one is going to be doing any of these manufacturing jobs. I doubt any of these companies are going to offer a pension and I doubt a family of four will not be able to live off of a line worker's income like they did in the '50s. No matter how badly you want it, America will not be back in the '50s. I would love to be able to vacation and have a single family home in a suburb and our children in a great school and me stay home all day with just my husband's job as a line worker working 40 hours a week. But honey that ain't going to happen

Also the reason the fifties were a golden age was quite terrible and shouldn’t be replicated. Europe was decimated by fifty years of war, Asia and Africa and Latin America were struggling with the often violent ends of colonialism. Our only true rivals were Canada and Australia and they didnt have the human capital and Australia is super far. Do we want the whole world to be decimated so we can have that back ?

It was also during a time when white males didn't have to compete for high paying jobs with women and minorities.

BTW, taxes were much higher back then. Sure, let's go back to the 1950s tax bracket, too.

+1 we could fix a lot of problems by going back to a 1950s tax rate on the top earners.

Literally most of the US' problems could be fixed if we taxed the wealthy like me. I don't pay my fair share in taxes. I know this. I'm well aware of that fact as someone who grew up poor and married into wealth. I remember paying more as a single person making $65k/yr than I do now as a c-suite who married a wealthy spouse. There are so many freaking tax loopholes and breaks for me. I try to do my part by giving a lot back to my community, but that just gets more tax breaks.

If I and others like me were properly taxed, the US could have universal healthcare, universal covered childcare, longer maternity & paternity leave, free or reduced state colleges, etc.

Really? You're "C suite" but don't earn more than $65K in taxable income?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Without a living wage, no one is going to be doing any of these manufacturing jobs. I doubt any of these companies are going to offer a pension and I doubt a family of four will not be able to live off of a line worker's income like they did in the '50s. No matter how badly you want it, America will not be back in the '50s. I would love to be able to vacation and have a single family home in a suburb and our children in a great school and me stay home all day with just my husband's job as a line worker working 40 hours a week. But honey that ain't going to happen

Also the reason the fifties were a golden age was quite terrible and shouldn’t be replicated. Europe was decimated by fifty years of war, Asia and Africa and Latin America were struggling with the often violent ends of colonialism. Our only true rivals were Canada and Australia and they didnt have the human capital and Australia is super far. Do we want the whole world to be decimated so we can have that back ?

It was also during a time when white males didn't have to compete for high paying jobs with women and minorities.

BTW, taxes were much higher back then. Sure, let's go back to the 1950s tax bracket, too.

+1 we could fix a lot of problems by going back to a 1950s tax rate on the top earners.

Literally most of the US' problems could be fixed if we taxed the wealthy like me. I don't pay my fair share in taxes. I know this. I'm well aware of that fact as someone who grew up poor and married into wealth. I remember paying more as a single person making $65k/yr than I do now as a c-suite who married a wealthy spouse. There are so many freaking tax loopholes and breaks for me. I try to do my part by giving a lot back to my community, but that just gets more tax breaks.

If I and others like me were properly taxed, the US could have universal healthcare, universal covered childcare, longer maternity & paternity leave, free or reduced state colleges, etc.

Really? You're "C suite" but don't earn more than $65K in taxable income?

Not what the PP said. How do you function?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Manufacturing Comes Back!

I fail to see the humor here in this pic. Can someone enlighten me? Explain it?

Because what I see is a skilled laborer, making a useful item, in a presumably US-based factory.

As if anyone here on this forum could do that job themselves? Laughable. Most of you would sew through your hand within 30 seconds of taking a seat at that machine. Most people here are highly educated dummies.

It's not skilled labor, and the video shows comically low-efficiency work.
(But it's hard to say how much is intentional vs what the AI hallucinated, because AI is bad at making high speed motion in video.)
Also, the workers are fat, which is classically funny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The tariffs should not be on foreign companies shipping items here. It should be on us companies who produce things overseas and then ship it back to the US

Your solution is for US companies to split into a US and a foreign partner company? How would that help?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why wouldn't we want to be a sustainable country? Why wouldn't we want to be able to provide for ourselves? Do you think the world experiences less pollution just because manufacturing is in another part of the world?

We are not the most innovative. So we can't get the best made items b/c we are forced to buy stuff from the US? Do you travel? Our stuff sucks.

Yes, after we started importing cheap clothes. We had better quality once upon a time and not so long ago.

Japan bought up the machines that used to make high quality denim in the USA, and those jeans cost 150-300 but last decades

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:self sufficency
quality control
better polution standards in US than overseas
Strengthening the US
Price

Is this question that stupid? Its like you're 18 and have never been in the real world. Producing our goods overseas isnt better than producing goods in the US.

I question the education of people here

We DON'T manufacture. No one wants those jobs. And I grew up in the rust belt where factory work was where all my uneducated (in an academic sense) ancestors worked. Those factories are no longer there and they all transitioned to other jobs.

Further, this is a GLOBAL economy. The idea that any nation can be as isolationist as Trump is being right now is ridiculous.

A global economy is a race to the bottom.

All economy is a race to the bottom. That's why we need government.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Never mind all the talk about tariffs and “bringing jobs back” and all that noise. The question that isn’t being asked is SHOULD manufacturing be brought back the US, and if it should be, why?

There are myriad reasons from pollution to the stock market for sending manufacturing offshore and keeping manufacturing out of the US. But no one is arguing bringing manufacturing back to the US beyond “jobs”.

What is the goal here?

Were you born 2020?

Do you not remember the lack of masks because we did not manufacture them?

This is about security. We need to build stuff, ships , cars, computers , chips etc

We should not bend over backwards for urban elites to get cheap iPhones

They are not elite. They just think they are.

One shipyard in China built more ships last year than America has built in total since World War 2.

Which is a huge problem should there be a Taiwan or Japan conflict with China.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Never mind all the talk about tariffs and “bringing jobs back” and all that noise. The question that isn’t being asked is SHOULD manufacturing be brought back the US, and if it should be, why?

There are myriad reasons from pollution to the stock market for sending manufacturing offshore and keeping manufacturing out of the US. But no one is arguing bringing manufacturing back to the US beyond “jobs”.

What is the goal here?

Were you born 2020?

Do you not remember the lack of masks because we did not manufacture them?

This is about security. We need to build stuff, ships , cars, computers , chips etc

We should not bend over backwards for urban elites to get cheap iPhones

They are not elite. They just think they are.

One shipyard in China built more ships last year than America has built in total since World War 2.

Which is a huge problem should there be a Taiwan or Japan conflict with China.

China has basically already won WW3 and we're now learning what it's like to be Britain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1. American design typically sucks. Our cars suck, clothing suck, food sucks. Compared to elsewhere designs anyway.

Also we're moving toward AI. Why does it make sense to return to skilled labor in general? Now making a violin or a specialization that requires an apprenticeship is different. We could def use more plumbers, preKs, teachers, police and tutors but you know why nobody wants those jobs so why in the helm you'd want to make clothes?! Hell we could even use more doctors but it's too hard for a lot of people.

If people are worried about AI taking jobs I'd think the last thing they want is manufacturing oriented jobs. Get some robots in that assembly line!

It doesn't make sense to me to go back but better to progress. The issue is that American society culturally isn't in a place where we can progress given our education systems and a slew of other infrastructure and domestic issues.

This is on point. We will never have cheap enough labor to make mass manufacturing of items Americans consume now affordable. Even with tariffs you if you slap extra 30% on top of cheap goods produced overseas it will still be cheaper than equivalent American made goods. Right now people buy American made clothes (which are very few) and overpay because of scarcity and morality bonus. You buy American made when cheaper choices exist because you want to help our workers and support domestic manufacturing. There isn't much else like superior quality, because it's rarely the case. Usually it's handmade artisanal products where American made can still dominate because it makes sense. I can see some domestic brand name products making sense because people who pay for brands are ok overpaying for the actual quality and utility of the goods. I don't see mass produced items we buy on the cheap now getting produced domestically even if they start costing more.

It's hardly a unique opinion that if we want to compete with foreign labor practices and keep mass produced goods as affordable as now we are going to need robots. I don't really disapprove of this because robotics manufacturing will provide better paying jobs, force our education system to evolve to higher standards and stop the brain drain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am confused. Now, making cell phones is a bad thing?

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lmdc4hyqkb27

At 3 x the cost? Being confused at Trump’s action is normal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. American design typically sucks. Our cars suck, clothing suck, food sucks. Compared to elsewhere designs anyway.

Also we're moving toward AI. Why does it make sense to return to skilled labor in general? Now making a violin or a specialization that requires an apprenticeship is different. We could def use more plumbers, preKs, teachers, police and tutors but you know why nobody wants those jobs so why in the helm you'd want to make clothes?! Hell we could even use more doctors but it's too hard for a lot of people.

If people are worried about AI taking jobs I'd think the last thing they want is manufacturing oriented jobs. Get some robots in that assembly line!

It doesn't make sense to me to go back but better to progress. The issue is that American society culturally isn't in a place where we can progress given our education systems and a slew of other infrastructure and domestic issues.

This is on point. We will never have cheap enough labor to make mass manufacturing of items Americans consume now affordable. Even with tariffs you if you slap extra 30% on top of cheap goods produced overseas it will still be cheaper than equivalent American made goods. Right now people buy American made clothes (which are very few) and overpay because of scarcity and morality bonus. You buy American made when cheaper choices exist because you want to help our workers and support domestic manufacturing. There isn't much else like superior quality, because it's rarely the case. Usually it's handmade artisanal products where American made can still dominate because it makes sense. I can see some domestic brand name products making sense because people who pay for brands are ok overpaying for the actual quality and utility of the goods. I don't see mass produced items we buy on the cheap now getting produced domestically even if they start costing more.

It's hardly a unique opinion that if we want to compete with foreign labor practices and keep mass produced goods as affordable as now we are going to need robots. I don't really disapprove of this because robotics manufacturing will provide better paying jobs, force our education system to evolve to higher standards and stop the brain drain.

America is just fine at being productive. Take food production. We produce large amounts of excess food, and we only have one to two percent of our population employed in agriculture. China it's closer to ten percent, and they are practically starving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. American design typically sucks. Our cars suck, clothing suck, food sucks. Compared to elsewhere designs anyway.

Also we're moving toward AI. Why does it make sense to return to skilled labor in general? Now making a violin or a specialization that requires an apprenticeship is different. We could def use more plumbers, preKs, teachers, police and tutors but you know why nobody wants those jobs so why in the helm you'd want to make clothes?! Hell we could even use more doctors but it's too hard for a lot of people.

If people are worried about AI taking jobs I'd think the last thing they want is manufacturing oriented jobs. Get some robots in that assembly line!

It doesn't make sense to me to go back but better to progress. The issue is that American society culturally isn't in a place where we can progress given our education systems and a slew of other infrastructure and domestic issues.

This is on point. We will never have cheap enough labor to make mass manufacturing of items Americans consume now affordable. Even with tariffs you if you slap extra 30% on top of cheap goods produced overseas it will still be cheaper than equivalent American made goods. Right now people buy American made clothes (which are very few) and overpay because of scarcity and morality bonus. You buy American made when cheaper choices exist because you want to help our workers and support domestic manufacturing. There isn't much else like superior quality, because it's rarely the case. Usually it's handmade artisanal products where American made can still dominate because it makes sense. I can see some domestic brand name products making sense because people who pay for brands are ok overpaying for the actual quality and utility of the goods. I don't see mass produced items we buy on the cheap now getting produced domestically even if they start costing more.

It's hardly a unique opinion that if we want to compete with foreign labor practices and keep mass produced goods as affordable as now we are going to need robots. I don't really disapprove of this because robotics manufacturing will provide better paying jobs, force our education system to evolve to higher standards and stop the brain drain.

So you are going to work in the factory? What skills do you bring to the table?