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

[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.

We cannot compete with "letter salad" Chinese made brands on Amazon, no way. Our wages are magnitude higher than wages of factory workers overseas. We also don't have facilities that would want to focus on intricate low level of detail molds and complex products requiring manual assembly or packaging.

I tried to manufacture a product in the USA once.. I found out that our manufacturing facilities largely focus on producing more crude or specialized goods for infrastructure, construction, automotive, medical, energy, etc. But If let's say you invent a new baby bottle you will be having a hard time finding a facility to help you manufacture all the different parts (especially cute bright colored fine detail) in different types of materials requiring different molds and provide labor for assembly and packaging. It will be very costly and you won't make much spread on selling the product or sell enough of it if the price is too high. If your product sells well, then in no time your design will get copied overseas, and cheap versions will flood the market.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

This really isn't true. Japan bought a specific type of narrow denim looms that has a niche appeal. Denim that will last just as long, and which is more practical for modern manufacturing is readily available. However, Levy's makes a better profit selling jeans that don't last decades, regardless of where they are sewn.

Sewn products produced in the US are not better quality today, and they weren't better quality fifty years ago. Companies at the higher end have a much higher error rate from domestic factories. The most successful factories focus on doing the most basic designs even in very basic product categories. E.g. t-shirt/hoodie blanks with minimal seams.

Vintage pieces sewn in the US have a lot of cost cutting measures: long stitch lengths, lazy construction, careless cutting. Some of that would be fixed with current automation of cutting and patternmaking, but the US factories were not producing great product even way back when.

These were never good jobs, they are extremely low skill. No one needs to be able to sew a garment start to finish, just execute one small skill for an entire shift.

[Anonymous]

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?

They want you to believe that there is no manufacturing in America? Or that there is very little. They paint the picture as if manufacturing has completely disappeared in the US. This is false.

Let look at the facts.

America ranks second in the world in manufacturing output just behind China.
Japan, Germany, South Korea and India follow on the list.

Our manufacturing industry is already huge. We aren’t just in the business of manufacturing goods that require cheap labor to be profitable.

[Anonymous]

OMG for god's sake Trump's stupidity means great depression. No company builds factories in a recession or depression. Not to mention raise your hand if you want your kid not in school working there for $2 an hour and no labor laws in case of injury or sex abuse.

Coal is coming back. Black lung I hope every single republican that works the mines gets everything they wished for.

Invoking a National economic emergency not tariffs. Deploy military against American Citizens. Destroy labor laws, freeze finances. is the goal people wake up already dam idiots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

We cannot compete with "letter salad" Chinese made brands on Amazon, no way. Our wages are magnitude higher than wages of factory workers overseas. We also don't have facilities that would want to focus on intricate low level of detail molds and complex products requiring manual assembly or packaging.

I tried to manufacture a product in the USA once.. I found out that our manufacturing facilities largely focus on producing more crude or specialized goods for infrastructure, construction, automotive, medical, energy, etc. But If let's say you invent a new baby bottle you will be having a hard time finding a facility to help you manufacture all the different parts (especially cute bright colored fine detail) in different types of materials requiring different molds and provide labor for assembly and packaging. It will be very costly and you won't make much spread on selling the product or sell enough of it if the price is too high. If your product sells well, then in no time your design will get copied overseas, and cheap versions will flood the market.

Only things Democrats make are asphalt and concrete.

[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.

Exactly. That’s exactly what the Democrat Party of Death and Destruction wants.

[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.

A global economy prevents world war III