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

[Anonymous]

I think the world makes too much stuff. But there is something to be said for manufacturing at home, in clean factories with good regulations, proper salaries and benefits. I come from somewhere where factory workers are (or were at least, growing up!) respected, lots of small factories, great quality products that last. Sometimes if I am walking around a store now I'm hit by the sheer amount of needless plastic crap all around, trinkets that will be discarded, awful quality clothing...It's too much and we do not need 75% of it all. But we do need good US supplies/products and factory jobs and valorizing those jobs.

[Anonymous]

Remember, most of the people here are from the concrete jungle of DC that push paper all day and have live in nannies.

A small sliver of reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Remember, most of the people here are from the concrete jungle of DC that push paper all day and have live in nannies.

A small sliver of reality.

80% of American jobs are white collar. 10% are manufacturing. Talk about a small sliver of reality. Though I am glad you work in manufacturing.

[Anonymous]

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

Well said. We seem to have communists among us here, don’t we?

[Anonymous]

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

Okay, so, you might think this, but in some industries, you'd be astoundingly wrong. I work in textiles. We simply cannot produce cloth here for the cost most people are accustomed to paying for cloth and finished clothing. We have very few textile mills at all, the knowledge pool of how to operate them is dwindling to near-extinction levels, and the cost to scale up to provide for a nation's needs would be astronomical. To meet the standards for acceptable pollution we'd likely accept here (even with an EPA-antagonistic administration trying to roll current regulations back), we'd face incredibly slow production times and limited output that would make providing "fast fashion" like we're accustomed to a non-starter. And the price to do all of this, while paying US citizens a livable(ish) wage, would be ridiculous. The $10 tees you're used to having (which will be $15+ after tariffs, btw) would be something like $300 each, and you'd value them properly because the wait to get a new one would be years.

The end result might be a good thing, overall, but the process of getting there would catastrophically upend the way we do things here, and this is just my somewhat niche industry's perspective. Trump 1.0 tariffs killed a lot of the smaller producers. Those who are left are barely alive. At least where I am, this simply doesn't work the way you want it to or think it should.

[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.

Not that long ago, people still knew how to sew their own clothes. My mom was a professional. My peers think what I know is quaint and old-timey. My kids can barely handstitch, but they do know how to identify quality thrifted goods...

[Anonymous]

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?

Because America is the land of excess, not sustainability. If we'd been prioritizing sustainability for the past 30 or so years, we wouldn't be in this position. But people want the newest phone, car, designer drug, etc. and a disposable wardrobe and the want it cheap. It was never sustainable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a dumb question. Some manufacturing should be here. Skilled manufacturing should be reshored. We don't need to be making t-shirts and widgets.

That's not what they are talking about though.

I disagree about t-shirts. Local manufacturing of clothing is very nice. Everyone in India and China wear custom fit clothes. When I was in Beijing, I bought a custom fit traditional outfit. We negotiated with the seller we told them we had to catch a train in three hours, they said they would to it. We came back in two hours, and they were snipping the last few threads off. The manufacturing facility was behind the store. I also bought several sets of custom fit business/casual in China. You go to a big warehouse type building. Pick the cloth you want, take to get measured, come back in two weeks custom fit clothing reasonably priced.

Compare that to trying to order custom fit clothing online. Getting measured putting in the numbers, then you find out that the manufacturer has a different interpretation of the numbers.

I would get custom T-shirts if I could, and not just stylized "custom" prints.

You would be better served to invest in a decent-quality serger, good cloth and a good pattern and simply make your own. It would be about the same prices as what you'd pay for someone to do this domestically.

T-shirts are easy. And then, once you know how, you can sell them to your friends! American ingenuity!

[Anonymous]

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?

Because America is the land of excess, not sustainability. If we'd been prioritizing sustainability for the past 30 or so years, we wouldn't be in this position. But people want the newest phone, car, designer drug, etc. and a disposable wardrobe and the want it cheap. It was never sustainable.

+1 Americans are going to have to change their habits and It’s hard to go backwards. Gen Z and Alpha grew up on Amazon two day shipping and cheap clothes from overseas. That’s going to be a rough switch.

[Anonymous]

We don’t have enough of a underclass to man all these factories you are dreaming of. Plus why do we want to ruin our land with factories everywhere? There is a reason most goods are made in third world countries.

[Anonymous]

19:43 is an evil elitist.

[Anonymous]

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

+1 Exactly. Who here is sending their kids to the best public or private schools possible for them to end up working in a factory? I'd guess that most of us here are not dreaming of our kids landing a great job making toxic plastic crap.

Or is the plan to open the border again and fill up the factories with underpaid migrants packing themselves into cheap housing getting "free" healthcare and pubic education. Rinse, repeat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don’t have enough of a underclass to man all these factories you are dreaming of. Plus why do we want to ruin our land with factories everywhere? There is a reason most goods are made in third world countries.

Exactly. They are made in countries where environmental regulations are weak, so companies are free to destroy the land, air, and water. Those countries also have weak money against the dollar, which means a decent wage there is pennies. The only way for manufacturing to happen here is to allow the destruction of the environment and let the dollar become so weak that it is meaningless. In other words, America has to become a total sh*thole country. Trump is doing a great job at it, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Remember, most of the people here are from the concrete jungle of DC that push paper all day and have live in nannies.

A small sliver of reality.

80% of American jobs are white collar. 10% are manufacturing. Talk about a small sliver of reality. Though I am glad you work in manufacturing.

You don't need to make up stuff like this you know...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don’t have enough of a underclass to man all these factories you are dreaming of. Plus why do we want to ruin our land with factories everywhere? There is a reason most goods are made in third world countries.

Do we believe in our heart of hearts that Trump and his cabinet cronies would give a damn if we look out the window and see this

https://earth.org/air-pollution-in-china-are-chinas-policies-working/

because of all the fabulous new factories they brought back to the US? And factories are only one culprit here-- think of all the cars and trucks on the road. It's not like all of these factory workers will be piling into Teslas.