[ejlangev]

It's a shame we moved a lot of the US industrial base to an authoritarian and potentially hostile country like China. A bit scary to think of the generation or two of people who won't have the knowledge to manufacture things should they ever need to because of conflict in some form. Seems like it reduces any leverage the US has for holding China accountable for much that it does.

[Fricken]

What would holding China accountable entail, exactly?

"America doesn't like they way you do civilization. We don't like the way you brought 650 million people out of extreme poverty in a generation. If you have to use authoritarian tactics to do that, it's better that they stay poor and addicted to opium. You have to disband now."

"Oh, okay. Sorry America. We recognize the error of our ways. We will stop being China now."

[adventured]

What's actually happening right now, is the US and others (eg South Korea, Japan, some countries in Europe) are aggressively begining to redistribute their capital allocations to other nations (eg Mexico), including South East Asian competitors to China (eg Vietnam).

Samsung for example is making the majority of their phones in Vietnam now.

US imports from Vietnam have gone from nothing to $50+ billion per year in 20 years. A 100 fold increase. It's equivalent to 1/4 of their entire economy and it's almost entirely a deficit. We're going to build large regional competitors to China for strategic purposes. Conveniently, they can also buy up US debt with all of those dollars we're pouring into their economy.

Some of this is because China's manufacturing costs have climbed so much, some of it is intentional strategic emphasis (as the TPP was / is meant to be). The US very clearly has shifted its political interest in Vietnam for example.

[bb88]

The problem is that if you don't hold China accountable, it gives them the green light to do even worse things.

[dlwdlw]

You should look more into the history of the US as well as international opinions. The US isn't a paragon of virtue, it is only able to sell its own narrative of events because of its economic and cultural weight.

Even the belief that the rich/powerful mist have some sort of virtue is only one perspective that conveniently allows the US the moral high ground.

No country, no person, no thing is perfect. All evil comes from things that pretend to be and act as if they were. The humans that pretend to or want to be gods inevitably are the one who dehumanize others and so become demons.

[bb88]

I'm fully aware of the failures of US Foreign Policy.

But when you argue about a topic that affects the security of the US, there really is no such thing as "moral high ground".

Edited to add:

I believe China holds that true as well when discussing the security of China, considering the number of spies that are in the US.

[baursak]

> But when you argue about a topic that affects the security of the US, there really is no such thing as "moral high ground".

So all your concerns boil down to us-vs-them tribalism?

[natalyarostova]

Classifying something as tribalism doesn't make it not an important or real factor to be acted upon. Although I think the term nationalism is more pointed. I live in the US. My family lives in the US, and my well-being is attached to the success of the US.

I'm not arbitrarily in favor of everything the US does, but on the margin, I am in favor of policies that optimize this country's success.

[ardit33]

I disagree.... the US was shit at producing weapons before WW2 (apart from Carriers), yet within two years was to able to be the number one mass producer in quantity, and eventually on quality.

When there is both political and economical will, the country will be able to mass-produce again. Right now there is no economic incentive to do so.

[jdietrich]

America had one overwhelming advantage - thousands of miles of ocean separating it from enemy lines. The industrial capacity of practically every other major nation was laid waste by strategic bombing. America also had domestic production of nearly every important manufacturing input, rendering it practically immune to naval blockade.

Post-war, America didn't spend a single cent on rebuilding infrastructure lost to bombing, while the other major powers needed a decade of austerity just to get back to where they started. Britain was still repaying the Anglo-American war loan in 2006.

America did an excellent job of scaling up manufacturing capacity during WWII, but the factors that made it such a dominant force were largely accidents of geography.

[DrScump]

  America didn't spend a single cent on rebuilding infrastructure lost to bombing

... within the continental U.S.

America spent a lot in helping rebuild infrastructure elsewhere.

[kahnpro]

Incidentally this is also a major overlooked factor in the Cold War against the USSR.

America has had 150 years of peace and stability. The Soviet Union was ravaged by a traumatizing war at home and before that a major civil war and revolution.

[forapurpose]

That raises a few questions:

I wonder if that's still possible. The US was an industrial country at the time; they had to convert existing factories to other forms of production (e.g., from cars to bombers). Now, manufacturing is much less prevalent; the US would have to create capacity from scratch.

Also, manufacturing is much less productive than other economic activities - that's why it's done in poorer countries that don't have better options while the US does higher value things (ignoring for this purpose the very important issues of the distribution of those higher returns). I wonder what the blow to the economy would be if the US suddenly had to switch large amounts of resources to manufacturing.

Finally, given that manufacturing is no longer the cutting edge of business, I wonder if it might be easier to build capacity than we think. As an example, t-shirts are mostly made outside the US; I would guess that if there was suddenly a critical need for them, the US could ramp up capacity quickly.

[Regardsyjc]

Not all manufacturing is less productive. It might not be productive to manufacture t-shirts in the US but it's productive to manufacture airplanes.

There's the flying geese paradigm (FGP) that theorizes the rapid industrialization of Asia. It theorizes the movement of manufacturing form country to country as well as a process of industrial upgrading.

For example, manufacturing began in London, moved to the US, and eventually someone built a factory in Japan. In all these circumstances in order to stay competitive - they had to move to a country with cheaper labor or manufacture a more advanced product with a bigger profit margin. However their competitors catch up and they need to do the same thing again. Find a better more complex product to manufacture or find a way to manufacture it cheaper overseas.

The US started to lose its manufacturing jobs and thus its middle class starting from the 1950s. Most of these jobs were replaced by the service industry for half the pay. Today the service industry employs the most poor Americans today, your cashiers and waiters, and they are soon to be eliminated.

I've been researching manufacturing because I want to make some toothbrushes. In China, I could make them for less than 25 cents. I'm not sure how much it would cost in the USA, and a lot of my colleagues tell me that most manufacturers won't even call them back because they're so small. China on the other hand doesn't care - they're happy to sell you 1000 toothbrushes for 25 cents each.

I don't know what's better. To manufacture in the USA and not be able to compete on price - one of the biggest factors in a purchase or manufacture them in China and be competitive... Well I guess the answer is simple, if you want to make a business, you need to be profitable. If it's not profitable in the US, then China might be your only answer.

[Slansitartop]

Didn't a lot of that military production capacity come from repurposing civilian infrastructure, like auto plants and the like?

Also, it would probably be harder to bootstrap 2020s-era manufacturing infrastructure than it would be to bootstrap 1940s-era infrastructure.

[sushid]

It was also the first time we had idle housewives become a prominent place in the workforce. We don't really have that luxury in this day and age.

[rubidium]

"Idle"?

They weren't idle (look into what clothes washing alone used to take), but the war effort certainly shifted priorities and also increased the number of women without domestic responsibilities.

[nerfhammer]

Manufacturing output of the US hasn't decreased. China just eclipsed everyone: https://twitter.com/LegalKant/status/946904533183197185

[adventured]

The current projections are that the US will probably reclaim its manufacturing crown or get close to it. A big part of China's gains the last ten years are in over-production. As those excesses are eventually removed or reduced, the gap will close to practically nothing within about another 10-15 years. For example, that chart showing the manufacturing levels, if you do nothing else but remove China's current subsidized industrial over-production, the gap narrows such that China is merely ahead by 10-15%. China's manufacturing is no longer expanding meaningfully, whereas US manufacturing continues to expand slowly but surely year after year; the corp tax cuts and very inexpensive US natural gas will continue to bolster that.

http://fortune.com/2016/03/31/united-states-manufacturing-ch...

[anthonyleecook]

We need some investors to band up and recreate the hardware environment in Shenzhen. There would be a lot of money made that way too so not sure why there wouldn’t be one in Nevada or Arizona or something.

[korethr]

While I like the idea, I think there are presently cultural barriers in the way of that succeeding, mainly the Western view of IP vs the Eastern view of IP.

Bunnie talks about it on his blog here: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297

[telmnstr]

Let's be fair, they steal a ton of IP from the USA.

Isn't there large issues in USA colleges with students from China cheating left and right?

It's much easier to copy.

[bb88]

This is pretty spot on. A fun channel on Youtube to watch is BigClive where he tears the stuff from china apart and comments on it.

Here's one where he tears down a flicker flame lamp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KhtBA0EHDM

[Slansitartop]

Yeah, I kinda wish that Apple, as a condition of repatriating its billions at a lower tax rate, had to spend that money standing up Shenzen-like infrastructure somewhere in the US to build its products.

[bb88]

I think the problem is that even if they did, they wouldn't use the facilities, because the labor in the Chinese/Taiwanese facilities would still be cheaper.

[bewo001]

This would not work and it isn't even necessary. Looking at how other low-wage fast-growing countries in the past developed, China's wages and costs will soon get close to Western ones and there will be a more fair competition. Eg. if the 1980's hobby economists had been right, all our cars, electronics and computers would be Japanese by now.

[puppetmaster400]

What China did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_economic_zones_of_Chin...

is very reproducible, by USA or anyone. They for decades had 10% GDP growth: BY REDUCING TAXES. Not something popular in California - due to Cali math(CA tax payer does not understand that lower taxes = higher tax revenue )

[maxerickson]

The other trick China used is that it started with a very small economy. Per capita GDP is still less than $10,000 per person, compared to $56,000 in California.

Have you done your homework on your tax claim? Because it isn't actually guaranteed that lower tax rates will lead to higher tax revenue, it depends on the specifics of the tax regime and proposed cut.

[puppetmaster400]

My homework?

Small or big: cutting taxes provides growth. Including more tax revenue.

[EggsOnToast]

I like this point but can you elaborate on it more? My knee jerk reaction is to say "why". I'm not very familiar with manufacturing as I'm sure a lot of people aren't, but it seems like most of the knowledge is in the design of the factory not in the skill of the workers. I know that might be an ignorant statement but that's why I'm asking for elaboration.

[rangibaby]

The value is having all the factories so close together. So there is no waiting around for part A which will take a week to get here from B.