[rilezg]

This is incredibly short-sighted and ignorant of any externalities. We lost American manufacturing not because of regulation, but because of trade policies that allowed global corporations to avoid those regulations and profit by outsourcing manufacturing to countries with laxer regulations.

I do not want 'America's entrepreneurs' to start producing infant formula without any safeguards. That is recipe for disaster.

[Dracophoenix]

>We lost American manufacturing not because of regulation, but because of trade policies that allowed global corporations to avoid those regulations and profit by outsourcing manufacturing to countries with laxer regulations.

So how is that not losing American manufacturing to regulation? If other countries have laxer and more favorable terms for businesses and those business are succeeding, that's sufficient evidence to demonstrate that regulation stifles manufacturing.

You phrase your statement as though regulations are naturally occurring substances rather than the wishful, bureaucratic, and often violent mandates of government that they are. If the government has enough agency to compose such regulations, it should have enough agency to acknowledge and accept the resulting consequences when businesses vote with their feet and their wallets.

[rilezg]

What I am saying is that in order for regulations to NOT cause businesses to 'vote with their feet and their wallets', we must also enact trade policies so that it is NOT cheaper for businesses to seek the laxest regulation (i.e. enforce tariffs for the difference in cost).

If we do not care enough about the regulation to have a tariff, then the regulation should not exist.

>You phrase your statement as though regulations are a naturally occurring substances rather than wishful and often violent mandates of government that they are.

Lol, what is this even? I'll bite though. Regulations are naturally occurring insofar as any other human invention is naturally occurring. All laws are regulations on behavior, and all laws are wishful. There is still murder even though we have laws against shooting people. For me, at least, that is not a reason to do away with laws, but to each their own.

[Dracophoenix]

>What I am saying is that in order for regulations to NOT cause businesses to 'vote with their feet and their wallets', we must also enact trade policies so that it is NOT cheaper for businesses to seek the laxest regulation (i.e. enforce tariffs for the difference in cost). If we do not care enough about the regulation to have a tariff, then the regulation should not exist.

Then you've confused cause for effect. Economic freedom is a driving force ,not a consequence, of investment. You're solution amounts to imprisoning or punishing companies for pursuing their economic interests.

Tariffs don't work. If you want a recent example, tariffs didn't get Trump what he wanted with China. Free trade is going to happen whether you like it or not. Imposing tariffs only creates a greater incentive not to do business in the United States, get out of an industry entirely, or to participate in a black market.

>Lol, what is this even? I'll bite though. Regulations are naturally occurring insofar as any other human invention is naturally occurring. All laws are regulations on behavior, and all laws are wishful. There is still murder even though we have laws against shooting people. For me, at least, that is not a reason to do away with laws, but to each their own.

I never said one should do away with laws. There are well-written laws and laws that should have never have been composed. Almost all regulations interfere with the exercise of one's rights even if there is no victim involved. They are simply blunt instruments of the government to exercise at its whim.

And the comparison between trade policy and murder is laughable. No one's rights are being taken away when a company chooses to trade/build in another country with full consent and acknowledgement. The same cannot be said for murder.

[rilezg]

>You're solution amounts to imprisoning or punishing companies for pursuing their economic interests.

Yes, I am so glad you understand. When 'economic interests' of a business run counter to 'societal interests' because of trivialities like pollution or contamination of infant formula leading to death, then society, using government, enacts regulations so that the harmful action is no longer in the 'economic interest' of the business because if the business takes that action then they will be punished.

>No one's rights are being taken away when a company chooses to trade/build in another country

That depends heavily on that country's stance on human rights.

[Dracophoenix]

So-called "societal interests" are rhetorical pretexts defined by government itself, many of which are almost completely fictional and disingenuous. There is no consistent definition of what constitutes "societal interests" due to the reality that individual citizens have interests as unique as themselves. No individual citizen or society created, voted for, or granted power to these various regulatory agencies.

As far as infant formula goes, you can't regulate away what you call trivialities. Anyone who has ever worked in manufacturing, particularly quality control, will tell you there will always be defects. The regulations that exist now just leads to our current situation with mass recalls of even perfectly safe baby formula. If these recalls get too expensive, these companies will move to other locations if not go out of business entirely.

> That depends heavily on that country's stance on human rights

Define "human rights". A government that picks its "societal interests" is one that picks it's implementation of human rights. Suffice it to say, such governments aren't very interested in protecting those rights. Some may go so far as to violate them.

[rilezg]

I, as an individual citizen of these United States of America, hereby grant power to all the various regulatory agencies. There, it has been done, for better or for worse.

More seriously though, I do not know how to bridge the gap between us. We clearly have wildly different beliefs, and our languages differ too much. I wish you the best of luck in the world where government is the root of all evil, for I cannot join you there.

[7sidedmarble]

Deindustrialization is, in my opinion, just a natural phase brought on by the profit motive. Labor and raw materials are always going to be the most expensive parts of producing anything, and even if we converted the United States into Ancapistan tomorrow, labor in Asia would still be cheaper. Our countries are just at different stages.

Deindustrialization will hit China and the rest of south-east Asia in time too. China right now is experiencing the boom we experienced post war.

[DiogenesKynikos]

> If other countries have laxer and more favorable terms for businesses

The "laxer and more favorable terms" include the fact that people in those countries are willing to work for pennies a day.

Unless you're proposing a substantial decrease in wages in the US, companies are not going to decide, of their own will, to bring those low-skill manufacturing jobs back.

[barry-cotter]

The US is extremely close to its peak in manufacturing.

> Total production of U.S. factories peaked in 2007 before falling by 18% during the Great Recession, according to the Federal Reserve’s industrial production report, which measures the volume of goods produced rather than the market value of those goods. The manufacturing sector has nearly recovered from the recession; output in 2015 was within 3% of the 2007 level.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-manufacturing-dead-outp...

[freeAgent]

We should also consider adjusting for population, if not consumption, when talking about how close we are to “peak” manufacturing output. GDP per capita means a whole lot more than straight GDP. We should apply the same logic to conversations about American manufacturing.

[seanp2k2]

…and countries with massively cheaper labor. Imagine what MIUSA iPhones made with 100% MIUSA parts would cost (if they could even exist, given the realities of semiconductor manufacturing today).