[thehoff]

I hate to be so cynical these days....but if this is true, that would mean a lot of dockworkers/longshoreman are out of jobs or not working right? Truck drivers, and who knows what other jobs are just not doing anything at this point?

[perihelions]

But, China itself is automating away most of those jobs. It's a stark difference between Chinese and Western—just look at the phraseology we're using, without thinking about it: "out of jobs"; in China's zeitgeist they wouldn't say they lost jobs to technology, they say they "saved 80 percent of manpower" [0].

[0] https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202312/1304443.shtml ("China’s first self-built fully automated dock enters operation in Qingdao, Shandong Province" (2023))

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Pretty sure that the dockworker who is now unemployed, in China or in the US, isn't thinking "we saved 80% of manpower" but is more likely thinking "fuck, I lost my job."

The dock owners, OTOH...

[ebruchez]

True or not, be aware that "The Global Times is a daily tabloid newspaper under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party's flagship newspaper, the People's Daily, commenting on international issues from a Chinese nationalistic perspective." (Wikipedia)

[perihelions]

- "Chinese nationalistic perspective"

Yes, that was the point I tried to make. The story isn't the point; the choice of language Chinese state media uses is the point.

Can you even imagine the US government, under either party, boasting about eliminating tens of thousands of US longshoremen jobs?

[vaidhy]

They won't because it costs votes. Is it better for the US in long term that these jobs are automated?

[doctorwho42]

Because their centralized government seems to have a purpose other than gaining power and wealth.

[9rx]

Even where power and wealth is the sole purpose, "saving labor" to allow them to move into new jobs with higher meaning to your power/wealth would be your default take. "Job loss" is the position only when you've stopped innovating and can't imagine that there is anything else people can do.

[cjbgkagh]

What do you think gaining power and wealth looks like? To me the Chinese central government seem hyper-fixated on it and it is working out well for them. Making strategic dual-purpose investments is directly aligned with gaining power and wealth.

[philipallstar]

It's just people commentating differently depending on what "team" they think the target of the comment is on - people who think socialism is probably a good idea, but bemoan any automation done by private industry that causes job losses. However they will love China's efficiency doing the same thing.

[trymas]

I think there were already multiple posts on HN about this.

Most recent I remember UPS firing 20 000 people.

Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43835849

[toomuchtodo]

This was because UPS let an Amazon delivery deal roll off that was not profitable.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1090727/000109072725...

https://about.ups.com/us/en/newsroom/press-releases/financia...

[wavefunction]

UPS said it was because shipping volumes at Amazon are down, so it's not-profitable because shipping-volumes are down. lol

[throw310822]

Dockworkers, logistics, truck delivery drivers, warehouse workers, etc.

On the other hand, I guess it might be a great time for small shops and businesses that produce low to medium tech stuff- from crafts, clothing and furniture to electronics. Even if the country's going to suffer they should profit handsomely (which is not a bad thing per se).

[bitmasher9]

Except those businesses relay heavily on imported materials. For example, no one is weaving cotton into fabric in the US at any scale.

[rad_gruchalski]

Well… it’s the best time to start? I guess that’s what the MAGA Sun is hoping for.

[Aurornis]

It’s actually not. If you’re starting a business right now with the goal of selling to customers all over the world, setting up shop in America is not looking good. You’d pay exorbitant tariffs on inputs and machines.

It’s better to manufacture out of the country and let US consumers eat the tariff cost on import while keeping your operations efficient outside of the US tariff zone.

It’s an extraordinarily poorly planned policy.

[Someone]

> If you’re starting a business right now with the goal of selling to customers all over the world

If you do that now in the USA, there’s a fairly large risk that your exports will be taxed, and, with exports to the USA tanking, there’s excess production in the rest parts of the world, so prices will go down outside the USA, at least temporarily.

⇒ If you’re starting a business in the USA today, you should only aim for the domestic market.

[rad_gruchalski]

Well… what can I tell you. Talk to your president regarding dismantling your country? It’s not difficult to figure out that I‘m being sarcastic.

What I‘m saying is: the problem sits in the white house.

[slavik81]

I want to believe that, but the president is not doing this by himself. His was re-elected democratically by a majority of voters, and he enjoys the support of the house, the senate, and the federal courts. I fear that the problem lies in the hearts and minds of the American people.

As a Canadian, it has been hard to stomach. I thought we were brothers working together towards a common future. It would be a lot less heartbreaking if this really was caused by a single individual.

[dylan604]

That's not what MAGA world wants though. They want products made here, sold here, bought here. MAGA world does not care about the rest of what the world's people do. If they want to buy our stuff, great, but then blame other governments for taxing American products like there's no blame to share.

[disgruntledphd2]

Sure, but in that case, tariffs on finished goods are the way to go. You'll first recover the assembly business and then over time you could reshore more of the inputs.

But like, it's not the 1950s anymore, basically every product consists of parts from all over the world.

You can't unpick that in 90 days.

[throw310822]

> with the goal of selling to customers all over the world

No, I think you're missing the point. This is not to create world-class companies, capable of selling abroad. This is to inject money and optimism in small, local, antiquated businesses that have been long priced out of any competition with the rest of the world.

[rtkwe]

Who's going to invest in a business that's only profitable as long as we keep these insane tariff level up and will take several years to spin up? (Plus where are they going to get the machines to do the actual work? Those are being tariffed too!)

[rad_gruchalski]

I don’t know. Maybe MAGA Sun knows.

[zelda420]

Unfortunately the largest cotton producing country is china, followed by India.

My grandparents actually worked and met at a denim factory in west Texas which was renowned for its cotton production. Growing up I remember giant cotton fields which have all been replaced with strip malls and sprawl.

It’s going to be a multi-year project at the very least. And even then probably still cheaper to make clothes in Vietnam.

[rad_gruchalski]

> It’s going to be a multi-year project

But that’s what MAGA wants and Trump clearly, like Putin, doesn’t want to go anywhere so maybe start now? I can see, like you, how tragically comedic this situation is.

[esseph]

Won't happen.

Takes years, decades to build or rebuild new industries.

[pixl97]

Yea, the bank is just going to love to hand out money with the amount of political and economic uncertainty injected into the system....

[rad_gruchalski]

If the bank can not finance your stuff maybe Trump knows some people who can borrow you money? On preferential conditions, of course… who knows, maybe he gets into loan business himself.

[_joel]

Even their hats are made in China.

[ajmurmann]

Cool, so in a year or three the fabric factory would be up and running. Oh wait, we need to first build a factory for the machines we need in the fabric factory...

[rad_gruchalski]

Well… that’s exactly what I mean. But you guys have chosen a president.

[vjvjvjvjghv]

If anything it will be very short term. Nobody knows where this is going so it would be suicidal for small businesses to scale up. Large companies have the reserves but little guys don’t. I am very worried that this will lead to another dying of small businesses like happened during COVID.

[Aurornis]

> On the other hand, I guess it might be a great time for small shops and businesses that produce low to medium tech stuff- from crafts, clothing and furniture to electronics.

Absolutely not. All of the small businesses I know are getting crushed by tariffs.

Electronics especially. With 125% tariffs on everyone from China, prices just exploded.

Even domestic PCB manufacturers prices and lead times have shot up due to demand.

It’s extremely bad. I don’t think people realize how devastating this is to company that couldn’t amass huge inventories prior to tariffs arriving and can’t lobby the Trump administration for an exemption.

[throw310822]

I didn't mean that this is going to be a net positive or even better than disastrous. I'm just saying that if you already have a small business in the US making stuff that was hard to sell locally given the cheaper competition from abroad, people will have no choice but come to you.

> Even domestic PCB manufacturers prices and lead times have shot up due to demand.

Exactly this, I bet those PCB manufacturers are quite happy. Some of their employees might get the idea of setting up a new business, too.

[Aurornis]

> if you already have a small business in the US making stuff that was hard to sell locally given the cheaper competition from abroad, people will have no choice but come to you.

Not true for many businesses. It’s common to have some inputs or machinery that is imported. Maybe you can win while you’re working through inventory and your machines aren’t breaking down, but if your COGS also go up with tariffs then it might not be a clear win.

[nebula8804]

>I didn't mean that this is going to be a net positive or even better than disastrous. I'm just saying that if you already have a small business in the US making stuff that was hard to sell locally given the cheaper competition from abroad, people will have no choice but come to you.

Unless those businesses have inputs that rely on China...which many do, those guys are going under.

>Exactly this, I bet those PCB manufacturers are quite happy. Some of their employees might get the idea of setting up a new business, too.

Those US PCB manufacturers didn't care for that business before, they focus on getting fat government or industrial contracts. The reason China was so consumer focused was because they have so much capacity that they must be friendly to my dinky $5 order. Furthermore consider that with 1.4 billion people, there are so many engineers that its extremely cutthroat. You then have a scenario where they assign an engineer to look at my dinky little $5 order because they can.

[anigbrowl]

It depends what sort of demand there is for your product. If it's an essential and you can bring it in at a good price, your business might jump. If it's discretionary and is the sort of thing people postpone buying due to recession, not so much.

[ChainOfFools]

Intermodal freight drayage industry, which is largely comprised of a thousands of very small and ineffocoently run mom and pop nepo-companies run dependent upon an open tolerance of very scammy business tactics extending temporary surcharges indefinitely, milking covid business relief loans to the fullest extent possible) in order to survive, is going to experience a mass die-off if this tariff war lasts another 6 to 9 months.

[rdtsc]

> I hate to be so cynical these days....but if this is true, that would mean a lot of

But since we’re being cynical, is importing stuff just to keep the port workers busy a good idea?

[thehoff]

I didn't mean we should keep importing to keep people busy. I'm sure that whatever was coming through those ports was ordered by a large number of companies/individuals.

Sure, if we were in a downturn it would slow but not come to a standstill.

From this article "Even during the COVID nonsense, the supply chain did not experience THIS kind of sudden shut down."

[rdtsc]

> I didn't mean we should keep importing to keep people busy. I'm sure that whatever was coming through those ports was ordered by a large number of companies/individual

Sure but you were being cynical and presented port workers not having having thing to unload as a major issue to worry about. In the whole scheme it seemed like not the first problem to solve.

[optimalsolver]

It's not a downturn, it's a trade war, complete with effective blockade.

[ceejayoz]

Yes, probably. Lose skilled, trained workers to another industry and it may be tough to get them back later on when you need them again.

[rdtsc]

> Yes, probably. Lose skilled, trained workers to another industry and it may be tough to get them back later on when you need them again.

I love it! If that's the case, then it's easily solved, just ship empty cardboard boxes back and forth to/from Hawaii. The workers can diligently load and unload them, and then load them right back. The truck drivers can do a few loops around Los Angeles even to keep up their training.

That that kind of happened during a phase of the Soviet Union's economic development. The economic success of a branch was measured by the amount of resources consumed and the allocated work done. So they had started building large couches and started running empty trains back and forth to consume wood or fuel and add up "miles driven" to their ledger. We can do the same /s

[ceejayoz]

Or… undo the change that caused a temporary shock.

By all means, retrain the blacksmiths in the early 1900s… but this isn't that sort of situation. We'll need the port workers again.

[louthy]

Because that’s the only reason things are imported?

[rdtsc]

No but it's presented as the major problem to solve. There are lot larger issues at play and if keeping pork workers buys is the goal, then we should have them load and unload empty boxes /s

[profmonocle]

I don't think OP was specifically stating we need to save these specific jobs, rather they were pointing out the interconnected nature of the economy. Less importing hurts the workers in those industries. Taking that further, it will hurt businesses near the ports where the workers may have gotten lunch, etc. etc. etc. That's how recessions look at a microeconomic scale.

[rdtsc]

> rather they were pointing out the interconnected nature of the economy. Less importing hurts the workers in those industries.

Well I agree with that phrasing however the OP said it as:

> to be so cynical [...] that would mean a lot of dockworkers/longshoreman are out of jobs or not working right?

That leads to a different interpretation and sounds like something else than what you said (which I agree with).

[duxup]

> just

Well we don’t import things to just do that.

[rdtsc]

Sure, but it's presented as the major problem here. There are other problems to worry about at that scale

[Zamaamiro]

No, but we're not just importing stuff because it keeps port workers busy. We import stuff because there is demand for it, and port workers' labor generates many multiples of profitable business activity downstream.