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Comment by teitoklien

4 days ago

No, its a global product silicon chips, america ships em to 100+ countries and will lose its edge if it doesnt stay at the top.

Margins are crucial for this, the driving factor that made US lose its industrial base, is red-tape, red-tape, red-tape, red-tape, political interference, militant unionism (unions are good and fine, militant unions are not), and foolish gov laws which did not make sure that labour standards are consistent for all products in american market, to make sure slave-labour or extremely shoddy labour standard based countries do not erode away great american jobs and its industrial base.

Margins are fine, and good. Unfair competition, rules and red-tape for domestic manufacturers but none for foreign companies, is what killed it.

It’s cheaper for a chinese company to ship to american households than it is for a local american company to an american household… , this is purely because of crazy gov regulations.

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teitoklien

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Over2Chars  4 days ago

Government regulations (like not polluting the water or forcing your workers into 40 hours a week of unpaid overtime) may be part of it. But China has been known to "dump" commodities into foreign markets to destroy those markets

Here's one random article I quacked, and this issue has been going on for years it ain't new: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/28/business/china-goods-expo...

China has also devalued its currency to facilitate this dumping spree

Another random quack (more on the how than history, but the impacts are detailed) https://gbtimes.com/how-does-china-devalue-their-currency/

So the narrative that "the US is choking itself with silly regulations and can't compete as a result" is a pure fiction afaict.

  • teitoklien  3 days ago

    > So the narrative that "the US is choking itself with silly regulations and can't compete as a result" is a pure fiction afaict.

    No its not fiction, you just said China did this, China did that… Well USA is a country too, why cant it shape policies to advantage the US industrial base ? It can, it chooses not to, out of apathy for the masses.

    > not polluting the water or forcing your workers into 40 hours a week of unpaid overtime

    Has nothing to do with that, USA has the largest tech ecosystem with silicon valley being at the top, its a huge software ecosystem base, and from end to end, from the beginning to the end, united states governments have carefully co-ordinated to make sure America stays at the top in Software, and it has done so successfully by making one of the most robust and risk-taking investment ecosystem on planet earth.

    It could do the same for Manufacturing, polluting water or slave labour taunts are just the boogeyman, the problem is it taking 10 yrs to get enough permits or land allocation for building anything serious industrial, ill-conceived regulations, etc.

    People keep mentioning Water Pollution or 40 hour slave labours, yet no one ever mentions the after-math of america’s de-industrialization, the countless rural towns and families in rust-belt who were decimated and completely broken in this process. They resort to drugs just to keep themselves alive, and even that now kills them with overdose with stuff like fetanyl.

    Domestic manufacturing stuff does not need slave labour, it needs fair level playing field, which begins with not letting goods made with slave labour or as you said goods made by skirting corners like polluting local water. Americans can perfectly figure out how to scale and optimize things without resorting to slave labour. But they need atleast a level playing field to even be able to survive initially.