Comment by bigyabai
4 days ago
> Turns out all the Reaganites got sucked into just handing China our economy. It’s not sustainable.
You're looking at this from a pretty jingoist perspective. Take it from another angle - what was Intel doing in the 60s and 70s that China couldn't copy in some guy's garage? What are American businesses exporting today that China has to copy to take for themselves? Why is globalism such a bad idea, why can't other countries copy our cheap cashgrabs?
You can't protect American businesses if they can't compete on their own merits. You can't demand that people respect your judgement if you reject the institutions of international justice. This is the starting gun into the foot of global trade that will leave America limping to the finish line.
> Why is globalism such a bad idea
Having grown up in the Rust Belt, it's a bit baffling to me that there are intelligent people out there who don't understand why it's a bad idea.
It's a race to the bottom. The jobs all go to countries where people are paid almost nothing to work 90-hour workweeks, safety and environmental concerns are not existent, and they have totalitarian political systems where anybody who complains about any of the above will be shot.
Said other countries have stronger economies which lifts their geopolitical influence and military power. You definitely don't want to give that to governments with those kinds of terrible value systems.
Part of our society's narrative is that anyone can join the middle class: "If you just work hard, you can get a good job, support a family and live a nice lifestyle." The companies formerly supporting that narrative moved their operations out of our country; those opportunities were never replaced. A narrative that binds our society together -- a fundamental part of the American soul -- is getting destroyed. Which is a big factor causing the terrible current political climate.
From the 1990's to today, a lot of Rust Belt places went from union blue to purple and then turned deep red in an instant in 2016 because somebody was finally acknowledging the problem.
It's also the "lawyer/MBA's fantasy" that you can move the physical "making of things" to place B while the "good innovation jobs" stay in place A. It might work for a _short while_ but eventually the real innovation will happen with iteration in the factory floor in Shenzhen. All the Chinese leaders of the last 30 years were engineers and all of ours were lawyers and MBAs. Go figure.
Yes, it's a race to the bottom. But politicians aren't demanding that we should accept slave labor to make our Nike shoes - Nike does that. Tariffs won't change that either, they simply put a price on dealing with "undesirable" labor that Americans wouldn't tolerate anyways. That's how free market economics work on the global stage, I don't think anything has changed in that regard in the past 50 years.
I guess I'm disenfranchised with the entire process, having grown up near Detroit. You won't bring these jobs back from Mexico, you won't onshore EV production from the grasp of China. GM said it, Tesla said it, Apple said it, and now you're listening to me repeat it. Americans can get mad at Europe or Denmark or Canada if it makes them feel better, but it's sure as shit not putting them on any short-lists for importing ASML or ARM IP. And we're fucked either way if we sit around waiting for Intel to "innovate" their way ahead. America can't lead the free world with a bum leg, it doesn't matter how icky China's politics are.
> not putting them on any short-lists for importing ASML machinery
That ASML machinery in EUV and DUV is entirely manufactured in SoCal - ASML was the the commercialization partner in LLNL's Cymer Inc.
> or ARM IP
Designed in Austin Texas - right by Barton Creek - or in Bangalore next door to Samsung and Nvidia, and across the street from Google.
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> You can't protect American businesses if they can't compete on their own merits.
The problem is that “free trade” math defines lowered standards as “comparative advantage.” So any first world country that maintains first world standards is automatically unable to “compete in their own merits.” Globalism creates a race to the bottom.
Trade deficits are a huge advantage for the buyer.
Who wants to spend 12 hours a day doing hard labor when you can pay someone peanuts to do it?
Who do you you think benefits: The person spending the peanuts or the person working 12 hours a day?
Trade deficits are not a problem, but a huge advantage. Trade deficits are self correcting if you don't live on borrowed funds.
> Trade deficits are self correcting if you don't live on borrowed funds.
But we do.
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The problem is that you're assuming the entire world agrees with your definition of "first world standards". As we have seen, not even American businesses give much of a shit about slave labor if it means we get higher margins on wholesale goods.
If America cut ties entirely with China, then we could take a moral stand. But we haven't done that, because we are utterly dependent on China even when they execute foreign nationals and steal American IP wholecloth.
Maybe I wasn’t clear. My anecdote wasn’t about Chinese IP theft, but rather American arrogance. We thought the Chinese weren’t as smart as us and were just cheap labor, but that was wrong.
I don’t want to take a stand against or cut ties with China. I want America to be more like China, and rebuild our industrial capacity.