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Comment by csense

4 days ago

> 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.

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csense

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dccoolgai  4 days ago

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.

bigyabai  4 days ago

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.

  • alephnerd  4 days ago

    > 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.

    • fch42  3 days ago

      Final assembly != "entirely manufactured". Cymer brings the EUV lightsource, Zeiss the optics, ASML the mechanics and metrology. Commercial EUV Lithography system(s) aren't "a single parent's baby" even if there is now only a single supplier.

      ARM IP ? I gather in Cambridge/UK they'd disagree with you. Even if in classical English stiff upper lip style they may say it less brashly (but not less harshly) than a Texan.

      This World is rather intertwined. Maybe more than we like or even more than is good for us. But all of us will loose if we strive to kill cooperation or trade "across borders".

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