Comment by epolanski
11 days ago
> We just don't want to employ people
I don't think it's a matter of willingness, but simple global geo economics.
There's places where producing A, whatever A is, is economically more efficient for countless reasons (energy prices, logistics, talent, bureaucracy, cost of labor, etc).
That's not gonna change with whatever investment you want or tariff you put.
But the thing I find more absurd, of all, is that I'd expect HN users to be aware that USA has thrived in the sector economy while offloading things that made more sense to be done elsewhere.
I'd expect HN users to understand that the very positive trade balances like Japan's, Italy's or Germany's run are meaningless and don't make your country richer.
Yet I'm surrounded by users ideologically rushing into some delusional autarchic dystopia of fixing american manufacturing for the sake of it.
> I don't think it's a matter of willingness, but simple global geo economics.
I don't see a difference. If we want local industry, we must address the global geo economics.
Nobody really wants a "local" industry as much as consumers want cheap prices and companies want global reach.
US manufacturing accomplishes higher prices and US only reach.
That's a narrow perspective. The "benefits" that are granted to a country have a cost and these costs need to be reconciled with on the international stage. This is achieved through tariffs otherwise the playing field isn't fair.
Cost of labor is the issue: china is enslaving people to work.
Doesn't that feel like a massive overstatement? They have worse working conditions for sure. "Enslavement" is absurd if we are speaking about the macro level.
Overstatement? China is going fully facist on the Uyghurs for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_Chin...
Those nets tho...
2 replies →
The other side of this coin is cost of living. If housing costs more in the US, so does everything else. If everything costs more, people have to be paid more in order to make a living, and that makes the US less competitive in the global labor market.
The US specifically outlawed slavery except among prisoners. The US also operates prison labor at very low rates.
I'm not sure this is a meaningful point of differentiation.
US corporations benefit today from slave labor by people housed in for-profit prisons where there are incentives to over-prosecute brown and poor people. These include, but aren't limited to:
- Aramark
- Avis
- IBM
- JCPenney
- Kmart
- McDonald's
- Nintendo
- Sprint
- Starbucks
- Verizon
- Walmart
- Wendy's
- Whole Foods/Amazon
Seems pretty much like gig economy works in US.
Source?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps
Literally forced labor camps. Of course, the PRC denies these allegations, but it certainly seems like there's some forced labor due to the numerous reports across many years of a variety of forced labor operations from these camps.
7 replies →
Simple google search, first result:
https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/country-studie...
1 reply →