Comment by ethagknight

11 days ago

This article is very goofy. America manufactures very complicated things. Building an iPhone at scale is not complicated in the grand scheme. Building it as low cost per unit is a complicated socioeconomic question- ive seen and read enough about working conditions at Foxconn to know that the complexity rests with the government control of the laborers' lives, and the laborers' lack of relief from what Americans would decidedly call slavery.

1- Tariffs will bring some manufacturing back to the US. The before/after tariff pricing presented in the article is fiction- price points cannot simply be doubled, consumers will reject it, pricing is extremely complicated and sensitive, Apple would have already had the iPhone set at $616 if they believed that was an attainable price for the volume. Apple is among the most profitable companies in the world, in part thanks to their mastery of labor exploitation.

2- Weak industrial supply chain- we have an incredible supply chain and industry can hop right on. Trains, planes, and automobiles galore. Extremely adaptive and we have plenty of room to expand. Auto manufacturers dont seem to mind building in the US, slightly more complicated than the toys that Molson sells.

3- We dont know how to make it: some things sure, most things: yes we do. We do have some additional capacity building required but this is not some crazy challenge. The beautiful thing about it is that, for the stuff we cant make easily, we can just pay the tax and keep in motion. It becomes a simple optimization calculation.

4- effective cost of labor- this is a challenge for sure but it has significant upside implications for American labor and the American lower and middle class. Again, this is a simple optimization. He points to all the fraud in the American system and the slave-like conditions of the Chinese system as if those are things things that shouldn't be addressed / barriers to entry for US? US needs lots of improvements that should be addressed not matter what.

5- Infrastructure- I seriously doubt the electricity stats but accepting it at face value, we have endless gas and sunlight in the west, US can adapt here as well. China notably does NOT have endless gas supplies.

6- Made in America will take time- OK? I am here for it!

7- Uncertainty- I would love to see them permanent. But locking in some wins from 4 years of America-first, modernized manufacturing base will go a long way.

8- Most Americans are going to hate manufacturing- why is that something you get to declare and presume? I think Americans will love job opportunities.

9- The labor does exist, we are just paying them to not work. it's an epidemic and circular problem. A bigger current issue is that we also dont have enough jobs to put low skilled workers to work. We need more low-ish complexity but reliable jobs.