01-14-2017, 02:30 PM
Quote:For people with sensitive skin and glasses, yes.
Are you claiming that you are incapable of wearing anything other than pure cotton dress shirts (gently moistened with the sweat of Asian children) under pain of some sort of skin condition? How do glasses enter the picture?
Quote:You contradict yourself. Some industries, such as certain types of clothing manufacture, are dependent on sweatshop style labor, because there's no technology capable of substituting for the labor. If you want those factories here, you're advocating reestablishment of sweatshops in America.
I am skeptical of this claim. A lot of textile work is already beginning to move back to places like England and the United States to shorten product cycles and supply chains, and the presence of American manufacturers of those goods which require a high labor component (operating under what I would assume are normal federal regulations on wages and work conditions) imply that sweatshops are not a necessary precondition of the same. Why the emphasis on textiles, btw?
Quote:I agree that separating process management from process execution is questionable, and for industries where the intellectual input is primarily in process management rather than product design, the entire firm is often better located in on geographic area. That doesn't mean the entire value chain has to be in one geographic area; the fact that gold is mined in Russia and South Africa doesn't mean that electronics manufacture, which involves gold plated contacts, has to all be located in Russia and South Africa.
Agreed on all counts. Although, given the wealth of natural resources available in the US and, if need be, Canada/Mexico/Caribbean (Jamaica, for instance, has an abundance of aluminum deposits), I don't think we would need to be as dependent on exports to pay for resource imports as Japan or Germany.
Quote:The best practices from the Germans and Japanese include focusing on highly automatable parts of the manufacturing industry where much of the work is knowledge worker work rather than repetitive assembly work. They are okay with importing dress shirts while they are exporting automobiles. If we are going to have the manufacturing success that they do, we're going to have to be okay with that too.
Still no objection. I would note that both of those fine countries practice industrial policy to an extent that has not been seen in the US in decades. I would also like to re-emphasize that my point is less to claw back every possible industry, including garments and toy assembly, as it is to end a situation where even high-end goods like cars and electronics get immediately outsourced to factories in Shenzhen and Guadalajara which benefit from government support and more favorable regulatory environments (which is not to say that I advocate harmonizing our regulations with them, only noting that environmental and labor protections are not free, and engaging in trade with countries that do not have the same standards places an unfair burden on companies trying to compete).
Quote:Agreed. As I demonstrated in the 2016 election thread, the most likely cause of that discontinuity was uncapping of immigration so the owners could import as much labor as they needed without increasing wages. Incidentally this is more than a decade too early to reflect any Chinese inflluence on the situation.
Agreed, as well as the massive entry of women into the labor market starting in the same time period.
Quote:The 2000 discontinuity is specifically in manufacturing, and is in number of jobs in that sector, not just wages. It's a different discontinuity.
Agreed, again. Did you have a chance to look at the link I posted in support of my claim concerning the impact of specifically Chinese competition at that time? If so, any comments?