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27 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined 16 Apr \ parent \ on: Getting manufacturing back econ
In broad strokes, I appreciate all those factors.
Industrial centers do move, though. There's some margin that would cause a shift, but I don't know how large it is.
I mentioned in another comment that the most efficient way to address the national security concern is to require the government to buy stuff that was made in America. That would allow the industries to establish themselves domestically and evolve at least semi-organically. Maybe some even hit a tipping point in the global landscape and become economically viable.
Yeah, they should use those tools. Back in the day, DoD procurement worked kind of like that, and the stuff they bought was egregiously expensive, just bonkers expensive. They eventually rescinded the rule because it wasn't viable in the face of competition for all the reasons that Libertarians love competition. We'd be flying planes made out of calculators and Speak and Spells.
Chip Wars talks about some of this; may be worth a re-read. That guy should write a sequel, that's for sure.
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DoD procurement worked kind of like that
Like you said, these adjustments can take a long time. There would have to be the political will to stick it out, until the market complied.
My guess is also that they could try easing a bunch of taxes and regulations on these sectors. American labor is preposterously too expensive and almost half of that is not even wages.
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My view is that the poor American work ethic and comparatively high wage expectations is endogenous to the trade and currency regime.
Similarly, the good Chinese and Taiwanese work ethic may be endogenous to the same things.
But, just because American labor isn't competitive, does that mean we should give up? I bet if you get rid of some of the social safety nets, and reduce funding to useless educational ventures... you can potentially rebound the human capital stock pretty quickly.
Politics is the tricky part of it... Americans are so accustomed to certain entitlements that politically you may not survive to execute your plans.
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