It's hard to quantify. E.g. the CHIPS act is a strategic thing in case TSMC is disrupted for some reason. How valuable is insurance? How much useful work (and skill) do you ship overseas in exchange for promissory notes[0]?
[0] https://www.grumpy-economist.com/p/tariffs-saving-and-invest...
What do you think the odds are that the CHIPS act will make the US capable of building TSMC-level chips?
Calculating the value of an insurance isn't complex. First, you calculate (1) the cost of the insurance, then (2) a rough idea of the probability that you'll need it, and (3) the cost of the insured-against-event occurring.
The problem here is that no one in their right mind believes the CHIPS act will make the US capable of producing chips on par with those of TSMC, so it's not actually an insurance. More like a political show — see, we doing something!
That doesn’t mean people who work jobs in the former category deserve ridicule or disrespect. But the distinction is important because finding workers to fill an unskilled role is just a matter of finding said able-bodied person, while for the latter you need some kind of system of education, training and/or apprenticeship (either explicitly or effectively) to be set up and functioning to even have an industry that depends on those jobs.
Not everything is some silly game of political fighting through language. Some things we actually need terms distinguishing “this” from “that” so we can have real world conversations about them.
Working as a doctor takes 10 years of higher education on top of secondary school.
Calling McDonald's "unskilled labor" seems quite fair to me.
He hates the idea of people getting ahead in life with anything but the most extreme back breaking labor. That’s why he’s hardcore MAGA and makes such a big deal about trying to shit on folks who do desk jobs.
Fuck him, fuck his show, fuck the “good parts” where he tries to show you that being a garbage man is hard. If it’s really that skilled, the market will pay it as such.
Tech isn't winding down; tech, as the sector that draws the most investment based on long-term development, had the biggest response to tight monetary policy designed to slow the entire economy down, but that response demonstrates that tech is where most of the marginal dollar goes.
> Manufacturing could prepare us for the next wave, whatever that might be.
Trying to work our way down the raw materials -> manufacturing -> finance/services ladder that countries usually try to work their way up for maximum prosperity in globalized trade isn't going to prepare us for anything other than lasting economic decline. And why would “manufacturing”—which you can't build generically, but only by specific, usually impossible to reallocate to a different use that isn't closely similar without sacrificing most of the value, major capital investments in particular subareas of manufacturing, prepare us for anything else even ignoring that we’d have to regress to do it?
The American production machine (aka manufacturing) is a major component of what won WWII.
Just because we ended the era of cheap money to try and stop runaway inflation doesn't mean the tech boom is winding down.
Look at everything that's happening with gene editing, in physics, with the jwst, with LLMs and robotics and computer vision, with alt energy sources, batteries, in material sciences, etc.
I mean this is such a myopic take. We are in just now in an era where people are now capable of finding needles in needlestacks.
You are confusing easily manipulated economic vibes that feel bad right now with the rapid approach of a complete overhaul of the human experience.
The U.S. has basically supported the strip mining of our economy by value sucking predatory investment firms. There is a reason why China have more robotics per capita in their factories than we do and it has to do with a complete failure in strategic thinking, long term planning and ultimately a hatred for our youth.
These are tidal waves compared to the tech boom tsunami we experienced in the last 25+ years: enabling rapid communication of every human on the planet and democratizing access (anyone can create a app/website/etc to enable other people to communicate/make money/etc).
> where people are now capable of finding needles in needlestacks
Yes, exactly. all that is left is going after hard problems that impact the long tail.
I haven't met any injection molding shops in the US that do a huge amount of specialty parts like toys. The industry tries to get as many medical device jobs as possible.
Of course, the 3d printers themselves are probably being made in China.
Who cares about defense capabilities 10 or 50 years down the line? Lots of people in West had a good run outsourcing everything. But once there's nothing else to outsource and IP to sell... It's not gonna be pretty.
Next generations in West will have to work very hard to recover from this mess.
Have you ever heard any concrete strategies and plans regarding food security?
Wouldn't there be policies about how many calories should be produced in what form, how long can it be stored, what would a local ramp up look like if there was a global catastrophe?
What percentage of agriculture is really relevant to food security?
Those are just empty words so farmers can get their subsidies and go on to produce more industrial rapeseed oil.
The problem with agriculture is you can't really „ramp up“ it on a whim. That's why you need to keep it going and you can't just kick start your food production when outside suppliers start to blackmail you.
Sure. But how much tax money do you want to throw at entire industries to hide the basic fact that wages are lower elsewhere? Where do you want to take the labor away from? And where do you draw the essential/wasted subsidies boundary line?
Because in my view, Trump tariffs just ignore those very basic questions and don't even attempt to answer them.
It's perfectly reasonable IMO to throw 20 billion a year to agriculture, because that is a very essential sector. But doing the same for the textile industry? Ore/Oil refining? Steelworks? Chemical plants?
I don't wanna subsidies 20 non-essential industries just so that some former fast-food worker can assemble overpriced shoes inside the US (and labor demand from all those industries would drive up wages/costs in the fast-food sector, too, thanks to the Baumol effect).
I'm not against nurturing some important local industries, but Trump tariffs are a complete failure at achieving that IMO.
IMO the global economy eventually self-levels. Either you go up the chain so far that you eventually go off the rails by being unable to make basic stuff. And eventually being eaten by more hungry people with the basic skills. Or you keep yourself down by forcing yourself to not loose basic skills. Former gives you a short moment of glory with a high price for future generations. Later forces people to be more ascetic if that's the right word.
High profits and jobs people want also don't exactly go hand-in-hand.
